Shifting Centers of Production: The Amphorae Assemblages at Mons Porphyrites and Bir Umm Fawakhir

Abstract

Mons Porphyrites and Bir Umm Fawakhir in the Eastern Desert of Egypt were two sites of resource extraction during the Roman and subsequent Byzantine occupation of Egypt. Mons Porphyrites was quarried for its vibrant purple stone featured in building projects such as the Pantheon. Bir Umm Fawakhir was a gold mine which was worked intermittently from the twentieth dynasty of the Egyptian pharaohs through the Ptolemies and into the Byzantine period. In this paper, I examine the amphorae evidence from both sites to trace the patterns over time in the distribution of goods including centers of production, routes of transportation, and the larger networks of supplying the labor forces at these zones of extraction. The end result is that the provisioning of the quarries and the mines took place in a complex system of trade which functioned alongside local lines of supply.Master of Art