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The History of the Peoples of the
Eastern Desert
(between the Red Sea and the Nile in Egypt and Sudan) from Prehistory to the Present Click
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Click here for the proceedings Click here for electronic summaries of all chapters |
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Abstracts | |||||||||||||
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Gidske
L. Andersen, Unifob Natural Sciences, Bergen (Norway):
Vegetation and Management Regime Continuity in the Eastern Desert The
Eastern Desert is among the most extreme deserts of the
world, but even so has supplied its local inhabitants and
their animals with sufficient resources to support their
pastoral lifestyle for millennia. The skills required to
survive and manage the desert environment in a sustainable
way is a vital part of the indigenous culture that leaves
few or ephemeral traces in the archaeological record.
Understanding this aspect of nomadic culture, and more
fully the lifestyle of the people, both at present and in
the past, thereby contributing essential information to
the history of the people, require basic knowledge of the
ecosystem and the key species that they depend upon.
In the
pastoral nomadic lifestyle the arboreal vegetation is a
key resource. The contracted vegetation pattern
characterizing the region today is the result of a
desiccation process that started around 5500 BP. The
Eastern Desert, however, remained and still is relatively
rich in trees, mainly due to the special
hydro-topographical conditions resulting from relatively
high mountains (up to 2000 m asl) and the vicinity of the
Red Sea. Nevertheless, the tree populations are
particularly vulnerable to changes in use, from a
sustainable utilization for fodder and fuel for local
consumption into commercial charcoal production that kills
trees. The preservation of mature trees, that can get
several centuries old, is of great importance because
these tree populations are governed by remnant population
dynamics. The tree population long-term survival depends
on extremely rare, but large recruitment events. For such
events to be successful there needs to be a constant input
of seeds from mature trees.
The
management regime traditionally used among pastoral nomads
in the region reflects a basic ecological knowledge to
sustain the resource base; killing green trees is not
allowed and the use of trees for fuel, building material,
fodder, etc. is done in a way that conserves trees, in
some cases even improving their survival and growth
conditions. There is a long-lasting cultural continuity in
resource management; the same management practices that
can be seen practiced in the Eastern Desert today are
depicted in sources dating to the Egyptian New Kingdom.
This
contribution will elaborate on the vegetation changes
that have taken place in the Eastern Desert since the
desiccation of Sahara and consider traditional
management practices in the light of the current
ecological understanding of arid lands.
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Suzan
Bakri
Hassan,
Assistant
Professor, Faculty of Tourism and Hotels, Fayum
University (Egypt):
Sustainable Desert Tourism: A Tool for Competition Desert areas need to
benefit from all opportunities created by tourism but,
given their fragility, appropriate regulations and
preservation mechanisms need to be put in place.
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Jitse H.F. Dijkstra, University of Ottawa (Canada): Blemmyes, Noubades and the Eastern Desert in Late Antiquity (4th-6th Centuries CE) Most textual sources on the Blemmyes date to the Late Antique period and place them not in the Eastern Desert, but in the Nile Valley. For In this
light I have recently reinterpreted the sources (Philae and the End of Ancient Egyptian
Religion, Leuven 2008). The resultant picture, of
an intricate web of tribes living side by side in the
Nile Valley for whom different interests were at stake
(such as tribal honor, cattle, trade, gods, etc.), will
be presented. It will be demonstrated that the few
surviving sources from the Blemmyes themselves (the
"inside sources") provide us with a more reliable, more
complex picture of the situation south of
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Mohamed
al-Aawah and Costanza De Simone, UNESCO Cairo Office
(Egypt):
The Establishment of a Trans-Boundary Biosphere Reserve in Wadi Allaqi Protected
areas
that
meet
across international boarders are referred to as "border
parks." Such parks provide ecological models as well as
political symbols of effective conservation and can be
used to promote peace, protect the environment, improve
resource management, and to preserve and enhance
cultural values. All these factors can contribute
greatly to the sustainable development of the indigenous
people, who live near or on both sides of international
boundaries and wander nomadically in search of available
grazing.
