When Steven Sidebotham, history, was 14, he knew he wanted to become an archaeologist. His family was living in Turkey at the time, and he had become interested in collecting ancient coins, visiting the market stalls where vendors sometimes had brass bowls put aside with odd coins for sale. "Collecting coins led to an interest in where they came from and in ancient history and, in turn, to archeology," he recalled.

His first dig was a Roman villa rustica in Italy the summer he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania after three years at universities in Greece and Egypt--an invaluable experience for his later work because he learned Egyptian Arabic. He later received his doctorate in history from the University of Michigan.

Sidebotham recently returned to that part of the world for his current UD project at Berenike, a prominent port city on the Red Sea in Egypt. He has spent the past seven winter seasons there, unearthing the evidence of long-gone civilizations. "There were references to the site by Europeans in 1818, so we knew the port existed," he said.

"Berenike was a major trading gateway between the Roman Empire and the Persian Gulf, southern Arabia, sub-Sahara Africa, India and Sri Lanka and was a melting pot of many peoples. During its heyday from the third century B.C. to the sixth century A.D., it was a busy port. But over the years, the harbor filled with silt, and although it could have been dredged, instead the port was deserted," he said.

Sidebotham is in charge of the field work at Berenike, supervising the trench work and photographing the site. His codirector is W. Z. Wendrich, a basketry specialist formerly of Leiden University in the Netherlands and now at the University of California in Los Angeles. Wendrich handles the logistics– government permits and getting the camp up and running for the team–a formidable task since ordinary water is 70 miles away, and food and drinking water are more than 190 miles away and costly.

There is a total staff of 35 to 40, plus 80 Bedouin workmen, during the season, which runs from mid-December until early February. Some UD students have indicated an interest in joining the team, whose members range in age from late teens to over 60 and who come from all over the world. The team includes volunteers and specialists in such areas as textiles or pottery, who can examine artifacts as they are discovered. Nothing can leave Egypt, so the finds from the dig are analyzed, photographed and then sent to storage magazines on the Nile.

The team has published extensively and made several presentations about Berenike with the fifth book on the work, soon to be published by the Center of Non-Western Studies at Leiden.

Finds at the site include coins, spices, cameo blanks, beads, pottery, glassware, statuary, basketry, fabrics, bones and seeds, plus emeralds and sapphires from India, Sri Lanka and Europe.

Written documents on papyri or inscriptions on pottery or stone, as well as sea shells, are in several languages, including Latin, Greek, Egyptian and Tamil-Brahmi.

Many religions were represented, from the worship of Isis and Jupiter to Judaism to Christianity. "We have found altars, statuary, such pieces as an almost life-size statue of Isis, inscriptions, wooden bowls used for incense and sculpted reliefs, indicating who was being worshiped," Sidebotham said.

"The focus of the project is to find out more about trading, the governments and especially the people who lived at that time through analyzing artifacts and evidence of their lives," he said. "We also have discovered two piers and a sea wall and hope someday to do some underwater explorations for remains of ships."

Even with more than 40 trenches, only 2 percent of the site has been excavated, Sidebotham said. Private donors, the National Geographic Society, the Kress Foundation, the American Philosophical Society, the Dorot Foundation and Columbia University have funded the project during the past years.

What does an archeologist do on his days off?

Sidebotham takes a busman's holiday, and with a Bedouin guide goes exploring for other sites.

"We discovered the remains of a fifth-century emerald mine, with grinding stones and tailings, which we hope to excavate someday" he recalled.

Another find was a fort. "We knew it existed because of references to it in a 1925 British magazine. I asked a Bedouin guide if he knew anything about it, and the following season he had found out about it from his network and took me to the site which was only 7 kilometers from Berenike. Excavating the fort, we discovered an eight-foot-long inscription that had originally stood over the front gate, with the date of 76-77 A.D., and information about the names of the Roman emperor and governors at the time."

A restored fort in the Red Sea area will display some of the Berenike artifacts, and there is discussion of a regional museum on the Red Sea to exhibit antiquities from the area.

"I hope this plan comes to fruition because some of our finds are significant, and it would be fitting to have them exhibited in the region where they were discovered," Sidebotham said.

–Sue Moncure

Arabian Bedouin holding bilingual Greek-Palmyrene (Syrian) religious/military inscription of the late second century/early third century A.D., found in excavations at Berenike.		Location map, drawn by A. Hoseth
A small fort at Siket, approximately 5 miles northwest of Berenike, supplied drinking water to the city and also guarded approaches to Berenike. A Latin inscription found in excavations at the main gate notes that the site is a fortified water station built in the year 76/77.