Berenike and the Red Sea Spice Route

The Ancients

History Hit

History

4.7 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 13 June 2021

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Situated on the western coast of the Red Sea in antiquity were a series of thriving seaports, bringing in trade from as far as way as Sir Lanka. Key mercantile centres, where goods made in Iberia could theoretically have been sold alongside items crafted thousands of miles to the east, in South East Asia. Of these seaports, one of the most remarkable has to be Berenike, a thriving cosmopolitan trading centre, first for the Hellenistic Ptolemaic Kingdom and later for Imperial Rome.

To talk through the site’s extraordinary archaeology we were delighted to be joined by Professor Steven Sidebotham from the University of Deleware. Steve has been leading excavations at the site for several years and in this podcast he highlights why Berenike is one of the most exciting archaeological locations anywhere in the World.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	It's the ancient's on history hit. I'm Tristan Hughes your host and in today's
0:07.6	podcast we are talking about another extraordinary ancient city. We've talked
0:12.7	about Rome, we've talked about Palmyra, we talked about Petra but now we're
0:17.3	heading slightly further south. We're going to the west coast of the Red Sea and
0:21.3	an incredible ancient cosmopolitan thriving trading post an Emporium called
0:28.7	Beraneque. Now Beraneque it was on the ancient spice route, the sea spice route
0:34.3	had connections with ancient India, with inland Africa, probably with the
0:38.8	Kingdom of Axum, further south in Montaethiopia, also with Tolomeic Egypt
0:44.6	hence the name Beraneque and then Imperial Rome and the Mediterranean. It's an
0:50.8	extraordinary site and this multitude of different cultures is emphasized
0:56.3	through the archaeology that survives. Now to talk through the archaeology from
1:00.9	this ancient trading post I was delighted to be joined by Professor Steve
1:05.6	and side bottom from the University of Delaware. Steve has led excavations at
1:10.8	this ancient Emporium so it was great to get him on the show to talk through
1:15.1	what we know about ancient Beraneque. Here's Steve.
1:20.3	Steve, thank you so much for joining me today. Welcome to the show. Thank you for
1:30.1	having me. No. The ancient Red Sea spice trade as we were just saying just
1:35.4	before started recording this seems like an amazing lens through which to
1:39.9	understand the extensive trade networks of antiquity that stretched so much
1:44.4	further than the ancient Mediterranean. Absolutely. It was a combination of
1:49.6	overland and sea of course and Beraneque was not the only port involved in this
1:54.9	from Egypt anyway but it was certainly the largest and the longest lived and we
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