Born: Unknown (300s), Portugal (possibly)
Died: Unknown
Country most active: International
Also known as: Etheria or Aetheria
This biography was originally published in the World History Encyclopedia and was written by Joshua J. Mark. It is shared in line with the Encyclopedia’s policies under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Egeria (also known as Etheria, l. c. 380s) was a Christian traveler and writer known only from her work Itinerarium (also known as the Itinerarium Egeriae = Travels of Egeria). Based on the text, she was a woman of the upper class who went on pilgrimage to significant sites mentioned in the Bible. She traveled through the regions of modern-day Turkey, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and back to the region of Anatolia. Her work was popular enough to be copied and is recognized in the modern-day as completely unique for its time as it is a deeply personal account of Egeria’s travels while also providing insight into the condition of the sites she visited, how one traveled, and – since it was composed in Latin – how that language was written at the time.