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Excavations by the American–Polish project in Berenike on the Red Sea, co-directed from 2008 by Steven E. Sidebotham (University of Delaware) and Iwona Zych (PCMA University of Warsaw), have aimed at uncovering and reconstructing the ancient landscape of the southwestern embayment, tentatively identified as the harbor of the Hellenistic and early Roman city, and its immediate vicinity. A review of the evidence from the excavation of several trenches in this area paints a picture of the bay—still incomplete—and contributes to a reconstruction of the cultural and economic landscape, the "lived experience" of the town's inhabitants and incoming merchants and sailors during the heyday of "Imperial" Berenike, that is, in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD.

Brief overview of two seasons of archaeological survey and excavation carried out in 2012 and 2013 at the site of Berenike on the Red Sea coast and in two sub-projects in the Eastern Desert: the prehistoric cattle cemetery at Wadi Khashab and the Roman-era emerald mines at Sikait and Nugrus. Highpoints of the work at Berenike included discovery of the Hellenistic fort and fortifications that mark the original settlement of the site in the third quarter of the 3rd century BC, continued clearance of harbor-related structures in the southwestern bay interpreted as the early Roman harbor of Berenike and the uncovering of an earlier phase of the late Roman harbor temple (so-called Lotus Temple) of the 5th–6th century AD in the harbor.