Different Structures, Uniform Tradition: the Burial Landscape in the Post-Roman Eastern Desert Trade Town of Berenike

Abstract

Abstract The three different forms of burial structures recorded in the cemeteries of post-Roman Berenike on the Egyptian Red Sea coast represent a diversity unmatched in the Eastern Desert in the fourth–sixth centuries AD . Berenike’s role as a major commercial hub in the Indian Ocean trade fostered the emergence of a differentiated society which, the authors argue, found one way of expression in the variety of tomb forms. However, shared burial practices helped to sustain social cohesion. These findings shed light on the cultural formation of Indigenous communities participating in a long-distance exchange of goods.

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