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Centuries before it was
made famous in the story of the Exodus, the Red Sea was a conduit of trade
between Egypt, especially under Queen Hatshepsut, and Africa, most notably, the
ancient Lands of Punt (Somalia), Nubia (Sudan), and India.
According to Jewish
tradition, the Israelites, escaping from slavery in Egypt, encamped at the western shoreline of the Red Sea. Then
god parted its waters and the Israelites went through. Pharaoh’s armies pursued
them through the sea but the waters closed in on them drowning them all. Now the
question remains, where, along the seashore, did this event take place? This
was a matter of debate among scholars and historians. Some place the crossing
of the Red Sea in the vicinity of Suez and
point out the high tides of the sea (up to 6½ ft.). In fact, Rabbi Saadia
Gaon (882‒942), in his Judeo-Arabic translation of the
Pentateuch, identifies the crossing place of the Red Sea as Baḥar
al-Qulzum, meaning the Gulf of Suez. Others maintain
that the Red Sea was crossed at the Great Bitter Lake, but an east wind could lower the water level by only
a few inches at the most. This theory, furthermore, is unable to account for
the places Pi-Hahiroth, Migdol, and Baal-Zephon which the Israelites passed. Still
others point to the site of Nueibeh on
the eastern Sinai coast pointing out the sea bed would be conducive to a
crossing if a strong wind blew. The majority opinion today however, identifies the
Red Sea of the Exodus, referred to as “Yam Soof”, “Reed Sea”, in the Bible, with one of the lagoons on the shores of
the Mediterranean. As such, some locate it at Baḥr Manzala, or the Sirbonic Lake, and identify Pi-Hahiroth with
Tell al-Khayr, Migdol with Pelusium, and Baal-Zephon with the sanctuary of Zeus
Cassius on the isthmus dividing the lake from the sea, the former being
occasionally inundated by waves from the latter when an east wind is blowing. While it is true that no reeds now grow on the salty
coast of the gulf, different conditions may have prevailed along the northern
end in ancient times, where fresh-water streams discharged into it.
King David had acquired
access to the Sea through his wars with the Edomites, and the commercial ships
sent by King Solomon from the southern port of Eilat (see Eilat), often
traversed the area during his trading expeditions with the ports of Africa and
India. After Solomon’s death, Eilat was briefly lost to the Edomites but was soon
regained by the Kingdom of Judah under Jehoshaphat and Uzziah. Soon, the Gulf
of Elath became a vital outlet to the south for the kings of Israel and Judah
and their Phoenician allies. Later the Nabateans used it for their maritime
trade and overland transport to Petra and Gaza.
In Egypt, the Gulf of
Clysma (Suez) was used as the shortest route to the Mediterranean. The Sea was
connected via the Bitter Lakes with the Nile and the Mediterranean by a canal which already existed in the
days of Pharaoh Necoh and which was repaired by the Persian Emperor Darius I, the Egyptian
Greek Ptolemies, and the Romans. In addition, the town of Al Quseir, on the coast midway between Suez and Nubia, had been
an important port, serving as a thriving center of trade. In the
Hellenistic period the discovery of the monsoon wind systems revived direct
trade with India via the Red Sea. A Greek
historian recorded a fleet of 120 ships exporting pottery, slaves, wine and
precious materials. The important town of Safaga, which lies to the north of Al Quseir on the coast, was
founded between 282 BCE and 268 BCE, by Satyrus and was called Philotera in
honor of the deceased sister of the Pharaoh Ptolemy
II Philadelphus. Suakin,
in Nubian territory, was likely Ptolemy's Port of Good
Hope, Limen Evangelis. Under the later Ptolemies and Romans, though, the
Red Sea's major port was Berenice to the
north. The Red Sea was favored and expanded for Roman trade with India starting with the reign of Augustus, when
the Roman Empire gained control over the Mediterranean, Egypt, and the northern Red Sea. Contact between Rome and
China depended on the Red Sea, but the route was broken by the Ethiopian Aksumite Empire around
the 3rd century CE. From the beginning of the 5th century, the Red
Sea was the only trade route to the East open to the Byzantine Empire, which
explains the tenacity with which the Byzantines fought for its control against
the Jewish kings of Ḥimyar (today, Yemen). From the seventh century onward the
Arabs dominated the Red Sea. The growth of the Muslim caliphate then
shifted trade first to the Hijaz in Arabia and then the Persian Gulf.
By the 10th
century, Suakin was a small settlement of the African Christian Beja tribe,
but it began to expand after the abandonment of the port of Badi to its south.
