The lecture given during the 2015-2016 year was aimed at completing the critical presentation of the data provided by recent archaeological research in Egypt's Eastern Desert. After reviewing the excavations of ancient fortresses and ports between 2013 and 2014, the 2015-2016 lecture addressed work on mines and quarries, in particular the imperial porphyry and granite quarries. The combination of all historical, papyrological and archaeological data has thus provided an overall picture of the exploitation of the Eastern Desert between the Macedonian conquest in 332 BC and the Arab conquest in 630 AD.
The archaeology of the Red Sea ports and desert forts established by the Ptolemaic and Roman armies shows that the infrastructures required by strategic imperatives and used by Eritrean trade went through several phases during which state and military concerns interacted with resource exploitation and commercial interests. I propose to divide the history from the Macedonian conquest to Late Antiquity into ten phases.