Speakers

Dr Iwona  ZYCH
Co-Director, Berenike Project, Poland

Biography:

Iwona Zych is Deputy Director and PCMA Publications Managing Editor at the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology (PCMA), University of Warsaw. She obtained an MA from the Institute of Archaeology, University of Warsaw, and is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Archaeology, University of Warsaw, with a thesis entitled Society, Trade and Workshop Patterns as Reflected by the Worked Wood Assemblage from the Monastic Site in Naqlun, Egypt. Her fieldwork experience included sites of Nea Paphos (Cyprus), Marina el-Alamein (Egypt), and Tell Atrib (Egypt). She was granted several scholarships, including a scholarship from the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology (IFAO) in Cairo, 2009. She is a member of the International Association of Egyptologists (IAE), from 2008; and the International Association of Coptic Studies, from 2008. She collaborated in the organization of the 11th International Conference for Nubian Studies, Warsaw, 2006; and the PCMA workshop “From the Red Sea to the Gulf”, Warsaw, 2013. She also participated in a number of research programs, including the bibliographic database for worked wood objects from Egypt, 1st–15th centuries CE, prepared for the IFAO within the framework of the Objets d’Egypte Program. She has 14 published articles, and 17 in collaboration with other scholars, such as A Monastic Library in Nekloni, and Gifts for the Afterlife: Evidence of Mortuary Practices from the Necropolis at Marina el-Alamein.

Abstract:

The Lost Harbor of Berenike: A Review of the Evidence for the Location of the Port

The harbor city of Berenice on the Red Sea coast of Egypt was one of the main transit points in the long-distance trade between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean. Its role is supported by the evidence of written sources and archaeological excavations carried out at the site since 1994. Recent excavations by the Polish–American project of the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology (PCMA) and the University of Delaware have concentrated on an area of the site believed to have been the harbor of the Hellenistic and Roman City.

The paper will review the evidence accumulated from excavations and research on the location, and general appearance of the harbor(s) of Berenice throughout the 800 years or more since its existence.