Rediscovering Rome’s Female Merchants

In Atlas Obscura’s Q&A series She Was There, we talk to female scholars who are writing long-forgotten women back into history. Around the year 200, two Roman women, Ailia Isidora and Ailia Olympias, walked through the impressive temple gates at Medamound, a temple complex outside of Luxor, Egypt. Their arms were heavy with an offering to the goddess Leto. They had just returned from a successful voyage across the Red Sea and were coming to thank their patroness. In the recorded dedication, we hear their voices echo back to us…

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