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Monday, March 22, 2021

Berenike deserted due to drought devastation?

EXCAVATION UPDATE: Volcanic eruption may have forced ancient Egyptians to abandon a city (Michael Marshall, New Scientist).

I posted about the Egyptian fortress-city of Berenike (Berenike Trogodytika) here. It was a port on the coast of the Red Sea in Ptolemaic times. It is named after Queen Berenike I, the wife of Ptolemy I. The latter appears under the code name "king of the south" in Daniel 11:5.

This article gives some new information about possible reasons for the temporary abandonment of the city toward the end of the third century BCE.

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