gems, beryl, emerald, Egypt, Sikait

Continuing fieldwork begun in winter 2000 and summer 2001, survey and excavation at the beryl/emerald-mining settlement of Sikait and associated surveys of the environs in 2002 and 2003 documented a number of vibrant communities and interconnecting route systems operating in antiquity. Located in Egypt’s Eastern Desert about 120 km northwest of Berenike, Sikait was one of at least nine beryl/emerald-mining settlements that comprised Mons Smaragdus, the only source of these gemstones within the boundaries of the Roman Empire. The floruit of Sikait and its surroundings was from the first to the sixth centuries A.D., though there is evidence of earlier Ptolemaic and later Islamic activity. Residents of Sikait produced some of their own food, but relied heavily on imports from the Nile valley and, to a lesser extent, from the Red Sea. Local industry included manufacture of toys, gaming counters, weights, spindle whorls and jewelry from local talc schist and steatite. Inhabitants also made beads from beryls/emeralds. An element of the population, at least in late antiquity, was fairly affluent and comprised women and children as well as men. There is evidence of Egyptian and Greco-Roman religious practices and possibly Christianity. Excavation of Nabataean sherds and a Nabataean aes coin suggests contacts with that caravan kingdom in the early Roman period. Many beads and pearls were also imports from other areas of the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. At least a portion of the inhabitants in late antiquity seems to have been a desert dwelling group, perhaps the Blemmyes documented in several later Roman literary sources.