Trade & Commerce
Alexandria, trading hub to the world
Within a few decades of its founding in 331 BC, through the mass of its population and their activity, Alexandria was drawing to itself a major part of Mediterranean and Eritrean trade, taking full advantage of the expansion of the maritime world which began in the middle of the first millennium BC. The manifold advantages of the port quickly made it one of the largest in the Mediterranean. It was the terminus of great maritime, land and river trade routes, exporting and redistributing far inland, with an important economic hinterland, and neighbouring a large urban consumer market that demanded large quantities of different goods. Alexandria was the emporium of the world – the "emporium of the oikoumene" according to Strabo.
Alexandria welcomed caravans bringing products from distant Gerrha, passing through Petra, arriving from India via the Persian Gulf. Goods also came along the Doura Europos and Phoenician coast, bringing Egypt into contact with Asia Minor and the Silk Road. Generously equipped with docks, quays, warehouses and fresh water sources, Alexandria was the main departure point for the East in the Hellenistic period, she benefited also from Ptolemaic state organization. The Nile Valley more than ever became a passageway to Africa via Syene and the oases, to the Red Sea through traditional routes, and the new link to the port of Berenice at Coptos and Ptolemais in Middle Egypt. Being at the mouth of the Nile the port of Alexandria profited from the economic activity of all Egypt, and became the largest exporter of grain in Antiquity from the Ptolemaic period on. It exported other agricultural and industrial produce, notably papyrus, of which Egypt had a virtual monopoly. It was also from here in the Roman era that Egyptian wheat was sent, which was used by its rulers as a vital political weapon.
The ceramic material found during underwater excavations in the eastern harbour of Alexandria demonstrates the importance of trade during the High Empire, and, more elusive but well represented, the Lower Empire. Both fine ceramics and amphorae were traded, as much with the western basin of the Mediterranean as the eastern. The material also shows that Alexandria, while receiving material from Asia Minor, the Aegean basin or Cyprus, was a transit point for goods imported from the West destined for the eastern road to Coptos, and vice versa. From this time on Alexandria, the world city, becomes "structurally related to Rome", another world city, "initially economically and then as a centre of power in a space unified by the Roman Empire" (C. Nicolet, in Mégapoles méditerranéennes, 2000, p. 13)
David Fabre
The study of the archaeological discoveries of the Portus Magnus of Alexandria does not give a comprehensive picture of trade between Egypt – or at least its capital – and other regions bordering the Mediterranean or Red Sea. Nevertheless it highlights certain circumstances, modalities and other factors in the development of this type of interaction that we see developing at the beginning of the Ptolemaic period, and for this fringe of the Western delta, in more ancient times. At the same time, the analysis of one of the largest ports in ancient times cannot be disconnected from the analysis of the organization of maritime trade – its birth, establishment, development. It was also a site devoted to exchange with all its dynamics and historical significance, within the network of cultural influence that paralleled the trade transactions that connected the different regions. It is the subject of a study: D. Fabre, ‘The Eastern Port of Alexandria and the organization of maritime trade: Continuity and Change’, in F. Goddio and D. Fabre, Alexandria. The topography of the Portus Magnus. Underwater archaeology in the Eastern Port of Alexandria in Egypt, OCMA Monograph, Oxford, forthcoming.
Alexandria welcomed caravans bringing products from distant Gerrha, passing through Petra, arriving from India via the Persian Gulf. Goods also came along the Doura Europos and Phoenician coast, bringing Egypt into contact with Asia Minor and the Silk Road. Generously equipped with docks, quays, warehouses and fresh water sources, Alexandria was the main departure point for the East in the Hellenistic period, she benefited also from Ptolemaic state organization. The Nile Valley more than ever became a passageway to Africa via Syene and the oases, to the Red Sea through traditional routes, and the new link to the port of Berenice at Coptos and Ptolemais in Middle Egypt. Being at the mouth of the Nile the port of Alexandria profited from the economic activity of all Egypt, and became the largest exporter of grain in Antiquity from the Ptolemaic period on. It exported other agricultural and industrial produce, notably papyrus, of which Egypt had a virtual monopoly. It was also from here in the Roman era that Egyptian wheat was sent, which was used by its rulers as a vital political weapon.
The ceramic material found during underwater excavations in the eastern harbour of Alexandria demonstrates the importance of trade during the High Empire, and, more elusive but well represented, the Lower Empire. Both fine ceramics and amphorae were traded, as much with the western basin of the Mediterranean as the eastern. The material also shows that Alexandria, while receiving material from Asia Minor, the Aegean basin or Cyprus, was a transit point for goods imported from the West destined for the eastern road to Coptos, and vice versa. From this time on Alexandria, the world city, becomes "structurally related to Rome", another world city, "initially economically and then as a centre of power in a space unified by the Roman Empire" (C. Nicolet, in Mégapoles méditerranéennes, 2000, p. 13)
David Fabre
The study of the archaeological discoveries of the Portus Magnus of Alexandria does not give a comprehensive picture of trade between Egypt – or at least its capital – and other regions bordering the Mediterranean or Red Sea. Nevertheless it highlights certain circumstances, modalities and other factors in the development of this type of interaction that we see developing at the beginning of the Ptolemaic period, and for this fringe of the Western delta, in more ancient times. At the same time, the analysis of one of the largest ports in ancient times cannot be disconnected from the analysis of the organization of maritime trade – its birth, establishment, development. It was also a site devoted to exchange with all its dynamics and historical significance, within the network of cultural influence that paralleled the trade transactions that connected the different regions. It is the subject of a study: D. Fabre, ‘The Eastern Port of Alexandria and the organization of maritime trade: Continuity and Change’, in F. Goddio and D. Fabre, Alexandria. The topography of the Portus Magnus. Underwater archaeology in the Eastern Port of Alexandria in Egypt, OCMA Monograph, Oxford, forthcoming.