Monday, January 07, 2019

Berenike Trogodytika

EXCAVATION: This 2,300-Year-Old Egyptian Fortress Had an Unusual Task: Guarding a Port That Sent Elephants to War (Owen Jarus, Live Science).
A 2,300-year-old fortress that protected an ancient port called "Berenike" has been discovered in Egypt on the coast of the Red Sea by a Polish-American archaeological team.

Constructed at a time when Egypt was ruled by the Ptolemies, a dynasty of pharaohs descended from one of Alexander the Great's generals, the fortifications are sizable.

[...]
This ancient port was named after the Ptolemaic queen Berenice I. She was the wife of Ptolemy I. He is mentioned as "the king of the south" in Daniel 11:5.

The fortress is a new discovery. The original article on it in Antiquity is here.

The Wikipedia article I linked to above incorrectly gives the second part of the name as "Troglodytica" and associates it with the etymology "cave dwellers." The name is actually "Trogodytika," referring to a people on the east coast of Egypt. More on that here. (UPDATE [8 January]: Either Wikipedia has been updated or I missed it yesterday, but the article goes on to give the correct name and background.)

(I have spent too much of this morning trying to sort out the various Berenices in the Ptolemaic and Seleucid dynasties. There were a lot of them! Past posts that needed correction are now corrected.)

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.