The Wadi Allaqi region, located in southern Egypt extending into northern Sudan, is a globally important eco-region. The area is bounded to the west by Lake Nasser and to the east by the Red Sea. It contains the largest desert valley (wadi) in the southeastern part of the Eastern Desert of Egypt with a length of 200 km, of which approximately 50 km is in Sudan. The Wadi Allaqi area possibly supports the highest plant biodiversity within the Eastern Desert, while fifteen species of globally endangered or threatened animals and birds are found in the area. Wadi Allaqi and its tributaries are also rich in archaeological remains. The contemporary inhabitants of the region are virtually unique. They are related to the Beja cultural group and speak an ancient, non-semitic language. Their material culture is distinct from that of the Nile Valley as well as from that of other Bedouin groups further north, retaining a rich heritage of folklore traditions (see Roe below). The region was declared a conservation area in 1989 with a protected status administered by the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency. Because Wadi Allaqi is an ecologically sensitive zone and a plan for its sustainable management and protection was necessary, UNESCO designated the area as a Biosphere Reserve in 1993 within the UNESCO Man and Biosphere Program (MAB). Since then, the UNESCO Cairo Office, through various collaborative initiatives at national, bilateral and international levels, has supported research and training activities to cover a wide range of issues related to arid zone ecology and resource use. For several years, the UNESCO Cairo Office has been seeking the establishment of a trans-boundary biosphere reserve in the Wadi Allaqi region as a border park. Such reserves contribute to the protection of the seriously threatened global biosphere. The creation of such a trans-boundary reserve will have a positive impact on the conservation of the natural resources, and provide sustainable development of the indigenous communities in the area. The creation of the trans-boundary biosphere reserve could be the first important step to the creation of a border park, within the framework of a worldwide program, "Parks for Peace," in unison with the other three unique eco-systems shared by Egypt and Sudan: Gebel Elba, the Red Sea, and Lake Nasser. |
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This
contribution intends to present a brief account of the
possible development of Pharaonic cultic activities in
the Egyptian and Nubian Eastern Desert. That
On the other hand, some remarks will be made regarding the necessity of questioning the real meaning of Pharaonic rock inscriptions. Even though several of these are obviously related to religious practices, many others were probably created in accordance to more secular intentions and activities. The separation between both functions can be inferred from a detailed record of the relation of rock inscriptions with the landscape (the natural features of the place where they were inscribed, the presence and date of other nearby rock inscriptions or representations, etc). In that sense, rock inscriptions will be more informative if they are better documented in relation to their location. |
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Jennifer
Gates-Foster,
Assistant
Professor,
Department of Classics, University of Texas at Austin
(USA):
The Ptolemaic Eastern Desert in its Theban Context Recent
archaeological surveys of the Egyptian Eastern Desert
between Edfu, Coptos and Berenike by the University of
Delaware and the University of Michigan have yielded
striking new evidence for Ptolemaic settlements and
activities in this region. Taken together with
archaeological material recovered from Berenike itself
and from sites in the Nile Valley, a new picture of
Ptolemaic-era interest in this area emerges. Patterns
observed in surface assemblages collected from a range
of site types, including mining settlements, road
stations and pottery scatters, suggest periods of
intense exploitation in the third and first centuries
BCE, with substantial variation in the quantity and
character of the desert deposits over time.
This
contribution synthesizes the current archaeological
evidence for site use in the Eastern Desert during the
Ptolemaic Period and considers how the resulting picture
intersects with our understanding of regional dynamics in
Thebes and Upper Egypt during the 300 years of Greek rule.
Drawing on observations gleaned from surface pottery, the
relationship between the desert sites and the economic and
political structures of the Nile Valley are explored, as
is the possible presence of groups not represented in the
recorded archaeological remains. These connections
demonstrate that the desert was an evolving "internal"
frontier between the Nile Valley and the Red Sea coastal
zone, punctuated by settlements supporting the
opportunistic exploitation of mineral resources and
dynamic roadways.
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Joost
L. Hagen, Graduate Student, Leiden University (the
Netherlands):
Beside Christian Nubia and Muslim Egypt: The Blemmyes or Beja Around 758-759 CE According to Written Sources from Qasr Ibrim This contribution presents new sources for the
history of the Blemmyes or Beja tribes of the Eastern
Desert: a dossier of five papyrus scroll letters from
the 8th century CE, excavated at Qasr Ibrim (Lower
Nubia) in 1972. One letter is in Arabic, the remaining
four are in Coptic, the vernacular of Christian Egypt
and one of the languages used in Late-Classical and
Medieval Nubia (5th-15th centuries CE). The Arabic
scroll has been published and commented on several
times; the Coptic ones have only been discussed in a
cursory fashion. I am currently preparing these four
letters for publication in my doctoral dissertation on
the Coptic texts from Qasr Ibrim, together with many
other documents. Thus far, my study of these papyri
has led me to disagree with several of the findings
that have been published about them in preliminary
reports and secondary literature.
