Come and dine with me... Early Roman luxury glass tableware from Berenike — new evidence from the harbor area and trash dumps

• Authors: Kucharczyk, Renata

Abstracts

EN

The harbor of Berenike on the Red Sea coast of Egypt was a major transit point in the long-distance trade of luxury commodities between the Roman Empire and the Indian Ocean Basin. The heyday of the commerce and the prosperity of the port lasted from the 1st to the mid-2nd century AD. A huge quantity of commodities passed through the port, imported not only for the purpose of exchange, but also for self-consumption. Glassware was among them. The high proportion of wares of high quality and exceptional esthetic value is quite extraordinary, even by modern standards. These wares highlight the position of Berenike in the trade, but they also showcase the city’s wealth and the great demand for luxury glass that existed there in the first centuries of the Roman Empire

Keywords

EN

Berenike; Indo-Roman trade; Periplus Maris Erythraei; early Roman glass; polychrome cast glass; colorless glass

• Publisher: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
• Journal: Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean
• Year: 2017
• Volume: 26(2)
• Pages: 147-166

Dates

published

2018-07-09

Contributors

author

Kucharczyk, Renata

Identifiers

DOI

10.5604/01.3001.0012.1824