A narrow sea with a difficult reputation
The Red Sea is a long, narrow rift between Africa and Arabia, about 2,000 kilometres from north to south. It connects the Mediterranean world, by way of Egypt, with the Indian Ocean through the strait of Bab al-Mandab at its southern end. For travellers it was both a shortcut and a hazard. The sea is bordered by deserts with few natural harbours, it has extensive coral reefs and shoals, and in its northern half the prevailing winds blow from the north for much of the year, so that sailing north against them could be slow. Ancient and medieval writers frequently remarked on these dangers, and sailors relied on local pilots and on a cautious practice of anchoring in sheltered bays at night.
Pharaonic voyages
Egyptian expeditions on the Red Sea are known from inscriptions and from archaeology. The best known is the Punt expedition sent by Queen Hatshepsut in the fifteenth century BC, and recorded in relief carvings at her temple at Deir el-Bahari. Punt was a trading partner whose exact location is debated, with scholars placing it somewhere on the African coast of the southern Red Sea or in neighbouring regions, perhaps including parts of Arabia. The expedition brought back incense trees, resins, ebony, gold and animals. Earlier voyages are also recorded. Excavations at Mersa Gawasis, on the Egyptian Red Sea coast, have uncovered ship timbers, rope and storage caves associated with expeditions sent from there, showing that ships were built or assembled in the Nile Valley, taken apart, carried overland and put together again. Egyptian sea lanes were not confined to the Red Sea, but these voyages show it was an important outlet for the Nile Valley.
Later rulers also tried to link the Nile to the sea by canal. Ancient sources attribute early work on such a canal to Necho II in the late seventh century BC, with completion under the Persian king Darius I, but the details are uncertain.
Ptolemies, Romans and the Indian trade
Under the Ptolemies in the third century BC, Red Sea ports were developed, partly to import war elephants from East Africa. Under Roman rule, trade expanded considerably. Ports such as Myos Hormos and Berenike on the Egyptian coast were linked by desert roads to the Nile, and goods were brought on to Alexandria and the wider Roman world. A Greek-language handbook for merchants, the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (probably first century AD), describes harbours, goods and trading conditions from the Red Sea to East Africa and India. Merchants could use the seasonal monsoon to cross to the Indian coast, and Roman writers complained about the outflow of coin spent on luxuries such as pepper, spices, silk and gems. This commerce connected the Red Sea to the Roman network of ancient maritime commerce.
Medieval pilgrim and spice routes
After the rise of Islam, Red Sea ports gained religious as well as commercial importance. Jeddah became the main landing for pilgrims travelling to Mecca, and ports such as Aydhab and later Suakin on the African shore connected Egypt, the Sudan and Arabia. Pilgrims travelled in sailing vessels, often crowded, and many arrived from East Africa and India as well as Egypt.
The sea was also part of the spice route. From the later Middle Ages, goods such as pepper and ginger came from India to Red Sea ports, were carried overland to the Nile or to Cairo, and were sold on to Alexandria, where Venetian and other European merchants bought them. For centuries the sea thus played a central role in supplying Europe with Asian goods. The coffee trade later made Mocha in Yemen a famous port in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
The Portuguese and the Ottomans
The Portuguese reached India by sailing around Africa in 1498, and soon tried to take control of the Indian Ocean trade routes. They attacked shipping linked to the Red Sea and reached its entrance, and in 1513 an expedition under Afonso de Albuquerque attempted to take Aden but failed. Mamluk and then Ottoman fleets were built at Suez to oppose them; the Ottomans conquered Egypt in 1517 and went on to dominate much of the Red Sea coast. Rivalry continued through the sixteenth century. However, the opening of the Cape route around Africa did not entirely cut off Red Sea trade, which persisted in various forms.
The Suez Canal and the steamship era
The sea’s role changed profoundly in the nineteenth century. Steamships could operate against the northerly winds, and after the canal across the Isthmus of Suez opened in 1869, ships could move directly between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea without going around Africa. Suez Canal shipping increased steadily, and Britain, whose route to India it shortened, took a strong interest in the sea, occupying Aden in 1839 and exerting influence over Egypt from 1882. Closure of the canal during the 1956 crisis, and for eight years after the 1967 war, until 1975, showed how dependent global trade had become on this narrow passage.
Today the Red Sea carries much of the traffic between Europe and Asia, with ports such as Jeddah, Port Sudan and Aqaba serving regional needs, and the southern entrance and the canal remaining closely watched by governments and shipping companies. Piracy and conflict in nearby waters have affected shipping at various times in recent decades, but this is a rapidly changing topic better followed through current sources.