Beads and pendants from the Hellenistic to early Byzantine Red Sea port of Berenike, Egypt. Season 2014 and 2015

• Authors: Then-Obłuska, Joanna

Abstracts

EN

Almost 650 beads and pendants, most of them of glass and faience, were excavated over two seasons in 2014 and 2015 at Berenike on the Red Sea coast of Egypt. This material, coming from 19 trenches variously located within the Hellenistic to early Byzantine site, has contributed some new data, enhancing the Berenike bead typology. Highlights included a Bes pendant of glass from a Hellenistic context and early Roman mosaic glass beads with face patterns. Other materials of which the ornaments were made included marine mollusk shells, ostrich eggshell, and a variety of stone and minerals. Of greatest interest were beads coming from early Roman graves, of an older man (the order of the threaded beads could be traced) and of animals (neck collars). Beads threaded on fragments of string, most probably of Indo-Pacific make, came from the early Roman rubbish dump.

Keywords

EN

Berenike; Red Sea port; Red Sea trade; Indian Ocean trade; Ptolemaic; early Roman; late antiquity; Roman; Bes amulet; face beads

• Publisher: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
• Journal: Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean
• Year: 2018
• Volume: 27(1)
• Pages: 203-234

Dates

published

2019-05-14

Contributors

author

Then-Obłuska, Joanna

Identifiers

DOI

10.5604/01.3001.0013.2001