Egyptian Harbor, Tyre

About

Tyre's southern harbor opened toward Egypt and carried the city's direct trade link to Alexandria's grain and papyrus. A stone breakwater discovered in 2019, built in the same style as Tyre's Iron Age Phoenician moles, once guarded its mouth. By the Roman period part of the basin had silted up and the reclaimed land was used for a monumental bath complex, but the port itself stayed active. Byzantine tombstones later even name local 'murex fishermen of the Egyptian port,' proving the harbor still functioned centuries after 117 CE.

In ancient writing

• Strabo, Geography 16.2.23

  Strabo describes Tyre as having two harbors, an enclosed northern "Sidonian" harbor and an open southern one he explicitly calls the "Egyptian" harbor.

Sources

• https://www.researchgate.net/publication/377777064_Where_is_the_Phoenician_harbour_of_Tyre
• https://www.ancientportsantiques.com/a-few-ports/ancient-port-of-tyre/

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