The five letters, written round 758-759 CE, provide an insight into the political and economic contacts between Christian Nubia, the Kingdom of Nobatia (later Makuria) and Abbasid-period Muslim Egypt. They are important sources concerning the functioning of the baqt, the treaty that the Arabs concluded with the Nubians after failing to conquer them about a century earlier (640-650 CE). One of the recurrent themes in these five documents are the problems that both parties were having with nomads referred to as Blemmyes in the Coptic scrolls and Beja in the Arabic one. Indeed, these letters are the very source that was regarded as proof of the identification "Beja = Blemmyes" by the excavators and subsequent scholars. Several instances of raids by these nomads in southern Egypt and northern Nubia are mentioned in what seem to be unique sources relating to an otherwise little known period in the history of the Blemmyes or Beja: the 8th century CE. In my contribution, I propose to give the first balanced overview of the contents and possible significance of both the Arabic and the Coptic letters, focusing on the Blemmyes or Beja in the Egyptian-Nubian border region. |
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The Sinai
Peninsula has been an important geographical area in the
history of the Eastern
The
historic importance for the Mediterranean region has
affected the nature of the Sinai Peninsula as well as its
inhabitants, the Bedouin. The
origins of those tribes vary from those who have lived
there since antiquity to those who migrated at various
times from the
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Dirk Huyge, Royal Museums of Art and History, Brussels (Belgium): Proto-Bedouin? Eastern Desert Dwellers in the Late Palaeolithic and Epipalaeolithic Periods Whereas data for the This contribution focuses on the late Pleistocene and early Holocene rock art traditions of Qurta and al-Hosh in the Nile Valley. It |
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Michael
Jones, American Research Center in Egypt:
Nomadism and Monastic Life in the Eastern Desert of Egypt Monks who leave their homes in Egypt to withdraw into the desert attempt to emulate the ascetic lives of their ancient monastic fathers. The tradition of St. Paul living alone in the desert for 90 years has fostered a special relationship between his monastery and the Bedouin. The monks’ mobility as desert dwellers contrasts strikingly with those living in the Nile Valley, the "children of the countryside" (ahl al-rif). This is further elaborated with today’s improved communications as the monasteries engender other forms of mobility by the numerous organized visits and pilgrimages made to the monasteries on holidays and feasts. Recent demographic changes and increased contacts with the outside world have already altered the significance of the interconnections between the intra-mural and various extra-mural communities. It is now more important than ever to document and record the changing circumstances while there are still monks alive who remember the days before modernization. New possibilities for travel have simultaneously brought the monasteries into close proximity with the modern world outside the desert and provoked a withdrawal into greater self-reliance. |
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Konstantin
M. Klein, Graduate Student, Oxford University (UK):
To See or Not to See: Invisible Monks, Human Eyes and the Eastern Desert in Late Antique Hagiography Antony the Great (ca. 251-356 CE) was by far the most famous inhabitant of the Eastern Desert. The Vita, written down by Athanasius of Alexandria around 360 CE, became one of the best known works of Early Christian literature and was used as a model for the ascetic ideal of Late Antique Christianity. In the Vita, Athanasius frequently depicts Antony as an enthusiastic devotee to his anchoritic desert-life. But the desert between the Nile Valley and the Red Sea was to Antony much more than just a final retreat. He is described as deeply tied and connected to this spot, for "he fell in love with it as if it had been offered to him by God." This harsh environment developed into the conditio sine qua non of Antony’s ascetic struggle. The landscape allowed him, as well as other Egyptian ascetics (the so-called Desert Fathers and Desert Mothers), to be completely cut off from civilization and to become almost invisible to bothersome obstacles which they believed hindered their personal path to salvation. However, asceticism did not remain confined to the boundaries of Egypt. In the 250 years after Antony’s death around 356 CE, Christian asceticism spread over the Near East. Hundreds of miles north of the Eastern Desert, the Lives of the ascetics of Syria, Palestine and Anatolia were collected by Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Cyril of Scythopolis and John Moschos. This contribution investigates the question how the image of the desert as an ascetic dwelling place of perfect solitude was further developed in the Lives following Athanasius’ Life of Antony. The focus is especially on areas where the circumstances for the Early Christian ascetics were far less harsh than in the Egyptian Eastern Desert. I will demonstrate that the image of the Eastern Desert remains crucial to the genre of ascetic Lives, even after ascetic life began to move to more inhabitable desert zones. The descriptions of Antony’s desert and the Egyptian wilderness were substituted by literary topoi. The natural attributes of the desert were substituted by supernatural descriptions often referring to the vocabulary of sensory perception. Especially the metaphors of visibility and invisibility, which occurs in the vast majority of the later Lives, reminiscence Antony’s desert. |
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Jonatan
Krzywinski,
