Berenice Troglodytica, also called Berenike (Greek: Βερενίκη) or Baranis, is an ancient seaport of Egypt on the western shore of the Red Sea.

[3] A high mountain range runs along the African coast and separates the Nile Valley from the Red Sea; Berenice was sited upon a narrow rim of shore between the mountains and the Red Sea, at the head of the Sinus Immundus,[4] a south-facing bay sheltered on the north by a high peninsula then called Lepte Extrema, and to the south by a chain of small islands scattered across the mouth of the bay.

[11] Its prosperity after the third century was mostly due to three reasons: The other terminus of that road is Coptos (now Qift), an Egyptian city on the Nile, which made Berenice and Myos Hormos the two main shipping centers for trade between Aethiopia and Egypt on the one hand, and Syria, Tamilakkam, and Tamraparni (ancient Sri Lanka) on the other.

Watering stations (Greek hydreumata, see Hadhramaut) were built along the road; the wells and resting places for caravans are listed by Pliny,[13] and in the Itineraries.

[18] Despite its favorable location, after the 6th century the port was abandoned and the bay has since nearly filled with sediment; it has a sand-bar at its entrance that can only be crossed by shallow-draft boats.

[19] The most important ruin is a temple; the remnants of its sculptures and inscriptions preserve the name of Tiberius and the head magistrate of the Jews in Alexandria under Ptolemaic and Roman rule.

Tomasz Herbich from the Institute of Archeology and Ethnology of the Polish Academy of Sciences made a magnetic map of the western part of the site.

[2] A large number of significant finds have been made providing evidence of the cargo from the Malabar Coast and the presence of Tamil people from South India being at this last outpost of the Roman Empire (see ancient Indo-Roman trade relations).

In 2009 the first find of frankincense was reported and "two blocks of resin from the Syrian fir tree (Abies cilicica), one weighting about 190 g and the other about 339 g, recovered from 1st century CE contexts in one of the harbor trenches.

Produced in areas of greater Syria and Asia Minor, this resin and its oil derivative were used in mummification, as an antiseptic, a diuretic, to treat wrinkles, extract worms and promote hair growth.