Egyptian Ports Research Articles

The Ships and Shipping of Indo-Roman Trade: A View from the Egyptian Red Sea Ports

The trade networks between the Mediterranean World and the Indian Ocean represent some of the longest maritime routes that were traversed in antiquity.Sea routes stretched from the Red Sea ports of the Egyptian coast, along the East African coast as far as Zanzibar, around the Arabian peninsula to north-west India, and directly across the Indian Ocean from Socotra to modern day Kerala. The mechanics of these routes are well attested through historical documents, for example the Periplus Maris Erythriae. which provide an overview of the extent, general timings, goods and routes of trade.By contrast, the ships that were the main vehicles of this trade are harder to uncover, in part due to the absence of shipwreck evidence of the type seen in the Mediterranean. Archaeological work at the Egyptian ports of Myos Hormos and Berenike has provided a less direct means to uncover the ships of the Indo-Roman world through the recovery of recycled and discarded maritime components from excavated layers at both sites. This archaeological evidence forms the main focus of this paper, allowing a more detailed picture of construction methods, rigging practice, and potential performance to be formulated. Exploration of these themes in turn allows wider comment on the relationship between maritime technologies in the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean during the early first millennium AD to be made.

オスマン期エジプト海港社会の変容 : アレクサンドリアからカイロへ(第375回例会報告(2007年12月8日))

オスマン期エジプト海港社会の変容 : アレクサンドリアからカイロへ(第375回例会報告(2007年12月8日))

Life Cycle Assessment of Dredged Materials Placement Strategies: Case Study, Damietta Port, Egypt

Over time, Egypt has used to dispose of dredging and deepening materials for ports and marines wet areas by one technique via transported it to a damped area where water depth is nearly 20 m. Regardless the generated and acquisition greatest ecological environmentally impacts for this process, despite international calls to reduce the harmful emissions to the environment. The present paper uses life cycle assessment (LCA) tool to evaluate the extent of the negative impacts associated with processes of dredging and sedimentation displacement in Damietta port which suffers from annual high rates of sedimentation transportation. Also, to encourage the Egyptian government to change their placement strategy by suggesting another benefit and little ecological impact compared with open water placement technique via upland placement which government is thinking through but not applied yet. The results show that: the associated impacts for upland placement has little impacts reach to 20% compared to transportation to a damped area in the Mediterranean Sea for different impact categories, where the transportation process was the main contributes to ecological impacts in addition to consumption of huge fuel for this process. To the best knowledge of the authors, this is the first time to address this topic for Egyptian ports.

The first Arabic translations of Enlightenment literature: The Damietta circle of the 1800s and 1810s

The subject of this paper is a circle of translators working in the Egyptian port of Damietta in the 1800s and 1810s. Based around the household of a wealthy Syrian merchant, this circle translated scientific, fictional and historical works of the Enlightenment, from Greek and other languages into Arabic. The first section gives some background on Damietta, the Syrian Christian merchant community there, and the Fakhr family, including contemporary accounts of Basili Fakhr and his household. The second presents the biography of .Isa Petro, the main translator of the Damietta Circle. I then consider the translations themselves, presenting a thematic list of the known translations. I examine three sets of influences on the project: the Modern Greek Enlightenment, contacts with Western Europeans and the revival of Arabic letters among Christians in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. I also compare the Damietta project with similar translations being made into Arabic at the same time in Constantinople. I go on to analyse the diffusion of manuscript copies of the Damietta translations, and their influence on readers. Finally, in a conclusion I attempt to assess the general significance of the Damietta Circle for literary and cultural history, in the Arab and Mediterranean contexts.

‘O Damietta’: war memory and crusade in thirteenth-century Egypt

The Egyptian port city of Damietta was a place which occupied a brief but important position in the crusading imaginary of the thirteenth century. This article examines how this city was used both to communicate particular memories of war experience and to lay down future patterns of remembrance. Processes of eyewitnessing, establishing the wider meaning of war, creating a warrior tradition and affirming the value of location or place were all ways in which war memory was articulated during the crusading period. Through an exploration of crusader encounters with the city of Damietta, this article offers some new insights into the nature and importance of medieval memory and remembrance of war.

Limitations of navigation through Nubaria canal, Egypt

Alexandria port is the main Egyptian port at the Mediterranean Sea. It is connected to the Nile River through Nubaria canal, which is a main irrigation canal. The canal was designed to irrigate eight hundred thousand acres of agricultural lands, along its course which extends 100km. The canal has three barrages and four locks to control the flow and allow light navigation by some small barges. Recently, it was decided to improve the locks located on the canal. More than 40million US$ was invested in these projects. This decision was taken to allow larger barges and increase the transported capacity through the canal. On the other hand, navigation through canals and restricted shallow waterways is affected by several parameters related to both the channel and the vessel. Navigation lane width as well as vessel speed and maneuverability are affected by both the channel and vessel dimensions. Moreover, vessel dimensions and speed will affect the canal stability. In Egypt, there are no guide rules for navigation through narrow and shallow canals such Nubaria. This situation threatens the canal stability and safety of navigation through it. This paper discussed the characteristics of Nubaria canal and the guide rules for navigation in shallow restricted water ways. Dimensions limitation for barges navigating through Nubaria canal is presented. New safe operation rules for navigation in Nubaria canal are also presented. Moreover, the implication of navigation through locks on canal discharge is estimated.