Institute
of
Archaeology, History, Cultural and Religious Studies,
Bergen (Norway):
The Culture of the Blemmyes: A Graeco-Roman Construct or a Genuine Desert Culture? In the
Eastern Desert and the Red Sea Hills there are a number
of sites with durable, well-constructed buildings which
have been under discussion for some years now. These
include, among others, sites near Berenike, Shenshef and
Hitan Rayan; near the emerald mines at Mons Smaragdus;
and similar sites in the Wadi Jumal area. There are,
moreover, similar sites in the Red Sea Hills in Sudan
and the southernmost
sites
with
such
buildings found so far is in the Sinkat Haya region. About 7 km
south of Tabot, partly excavated by Anwar Magid in 1995, there is another set of these
buildings at
Samadi. At
Nubt, a similar distance to the east, there is a
stratified sequence of such buildings associated with
tumulus graves (ekratels)
which also remain to be excavated.
The
debate about these villages concentrated on who built
them and who controlled the areas around them when they
were in use. Relevant written material is scarce and
often general in character. About the emerald mines in
the north Olympiodorus (around 423 CE) tells us that the
king of the Blemmyes controlled access to them. For the
rest of the area we have no written sources that
identify these sites or their inhabitants. A key point in this discussion is
the question of who the Blemmyes were in light of our
static perceptions of nomadic people as weakly organized
and dispersed groups with no strong central organization
and identity.
This
contribution brings to this discussion the organization
of the Beja and how their flexible society linked to
various layers of tribal identity oppose our static
perception of nomadic societies. I focus on how Beja
identity structure and social organization is stratified
by circumstances in the light of contemporary strands of
a tradition that links desert people from south to north
in the very area indicated in the written sources as the
land of the Blemmyes.
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Knut Krzywinski,
Professor, University of Bergen (Norway):
The Eastern Desert Tombs and Continuity in Funerary Cult Nomadic
people do not leave the same type, amount, or
concentration of debris as sedentary people and
ephemeral traces of desert dwellers often appear
difficult to understand. The desert does, however,
preserves such remains and exposes them in its never
changing scenery. The most prominent remains of Eastern
Desert people are graves scattered all over the desert.
The oldest graves found in the Eastern Desert proper are ring-formed. Such graves (pan-graves) are attributed to the Medjay and are best known from the fringes of the Nile Valley in Upper Egypt. Such graves are, however, frequent in the Sudanese Red Sea Mountains and adjacent desert valleys (wadis). Situated in the sandy or gravel-filled wadis, on gentle slopes and on the plains, they vary in architecture. They occur with and without a central superstructure and with single or double rings. Not infrequently the space between these rings is filled with gravel to form a wall. Flash floods (seyls) that have cut though several such graves exposed skeletons in contracted position. The most prominent tombs in the area from the ancient Coptos-Myos Hormos road in the north to Suakin in the south are, however, the tumulus graves that the Sudanese Beja call "ekratel." These represent an area-specific and common burial tradition. It is unclear whether or not the ekratels are a development of the pan-grave rings, but the characteristic ring of large flagstones around and leaning against the outer wall strengthens the visual association with pan-graves. While most Egyptian ekratels have been robbed, most Sudanese ones are intact and highly respected by the population. The so-called "fishtail ekratels" with a similar type of masonry are rare, distinctive and complicated structures found mainly in the Sinkat-Haya area in Sudan. These may date to the early medieval period. There is, as far as we know, no counterpart in the western and northern part of the Eastern Desert. This contribution focuses on cultural continuity, not only in the spatial and temporal distribution of Eastern Desert grave cults, but also on the fact that different grave types may be located and associated with Muslim tribal graveyards that are still in use. It also highlights, as traditional links to the past, the ekratels as places for secondary burial and their similar distribution to that of modern sheiks' tombs. |
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Francis
Lankester,
Graduate
Student,
University of Durham (UK):
Rock Art in Egypt's Eastern Desert Many boat petroglyphs have been recorded in
the
On the basis of analogy with dated motifs
in the
Most boats are simple hull depictions and
dating is often problematic. However, a number have a
distinctive incurved lay-out and are associated with
human figures with raised arms analogous to those
depicted on D-Ware pottery (Naqada II, ca. 3600-3300
BCE). This contribution provides an overview of the
published rock art from the Eastern Desert and touches
upon unpublished and related motifs in the Kom Ombo
drainage basin. It describes the distribution and
subject of the motifs and proposes interpretations of
the
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Gábor Lassányi, Aquincum Museum, Budapest (Hungary): On the Archaeology of
the Late Antique Population of the Eastern Desert
The last two decades have seen a
significant increase in published information on the
archaeological sites in the Eastern Desert dating to Late
Antiquity (3rd-7th centuries CE). The first part of this
contribution focuses on what data is currently available in
the literature on the material culture of the native populations inhabiting the
Eastern Desert in Late Antiquity.
