The paper is based on a lecture given at the University of Gdansk in 2010. Four sanctuaries that have been excavated in Palmyra are briefly presented according to the latest research. The principal sanctuary of Bel and those of Ba‘alshamin and of Nabu are published by their excavators. The ideas about the cult of Bel as formulated forty years ago can now be reconsidered. The sanctuary of Allat, the last to be excavated, was already presented in several preliminary papers and the final publication is nearing completion. Some observations concerning this sanctuary are submitted here for the first time.
Aynuna was excavated by a Saudi-Polish team from 2014 t0 2018. It is a Nabataean port dated to the first century BC, with a later occupation in the fourth century AD and with some Islamic presence. It is composed of two sites: a commercial factory and a fortified settlement. We identify it with Leuke Kome mentioned by the Periplus and by Strabo in connection with Aelius Gallus expedition to Arabia.
This essay evaluates the relative importance of the maritime trade between the Roman Empire and India along two routes that were in use: one started and ended on the Egyptian shore of the Red Sea, the other at the head of the Gulf. Both continued on land along caravan tracks to the Nile valley or through the Syrian desert to Palmyra. The latter land route, longer and presumably more cost-consuming, was used only during the 1st to 3rd centuries AD. The land link with the Far East, the so-called Silk Road, does not seem to have been regularly used. A document from Palmyra allows to estimate the value of the trade along the Syrian route as much smaller than that of the Red Sea traffic. It could have been mainly of local, Syrian importance, and lasted only as long as political circumstances allowed.
The paper is based on a lecture given at the University of Gdansk in 2010. Four sanctuaries that have been excavated in Palmyra are briefly presented according to the latest research. The principal sanctuary of Bel and those of Ba‘alshamin and of Nabu are published by their excavators. The ideas about the cult of Bel as formulated forty years ago can now be reconsidered. The sanctuary of Allat, the last to be excavated, was already presented in several preliminary papers and the final publication is nearing completion. Some observations concerning this sanctuary are submitted here for the first time.
Ten years after the Red Sea III conference: "Natural Resources and Cultural Connections of the Red Sea", held at the British Museum on 27–28 October 2006, enough new data has been made available to warrant another in-depth look at the archaeology of natural resources extraction and processing (mines, workshops, etc.). The main themes of the conference are: 1) economic significance of commerce in natural resources passing through the Red Sea; 2) intermediaries in the natural resources trade (“Who dun’it”); 3) other archaeological categories coexistent with the natural resources trade (pottery, glass etc.); 4) language/epigraphy: terms for natural resources: mining and processing/crafts work; 5) ethnoarchaeological evidence for exploitation and processing of natural resource
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