hormos

Updated: June 28, 2025

Myos Hormos, or Berenice, was the port on the Red Sea from which they sailed; in forty days they arrived at Musiris, on the west coast of India. The homeward passage was begun in December or January, when the north east monsoon commenced; this carried them to the entrance of the Red Sea, up which to their port they were generally favored by southerly winds.

Robert Kerr - A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels - Volume 18 : Historical Sketch of the Progress of Discovery, Navigation, and : Commerce, from the Earliest Records to the Beginning of the Nineteenth : Century, By William Stevenson

At the period when the Periplus was written, the coast was unknown beyond Rhapta; at this place, therefore, the journal of this voyage terminates; but this place, there is every reason to believe that the author visited in person. The commencement of the second voyage is from Berenice: from this port he conducts us to Myos Hormos, and there across the Red Sea to Leuke Kome in Arabia.

Robert Kerr - A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels - Volume 18 : Historical Sketch of the Progress of Discovery, Navigation, and : Commerce, from the Earliest Records to the Beginning of the Nineteenth : Century, By William Stevenson

Myos Hormos is described as the first port of Egypt on the Red Sea; as it lies in twenty-seven degrees north latitude, and Rhapta, the boundary of the Periplus to the south, in nearly ten degrees south latitude, the distance between them will be about 2,500 miles.

Robert Kerr - A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels - Volume 18 : Historical Sketch of the Progress of Discovery, Navigation, and : Commerce, from the Earliest Records to the Beginning of the Nineteenth : Century, By William Stevenson

But to return from this digression, the other imports were robes, manufactured at Arsinoe; cloths dyed, so as to imitate the Tyrian purple; linens, fringed mantles, glass or crystal, murrhine cups, orichalchum, or mixed metal for trinkets and coin; brass vessels for cooking, the pieces of which, when they happened to be broken, were worn by the women as ornaments; iron, for weapons and other purposes; knives, daggers, hatchets, &c.; brass bowls, wine, oil, gold and silver plate, camp cloaks, and cover-lids: these formed the principal articles of import from Myos Hormos, and as they are very numerous, compared with the exports, it seems surprising that coin should also have been imported, but that this was the case, we are expressly told by the author of the Periplus, who particularizes Roman currency, under the name of Denarii.

Robert Kerr - A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels - Volume 18 : Historical Sketch of the Progress of Discovery, Navigation, and : Commerce, from the Earliest Records to the Beginning of the Nineteenth : Century, By William Stevenson

This canal, however, was never completed; probably on account of the tedious and difficult navigation towards the northern extremity of the Red Sea. He therefore altered his plan, and instead of Arsinoe fixed on Myos Hormos, as the port from which the navigation to India should commence.

Robert Kerr - A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels - Volume 18 : Historical Sketch of the Progress of Discovery, Navigation, and : Commerce, from the Earliest Records to the Beginning of the Nineteenth : Century, By William Stevenson