Berenice Troglodytica - History

History

Berenice was quite famous and prosperous in antiquity. The city is noted by most ancient geographers, including Strabo, Pliny the Elder (vi. 23, 26, 29, 33), and Stephanus of Byzantium (s. v.). Its prosperity after the third century was owing in great measure to three causes: the favour of the Macedonian kings, its safe anchorage, and its being a terminus of the great road from Coptos, which rendered Berenice and Myos Hormos the two principal emporia of the trade between Aethiopia and Egypt on the one hand, and Syria and Tamilakkam on the other. The road across the desert from Coptos was 258 Roman miles long, or eleven days' journey. The road was provided with watering stations (Greek hydreumata, see Hadhramaut); the wells and halting places of the caravans are enumerated by Pliny (vi. 23. s. 26), and in the Itineraries (Antonin. p. 172, f.). Belzoni (Travels, vol. ii. p. 35) found traces of several of these stations.

From the 1st century BC until the 2nd century AD Berenice was one of the trans-shipping points of trade between India, Arabia, and Upper Egypt. It was connected to Lower Egypt by the Via Hadriana in 137. The coastal trade from Berenice along the coast of the Indian Ocean is described in the anonymous 1st century AD handbook Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. In the 4th century Berenice again become an active port, but after the 6th century the port was abandoned. Under the Roman Empire, Berenice formed a district in itself, with its peculiar prefect, who was entitled Praefectus Berenicidis, or P. montis Berenicidis. (Orelli, Inscr. Lat. no. 3880, f.)

In 1818 the ruins of Berenice were identified by Giovanni Battista Belzoni, confirming an earlier opinion of D'Anville. Since then, several excavations have been undertaken. The port is now nearly filled up, has a sand-bar at its entrance and can be reached only by small craft. Most important of the ruins is a temple; the remnants of its sculptures and inscriptions preserve the name of Tiberius and the figures of many deities, including a (goddess?) Alabarch or Arabarch, also the name of the head magistrate of the Jews in Alexandria under Ptolemaic and Roman rule. The temple is of sandstone and soft calcareous stone, in the Egyptian style. It is 102 feet (31 m) long, and 43 wide. A portion of its walls is sculptured with well-executed basso relieves, of Greek workmanship, and hieroglyphics also occasionally occur on the walls. Belzoni said that the city measured 1,600 feet (490 m) from north to south, and 2,000 from east to west. He estimated the ancient population at 10,000. (Researches, vol. ii. p. 73.)