Research Areas

My focus is on Ptolemaic Egypt and, more specifically, the development of Red Sea trade in the Hellenistic period. This principally involves the study of Hellenistic economies, especially their financial systems and mechanisms of long-distance trade, through papyrology, epigraphy, and numismatics. I am also interested in the role of climate and climate change on the development of Red Sea trade and Hellenistic economies more broadly.

As an extension of my work on early Ptolemaic Red Sea trade, I am also fascinated by elephants (which the Ptolemies transported to Egypt from modern Sudan, Eritrea and Somalia) and the brief emergence of elephant culture in the Hellenistic Mediterranean world.