Glassware from Roman Egypt at Begram (Afghanistan) and the Red Sea trade

• Published in: British Museum studies in ancient Egypt and Sudan no. 18; pp. 1 - 14
• Main Author: Mairs, Rachel
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 01.08.2012

In the 1930s, excavations by the Délégation Archéologique Française en Afghanistan (DAFA) at the site of Begram (near modern Kabul) uncovered two storerooms full of luxury goods from such far-flung regions of the ancient world as the Graeco-Roman Mediterranean, India and China. These finds date to the 1st century AD, a time when Begram was one of the political centers of the Kushan Empire and an important node along the "Silk Route." As well as overland routes, Begram was also tied into maritime trading networks, such as the Red Sea trade between Egypt and the Indian subcontinent. Items from Roman Egypt in the Begram caches include brightly colored glass vessels (one of which depicts the pharos, or lighthouse, of Alexandria) and statuettes of the Graeco-Roman Egyptian deities Serapis and Harpocrates. This paper examines the various routes which linked Egypt and the Kushan Empire in the 1st century AD, along which commodities such as these were transported, and, more broadly, how maritime trade in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean linked into wider Eurasian networks of transcontinental travel and commerce. [Publication Abstract]