The Crusades and Mongol invasions drove more trade into the region. In 1183, Raynald of Châtillon launched
a raid down the Red Sea to attack the Muslim pilgrim convoys to Mecca. The
possibility that Raynald's fleet might sack the holy cities of Mecca and Medina
caused fury throughout the Muslim world. However, it appears that
Reynald's actual targets were the lightly armed Muslim pilgrim convoys rather
the well guarded cities of Mecca and Medina. The belief in the Muslim world
that Reynald was seeking to sack the holy cities was due to the proximity of
those cities to the areas that Raynald raided. As early as the 14th
century, there are a number of references to Venetian merchants residing at the ports of Suakin
and Massawa.
Despite Suakin’s formal
submission to the Muslim Mamluk dynasty in Egypt
in 1317, it is believed that the
city remained a center of Christianity. Arab Muslim
immigrants such as the Banu Kanz gradually
took over and intermarried with many of the Beja - so much so that in 1332, the
Berber Muslim traveler ibn Battuta recorded
there was a Muslim "sultan" of Suakin, al-Sharif Zaid ibn-Abi Numayy
ibn-'Ajlan, who was the son of a Meccan sharif.
Following the region's inheritance laws, he had inherited the local leadership
from his Bejan maternal uncles. In the fifteenth century, Suakin was
briefly part of the Adal Sultanate of the northern Land of Punt. The discovery of the sea route around Africa to
India and Turkish domination put an end to international trade on the Red Sea.
In 1513, trying to secure that channel to Portugal, Afonso de Albuquerque laid siege to Aden but
was forced to retreat. The Portuguese cruised the Red Sea inside the Bab el-Mandeb, as the
first fleet from Europe in modern times to have sailed these waters. International
trade via the Red Sea was revived with the inauguration of the Suez Canal in 1869. In 1905, Arab settlers established two new
towns on the western coast of the Sea – Hurghada,
about midway on the Egyptian coast north of Safaga, and Port Sudan, about midway on the Nubian coast.
After the Second World War, the Red
Sea experienced a traffic boom in oil tanker traffic, especially via the Suez
Canal. The Canal became an important waterway to the international community. However,
the Six-Day War between Israel and its Arab-occupied neighbors, culminated
in its closure from 1967 to 1975. Today, in spite of patrols by the major
maritime fleets in the waters of the Red Sea, the Suez Canal has never
recovered its supremacy over the Cape route of southern Africa, which is
believed to be less vulnerable to piracy.
Today, the Red Sea contains
many offshore reefs including several true atolls. The special biodiversity of
the area is recognized by the Arab government of Egypt who set up the Ras
Mohammed National Park in 1983. The rules and regulations
governing this area protect local marine life resulting in it becoming a major
draw for diving enthusiasts. Other Egyptian diving sites include
the SS Thistlegorm (shipwreck), Elphinstone Reef, The Brothers, Daedalus Reef, St.John's Reef, and Rocky Island. Influenced by the culture of ancient Egypt, the architecture of the Sheraton Hotel in the resort town of Soma Bay on the southern outskirts of
Hurghada, was inspired by the ancient Temple of Karnak in Luxor. Marsa Alam also has some inland attractions, such as the Emerald Mines and the Temple of Seti I at Khanais. The descendants of the ancient Egyptians, the Copts, maintain several churches and monasteries in the Eastern Desert. El Gouna, about 12 miles north of Hurghada, is an Egyptian tourist resort, owned by Samih Sawiris,
a Copt, and developed by Orascom Hotels and
Development, since 1989. It is part of the Red Sea Riviera, and a host city of the El
Gouna Film Festival as well as the
Church of St. Mary and the Archangels Coptic Orthodox church.
Major resort areas in the
Sinai include Sharm-el-Sheikh, Dahab, and Taba.
Sharm el-Sheikh was closed to all swimming in December 2010 due to several
serious shark
attacks, including a fatality. Sharm el Sheikh is home to a Coptic church and there
are other Coptic churches in the nearby towns of Ras Sedr and El Tor. The
town of Taba is a major crossing
point into Israel and the popular resort city of Eilat. On Eilat’s eastern
border is another popular resort city, Aqaba,
located in Jordan. These two places form
the other Red Sea Riviera.
Popular diving sites and
resort areas in Nubia include Sanganeb, Abington, Angarosh and Shaab Rumi.
Moulhoule is the Red Sea port in indigenous
Afar territory in Djibouti which faces the Arabian Peninsula. It is separated
from Yemen only by the Bab el Mandeb.
A number of volcanic
islands had risen from the center of the Red Sea in recent years. Most are
dormant. However, in 2007, Jabal al-Tair island in
the Bab el Mandeb strait erupted violently. Two new islands were formed in 2011
and 2013 in the Zubair
Archipelago, a small chain of islands owned by Yemen. The first
island, Sholan, emerged in an
eruption in December 2011, and the second island, Jadid, emerged in September 2013.
On the eastern side, there are several major towns that, truly are, located in ancestral Arab territory. These include al Hodeida in Yemen, and Jeddah, Yanbu, and Maqna in Saudi Arabia.
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