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Document Details :

Title: Settlement and Trade in the Red Sea in Late Antiquity
Subtitle: An Archaeological Perspective
Author(s): DECKER, Michael
Journal: Ancient West & East
Volume: 9    Date: 2010   
Pages: 193-220
DOI: 10.2143/AWE.9.0.2056308

Abstract :
Recent archaeological work at sites that engaged in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean trade reveals that the ports of Myos Hormos, Berenike, Clysma, Aila, Adulis and Qana’ experienced broadly similar settlement peaks and troughs between the 1st and 7th centuries AD. The material remains of these settlements indicate that trade was at its peak in the 1st–2nd centuries AD, declined in the 3rd century, and revived again in the 4th–5th centuries. Four of the sites were abandoned in the 6th or 7th centuries, which signals probable shifts in the pattern of commerce and may well indicate transformations in the nature and scale of trade in the Red Sea and India.

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