First Egyptian Connection

The city of Alexandria was established by Alexander the Great, and it quickly became a very important center for grain and other trade. As Alexandria gained importance as a trade center, the Ptolemies who followed Alexander began building trade relations with other nations, so that Alexandria could become the most important trade city in the world. Under Philadelphos trade relations were made with the Nabataeans of Arabia. This allowed Egypt to profit handsomely from Asian trade, and resulted in Alexandria usurping Damscus' role as the leading merchant city of it's time. Details of this era can be found at Nabataean Trade Routes. Philadelphos originally built ports on the Red Sea to import elephants, but very quickly expanded these ports to accommodate the new trade with India and Asia. During the reign of the Philadelphos Ptolemey, the Zenon Papyri tell us of the relations between his agents and the Nabataeans as Zenon bought various aromatics in Palestine.

Second Egyptian Connection

The later Ptolemies, especially Euergetes II was not satisfied with control of the African trade, but tried to renew the early Arabian trade policy of Philadelphos to establish direct relations between Egypt and Arabia and India. The story of the great adventurer and explorer of this time, Eudoxos of Cnidus, is characteristic in this respect. (Strabo II, e.,4ff) The first voyage of Eudoxos has been tentatively dated around 119-118 BC the second to around 111 BC. Originally an envoy to Euergetes II from Cyzicos, the great commercial city of the Marmora Sea, Eudoxos entered the service of the kings of Egypt and carried out two commercial expeditions on account of Euergetes II and his successors. On his first voyage he brought back a cargo of aromatics and precious stones. It is unclear who Eudoxos was. His name sounds Greek, but then, the Nabataeans as well as other civilizations were adopting Helenization and everyone was using Greek names. Some have suggested that perhaps he was a Nabataean, but there is no solid evidence to support this supposition.

Egyptian Inscriptions:

There are important inscriptions at Delos: a Greco-Sabaean dedication of two Minaeans to a Minaean god, second half of the second century BC; a Greek dedication of an Arab; a Delian inventory which names a certain Temallat, a Gerrhaean, about 6 BC; at Tenos at about the same time proxeny is given to a Nabataean Salamenes, son of Edemon; and someone by the name of Priene sends an embassy to Petra. (Durrbach, F.,Chois d'inscriptions de Delos avec traduction et commentaire, Paris 1921).

East Africa Connection

The efforts of archeologists are now bringing to light Greek/Roman ports along the coast of East Africa. These ports were originally established by Philadelphos Ptolemey to capture, train and import African elephants for his army. They were later used in the battle of Raphia, (217 BC, the year after Hannibal crossed the Alps) which was fought between the Ptolomies and the Selucids. The following links will provide you with some information about these ports along the East Africa coast. Since the Nabataeans were the principle maritime merchants for the Ptolomies on the Red Sea (See Who Were the Ancient Arab Tradres?) we can assume that Nabataean boats were among those that visited East Africa. As excavations are currently being carried out, complete reports are not yet available.