ABSTRACT
The area of desert and mountain which lay between the Nile and the Red Sea had a two-fold economic importance in the Roman world (Fig. 7.1; all sites named in the text are located on Figs 7.2–3). Firstly, it was crossed by the trade routes which took imports and exports to and from the major Red Sea ports through which trade was conducted with the East; and secondly it was rich in desirable minerals — gold, amethysts, peridots, beryls and a range of building stones including, most notably, both purple and black porphyry from the area of the Gebel Dokhân (Mons Porphyrites) and a black-speckled grey granodiorite, the so-called granito del foro from the Gebel Fatireh (Mons Claudianus).
