Maritime Trade Dynamics and Regional Markets within the Roman Red Sea from the Principate to Late Antiquity (20 min)

Presenters

Nicholas Bartos, Stanford University

Abstract

The proliferation of scholarship on the Roman Red Sea in recent decades has underscored the extensive reach of this region’s trade networks across the Indian Ocean and its substantial contribution to the broader economy from the beginning of the principate into late antiquity. The evolution of maritime exchange within the Roman Red Sea itself and how this relates to commercial patterns along Egypt’s Mediterranean coast, however, remains less well-understood, in part because of the restricted availability of quantified material data and the limited application of computational models of transport mobility. This paper uses the first large quantified amphora dataset from Berenike alongside assemblages from Myos Hormos, Ayla, and Alexandria to highlight the regional dynamics of the Red Sea coastal economy throughout the Roman period. GIS models of Roman sailing times between the Red Sea ports serve to contextualize their ceramic relationships and illustrate the impacts of seasonality, directionality, and the marine topography on seafaring practicalities. The early Roman ceramics at Berenike and Myos Hormos reflected the diversity of Alexandria’s Mediterranean connections, though these central Red Sea markets maintained a high degree of economic specificity. The northern Red Sea port of Ayla at this time was instead embedded in more localized and eastern-facing networks. In late antiquity, the particular nature of importation in the central Red Sea continued, and an increased reliance on eastern Mediterranean supplies was apparent at all the ports. There were more visible connections between the northern and central Red Sea, and aspects of market selection as well as the prevailing seafaring conditions serve as possible explanations for the greater prominence of unidirectional, north–south trade. Together, the ceramic and GIS analyses reveal how the changing dynamics of maritime interaction helped define the regional economic development of the Roman Red Sea and its relationships with the broader empire.

  AIA-7A