Cedar timbers, rope point to historic Egyptian find

By Molly Murray, The News Journal

No one is certain why the Romans abandoned their port city of Berenike along the Red Sea.

It could have been disease, said Steven Sidebotham, a University of Delaware history professor and archaeologist who is studying the site.

"It wasn't sacked or burned or wrecked by an earthquake," he said.

But one thing is clear: where boats use to arrive in port is now high ground.

Sidebotham said that when it rains in the desert, it is a downpour and sand washes across the land. It is likely, he said, that the port simply silted in.

The Romans would have had the technology to dredge it but Sidebotham said it is possible they were losing control over the maritime trade route in the area.

In this hot, dry environment along the Egyptian coast, this once vital city is so well preserved that even cloth woven in the time before and after Jesus' death, survived.

The ancient city is about 500 miles south of the modern Suez Canal. In its heyday, it was a link in an important maritime route between the Red Sea and Indian Ocean.