The ancient world was full of movement and exchange. We know that merchants travelled great distances, connecting the Mediterranean to places as far away as Vietnam, but we still tend to isolate the the ancient Mediterranean world from everywhere else in our reconstructions. However, the global nature of the ancient world is becoming better understood by scholars with every passing year.

In 2022, the discovery of a marble head of the Buddha, to go along with a body found in 2018, at the Egyptian site of Berenike raised an interesting question: were there Buddhists living in Roman Egypt?

Buddhists in Berenike

The ancient harbour of Berenike sits on the northwestern coast of the Red Sea and served a pivotal role in the global trade network that connected Europe, the Mediterranean and north Africa, with the Indian Ocean. First founded under the rule of the Ptolemies, its influence grew with each passing century and was a flourishing trading post by the height of the Roman Empire in the 2nd century CE.

Archaeological finds have, for some time, shown a clear presence of Indian artifacts, which can be explained as by-products of the trade network, such as pottery, coins and textiles. But, more intriguingly, since 2001, researchers excavating at the site have idenitfied a number of artifacts that were clearly inspired by Indian art and suggest not just trade but religious practice. They include a bilingual Greek-Sanskrit inscription, a stele depicting the Vrishni heroes of Indian legend, and three small statues (statuettes) of the Buddha.

A recent study of these artifacts has found that the majority of those made from stone were made in Berenike using local material. the exception being the largest and most intact of the Buddha statuettes. It is 53cm tall and seems to have likely been carved from imported Parian marble (Sidebotham et al. 2025). It was found in the temple of Isis and was most likely left as an offering from someone living in Berenike, if only for a temporary stay, who had it made to order.

A bilingual inscription was also found in the temple of Isis, but was likely made a century later than the statuette. Its text reads:

[Greek] Good (fortune?).

[Sanskrit] Success. In the sixth, 6ᵗʰ, year of king Philippa, (on) the 5ᵗʰ (day) of the bright (half of the month) Āśva(yuja), on this day the kṣatriya Vāsula had established an image of […], for the benefit and pleasure of all beings.

[Greek] Vazulas set it up.

This is the first known Sanskrit inscription found in Egypt, and its creation in Berenike tells us that the town had skilled workers who were not only experienced with Sanskrit and the Brahmi script, in which it was written, but were also able to engrave them onto stone. The Sanskrit inscription is also noteworthy for its use of Roman dating protocols, an unprecedented example in fact: the 6th year of the reign of Philip the Arab means this was erected in 248 CE.

The presence of this inscription and the statuettes in sacred spaces strongly suggests that these were used as proxy spaces for lay Buddhists staying and, perhaps, living in Berenike (Sidebotham et al 2025):

It seems that local Buddhists used an existing sacred site for their ritual purposes and erected there Buddha images to satisfy their own religious needs. In this respect, the new evidence clearly points to the existence of Buddhist religious devotional practices.

Written Evidence

Our written evidence has been slightly more elusive in identifying whether Buddhists lived in Egypt or not. As early as the reign of the Indian emperor Ashoka (3rd century BCE), we know that Buddhist representatives were travelling into the Greco-Roman world but we have little in the way of details.

According to Dio Chrysostom, writing in the late 1st century CE, communities from India and Bactria (a land roughly equivilient to Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan) were living in the ancient city of Alexandria (Discourses 32.40):

For I behold among you, not merely Greeks and Italians and people from neighbouring Syria, Libya, Cilicia, nor yet Ethiopians and Arabs from more distant regions, but even Bactrians and Scythians and Persians and a few Indians, and all these help to make up the audience in your theatre and sit beside you on each occasion.

We also know that the Christian writer, Clement of Alexandria (2nd-3rd century CE), offers us the first acknowledgement of Buddhist adherents in the Mediterranean world. He uses a phonetic spelling of Boutta to identify a specific group of philosophers (Stromata 1.15.71):

Some, too, of the Indians obey the precepts of Boutta [Buddha]; whom, on account of his extraordinary sanctity, they have raised to divine honours.

But what we do not have is direct evidence linking these two pieces of information together. We do not have direct evidence that any of the Indians and Bactrians of Alexandria were Buddhists, but there is a distinct possibility that there was a persistent community (Classquin-Johnson 2017, p. 351)

Clement’s is not the only account we have of a possible Buddhist presence in the wider Roman world. According to the Greco-Roman writer Dio Cassius, emperor Augustus received an Indian delegation sent by the king Porus in the 1st century CE, whilst visting the city of Athens; among the Indian entourage was a man by the name of Zarmaros (Histories 54.9.9):

One of the Indians, Zarmaros, for some reason wished to die, — either because, being of the caste of sages, he was on this account moved by ambition, or, in accordance with the traditional custom of the Indians, because of old age, or because he wished to make a display for the benefit of Augustus and the Athenians (for Augustus had reached Athens); — he was therefore initiated into the Mysteries of the two goddesses, which were held out of season on account, they say, of Augustus, who also was an initiate, and he then threw himself alive into the fire.

The story appears as a brief aside in the work of Plutarch, who mentions seeing Zarmaros’ tomb while in Athens. It also appears in more detail in the work of Strabo, who cites his source as Nicolaus of Damascus, who lived during the time this event occured. Strabo’s version gives a direct quote of the inscription from his tomb but gives a slightly different version of his name (Geography 15.1.73):

Zarmanochegas, an Indian, a native of Bargosa, having immortalized himself according to the custom of his country, here lies.

Some philologists believe that the name of the man seems to be made up of at least one Sanskrit word, in Hellenised form: sramana. Sramana is often thought to be a reference to a follower of Buddhism, but is more accurately a term that refers to ascetic religious groups which include Buddhism and Jainism. It is unlikely that Zarmanochegas was a Jain monk, as Jainism prohibits the making of fire, let alone using it to self immolate, making Buddhism the more likely religious affiliation (Radt 2009, p. 195); however, there is no academic consensus on this (Beckwith 2015, p. 252).

Conclusion

The critical mass of evidence seems to strongly suggest that Buddhists did live in ancient Egypt. From the written evidence we can see that Buddhism was a religion that was known about, especially by certain writers in Alexandria. We also have possible evidence for Buddhists travelling in the region as well.

What the written evidence fails to identify is a clear link between that knowledge of Buddhism and the permenant presence of Buddhists in the region; but this has now been partially answered by the archaeological evidence. The presence of Buddhist statues and inscriptions made in Berenike strongly points to a continued presence in ancient Egypt, but we cannot be certain if they were permanent residents or short time occupants.

It is for these reasons we have rated this claim as mostly true.