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Berenice or Berenice Troglodytica (now known as Medinet-el Haras) is an ancient seaport of Egypt. It was founded by Ptolemy II (285 BC—247 BC) on the west coast of the Red Sea. He named the town after his wife, Berenice I of Egypt. Troglodytica refers to the aboriginal people of the region, the "Troglodytai" or "cave dwellers". Although the name is attested by several ancient writers, the more ancient Ptolemaic inscriptions read Trogodytai (which G.W.B. Huntingford has speculated could be related to the same root as Tuareg, or to the Arabic word tawāriq, sing. tāriqa, "tribe"). It is possible that copyist later confused this name with the more common term Troglodytai.

Built at the head of a gulf, the Sinus Immundus, or Foul Bay, of Strabo, it was sheltered on the north by Ras Benas (Lepte Extrema). From the 1st century BC until the 2nd century AD Berenice was one of the trans-shippings point of trade between India, Arabia, and Upper Egypt. From it a road, provided with watering stations (Greek hydreumata, see Hadhramaut) leads north-west across the desert to the Nile at Coptos . In the neighbourhood of Berenice were the emerald mines of Zabara and Saket. The coastal trade from Berenice along the coast of the Indian Ocean is described in the anonymous 1st century handbook Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. In the 4th century Berenice again become an active port, but after the 6th century the port was abandoned.

In 1818 the ruins of Berenice were identified by Giovanni Battista Belzoni. Since then, several excavations have been undertaken. The port is now nearly filled up, has a sand-bar at its entrance and can be reached only by small craft. Most important of the ruins is a temple; the remnants of its sculptures and inscriptions preserve the name of Tiberius and the figures of many deities, including a (goddess?) Alabarch or Arabarch, also the name of the head magistrate of the Jews in Alexandria under Ptolemaic and Roman rule.

References

• The Berenike Project: the port's excavation.
• G.W.B. Huntingford "The Ethnology and History of the Area Covered by the Periplus" in Huntingford (trans. & ed.), Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (London, 1980).
• S. Sidebotham and W. Wendrich, "Roms Tor am Roten Meer nach Arabien und Indien", in AW 32-3 (2001), p.251-263.