Stepping Back from the Third World: Soviet Policy toward the United Arab Republic, 1965–1967

This article shows that for two years prior to the June 1967 Six-Day Mideast War, Soviet-Egyptian relations had begun to fray because the Soviet Union wanted to loosen its ties with radical regimes in the Third World, including Gamal Abdel Nasser's Egypt. Soviet leaders urged Nasser to reform the Egyptian economy, decrease Egypt's military involvement in Yemen, and allow the Soviet Navy unfettered access to Egyptian ports. But like numerous other small powers during the Cold War, Egypt was able to fend off the pressure of its superpower ally. In May 1967, when Egypt unilaterally decided to bring its forces into the Sinai, Soviet leaders were divided over how to respond to the crisis that engulfed the Middle East. In the end, the more cautious faction in Moscow prevailed, and the Soviet government continued to be wary of becoming embroiled in conflicts initiated by radical Third World regimes.

A Jewish Aramaic (Or Hebrew)Laissez‐Passerfrom the Egyptian Port of Berenike

A Jewish Aramaic (Or Hebrew)<i>Laissez‐Passer</i>from the Egyptian Port of Berenike

碑文及び考古学資料から見た古代エジプトと南アラビアの関係

In the middle of the first millennium B. C., South Arabian kingdoms flourished, not only as a major source of frankincense and myrrh but also as an entrepot of various incense from the eastern coast of Africa and the countries beyond the Indian Ocean. Egypt was one of the most important consumers of the incense throughout antiquity, and how the long-distance trade between South Arabia and Egypt was done actually is of much note. In this article, the relations between ancient Egypt and South Arabia will be considered by using archaeological and epigraphical sources from both Egypt and Yemen.Except the coffin of a Minaean, all South Arabic inscriptions from Egypt were found in the Eastern Desert, on the ancient route either between Qift (Coptos) and Qusayr (Myos Hormos) or between Qift and Berenike. Though it is impossible to date three inscriptions from the former route, one of them is supposed to be incised after the third century A. D. One from the latter route was incised by a Minaean. Himyarite symbols from the same route suggest that it was used by the Himyarites around the fourth century A. D. From Qusayr al-Qadim, a pottery sherd with a South Arabic graffito was excavated and it mostly belongs to the first century A. D.Greek inscriptions from Egypt show the existence of a Greek-Egyptian who returned from South Arabia to Idfu (Apollinopolis Magna) via Berenike in the Hellenistic period, and also that of a merchant of Aden who was active in Berenike and Qift between 54 and 70 A. D.As for South Arabic inscriptions referring to Egypt (Msr), the texts date back from the fifth century B. C. to the beginning of the Ptolemaic Period, and are all Minaean. Together with Msr, they exhibit the names of the caravan cities (Didan, Yathrib, Ghazza etc.) which Minaeans visited on their way to Egypt.Summing up the information from those materials, the following conclusions can be drawn.1. Before the Ptolemaic Period, the Minaean merchants came to Egypt via the inland route of Arabia which ran along the Red Sea coast, and most probably they entered Egypt by way of Ghazza.2. After the foundations of the Egyptian Red Sea ports by Ptolemy II, it seems that Minaeans used the Berenike-Coptos route as well as the Arabian inland route to enter Egypt. A route to Idfu was also available from Berenike. Until this period, it seems that a considerable number of Minaeans were staying in Egypt.3. In the Roman Period, the main transportation route between South Arabia and Egypt was the seaway. Among the Egyptian ports, Berenike and Qusayr were the most utilized for loading and unloading the merchandise from South Arabia, and for other purpose.

Arab Attacks on Rhodes in the Pre-Ottoman Period

The period of Mu'āwiya b. Sufyān, as governor over Syria and al-Jazīra under the caliph 'Uthmān from at least 25–6/646–7, and then as Umayyad caliph in Damascus 41–60/661–80, was crucial for the first impetus of Arab expansion in the eastern Mediterranean. Egypt had been conquered by 'Amr b. al-'Āṣ during 'Umar's caliphate, and the great port of Alexandria passed definitively into Arab hands by 21/642. Alexandria possessed famed dockyards, and had a Greco-Egyptian population which the Arabs were able to press into service for manning their warships operating out of the Egyptian ports and out of the harbours along the Syrian coast, such as Jaffa, Acre, Beirut and Tripoli.

Damiette in the Late Eighteenth Century

Egypt's strategic position astride major world trade routes is well known.1 Blessed by location and an agricultural abundance, Egypt was able to play a major role in the trade of the eastern Mediterranean despite lacking secure and deep water ports. Her Red Sea ports of Qusayr and Suez were small villages without even a secure fresh water supply, and caravans carrying goods unloaded in these ports were frequently subject to bedouin predation. Her Mediterranean ports also had serious disadvantages, but nevertheless served as important points of exchange with Europe and the other Ottoman provinces. Alexandria, the most important Egyptian port, also had a precarious water supply and could not offer a secure shelter to ships lashed by severe northerly winds and high seas, yet it remained Egypt's major link to the European and Ottoman worlds. Rosette (Rashid) and Damiette (Dumyat) were protected from the sea by their positions slightly inland on the western and eastern branches of the Nile, respectively, but they had the disadvantage of being cut off from the sea at times by the sand bars which accumulated at the mouths of the Nile branches.