The Abandonment of Myos Hormos

The paper focuses on the development and the decline of the ancient settlement of Myos Hormos, which was a prominent port on the Red Sea coast of Egypt. Many writers from the first centuries BCE and CE agree on describing it as one of the most important commercial hubs of the area, along the more southern port of Berenike. Still, while Berenike kept its functionality well into the late antique period, Myos Hormos was abandoned and fell out of use for no evident reason at some point along the third century CE. This decline has been explained by most scholars as a consequence of the third century crisis that stroke the Empire, and that triggered a steady regression of the Roman trading activities in the Red Sea. In this paper a different point of view is offered: the demise of Myos Hormos would not have anything to do with commercial decline nor with the shrinking of the trading horizon of the Romans, but it was rather the consequence of an adjustement of the organisation of the Red Sea area that started during the second century CE.