Ancient Maritime Route Between India, Egypt, Africa, China (350 BC)

Archaeologists have unearthed the most extensive remains to date about ancient maritime from sea trade between India and Egypt during the Roman Empire, adding to mounting evidence that spices and other exotic cargo traveled into Europe over sea as well as land.

When cost and political conflict prevented overland transport, ancient mariners took to the Red Sea, and the route between India and Egypt appears to have been even more productive.

Researchers have led an international team of archaeologists who have excavated Berenike, a long-abandoned Egyptian port on the Red Sea near the border with Sudan.

Among the buried ruins of buildings that date back to Roman rule, they discovered vast quantities of teak, a wood indigenous to India and today’s Myanmar, but not capable of growing in Egypt, Africa or Europe.

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