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More Than A Shipwreck: Glimpsing 18th Century Trade on Saadana Island

June 2, 2022

A slight breeze, thick with humidity, complements the shore; the Red Sea is patient and flat, corals grazing the water-top from under. Safaga – a coastal town on the Red sea – is silent, its mangroves rise and sway, and right under them is a world unto itself: a history rich with porcelain and promise, a meeting point of cultures. The Saadana Islands shipwreck is an unnamed, unidentified beauty sitting 35 kilometers south of Hurghada, close to the sleepy Safaga. Perched on corals 30 meters underwater, it was first located and excavated by teams back in 1995, a process that lasted three years until its completion in 1998. A behemoth in size, the wreck measures 50 meters long and 18 meters wide, with an approximated cargo of up to 900 tonnes. According to UNESCO’s Silk Roads Programme, the wreck was presumably sunk in the latter half of the 18th century, around 1760; at the time, economic traffic had overtaken the Red Sea—as the pseudo-Silk Road that connected Asia and Africa, and later Europe, the Red Sea became a vein of trade, and commerce. Although the wreck inherits resemblance from many…


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