"It is often forgotten that Gaza was once the richest port in the Eastern Mediterranean, super wealthy from the export of Arabian incense and Indian spices" William Dalrymple... Aphrodite,oil lamps,trade routes,churches, etc.

When Gaza was the richest port in the Eastern Mediterranean, super wealthy from the export of Arabian incense and Indian spices... Oil lamp in the form of a lion 1stC CE, found in the waters off Gaza from the exhibition Trésors sauvés de Gaza - 5000 ans d'histoire at L'Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris

Crusader-era doorway from Gaza Photographed 1920 The trade connections of ancient Gaza From the exhibition Trésors sauvés de Gaza - 5000 ans d'histoire at L'Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris

Same building, photographed January 2025

Crusader-era oculus from the al-Umari mosque, Gaza Taken 1920

Gaza in 1905, from the terrace of the Latin presbytery, next to the Catholic church of Gaza, recently bombed by the IDF

Gaza in 1922 Seen from Tell Harubah, the heart of ancient Gaza and occupied consistently since the Bronze Age

The Aphrodite of Gaza Hellenistic period (2ndC BCE?) from the exhibition Trésors sauvés de Gaza - 5000 ans d'histoire at Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris.

 

The trade connections of ancient Gaza. It is often forgotten that Gaza was once the richest port in the Eastern Mediterranean, super wealthy from the export of Arabian incense and Indian spices... From the exhibition Trésors sauvés de Gaza - 5000 ans d'histoire at L'Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris

Byzantine oil lamps of Gaza, 6thC CE From the exhibition Trésors sauvés de Gaza - 5000 ans d'histoire at L'Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris

William Dalrymple

@DalrympleWill

Scottish historian & art historian;  @EmpirePodUK podcaster & Jaipur Lit Fest co-director. Visiting Fellow at All Souls, Oxford. Writes the occasional book.

Multi-award-winning and bestselling historian William Dalrymple’s latest book was published on 5 September – a revolutionary new history of the diffusion of Indian art, religions, technology, astronomy, music, dance, literature, mathematics and mythology, along a Golden Road that stretched from the Red Sea to the Pacific.  https://williamdalrymple.com/