Luxury fabrics from 1,300 years ago apparently from China, India and Sudan found in Arava

Luxury fabrics from 1,300 years ago apparently from China, India and Sudan found in Arava

(photo credit: UNIVERSITY OF HAIFA)

Cotton and silk fabrics from about 1,300 years ago found in the Arava are evidence of ancient trade from the Far East, through Israel and Europe, according to archaeologists at the University of Haifa who are leading the excavation.

“Our findings are apparently the first evidence that there was also an ‘Israeli Silk Road’ that passed through the Negev and the Arava and is a new link that was not known until today in the international traderoutes that connected East and West, between Asia and Europe from the main Silk Road,” said Prof. Guy Bar-Oz from the university’s School of Archeology and Maritime.

In an excavation he conducted at the Nahal Omer site in the Arava in collaboration with Dr. Roy Galili from Ben-GurionUniversity of the Negev in Beersheba, Dr. Orit Shamir from the Israel Antiquities Authority, Dr. Britt Hildebrandt from Germany’s University of Gottingen and Nofar Shamir from the University of Haifa, the researchers found a wealth of artifacts imported from the East dating from to the early Islamic period.

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