Between 1998 and 2003 a Hungarian archaeological expedition, lead by Prof.Dr. Ulrich Luft, documented and excavated a Late Antique "deep desert" settlement with associated cemetery in Bir Minih (Egypt). Using Bir Minih as a case study, I will present a comprehensive answer on the origin and function of many similar "enigmatic settlements" scattered throughout the Eastern Desert in Egypt and Sudan. I will also discuss the burial traditions of the native population of the desert, comparing the deep desert sites with the cemeteries on the edge of the Nile Valley. Cemeteries
like
al-Moalla,
Elkab
and Kalabsha South, as well as Wadi Qitna, on the edge of the
desert offer good opportunities to observe Late Antique
interactions
between
the
desert-dwellers
and the settled populations in the Nile Valley. In these area,
particularly al-Moalla and Kalabsha South, the connection between archaeological
data and written sources can also be probed.
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Rageh
Z.
Mohamed,
Curator,
Nubian Museum, Aswan (Egypt):
Nabataeans in the Eastern
Desert During the Roman Period
As the
Nabataeans grew in power and wealth, they attracted the
attention of their neighbors. Diodorus reports,
presumably on the authority of Agatharchides of Cnidus,
on the growth of the Nabataean economy after they took
to piracy on the Red Sea. Strabo also makes reference to
this when he writes: "these Nabataeans formerly lived a
peaceful life, but later by means of rafts took to
plundering the vessels of people sailing from Egypt on
the Red Sea." In 106 CE, Cornelius Palma, Trajan's
legate in Syria, moved against Petra and crushed the
Nabataean Kingdom. Petra was included in the Roman
province of Arabia, and the Nabataeans melted away into
the shadows of the history.
The
Nabataeans were Arabs who used an Aramaic dialect as is
evident from many of the names mentioned in their
inscriptions. It is noteworthy that the Arabs did not
come only to the Sinai Peninsula during the first
century BCE and the first centuries CE, but also into
Egypt. This can be inferred from the inscriptions in the
Wadi Hammamat, at Qusur al-Banat, al-Hamra, Bir
al-Nakhel, Bir Umm Enab, Bir Umm Dalfa, and many other
sites both the north and south. Most of the graffiti
seems to have been hastily scratched into the rocks
alongside the main valleys between the Nile and the Red
Sea. The Nabataean inscriptions at Qusur al-Banat are
near the watering station (hydreuma); the inscriptions at
al-Hamra are on one of the doorposts of the hydreuma.
The word "cameleers" appears frequently in the
inscriptions which were most likely made by ancient
traders who, after landing at one of the ports on the
Red Sea, followed the Wadi Hammamat to reach the Nile
Valley at Qift.
One must
pose the questions why the Nabataean Kingdom developed
in such an extraordinary way and what role the Red Sea
played in that development? Also, which points on either
side of the Red Sea were effectively part of the
Nabataean sphere? The Nabataean administrative center
certainly provided a forceful stimulus, but the main
reasons must have been social and economical. Vital to
the development was the location of the Kingdom at the
meeting point of several geopolitical regions, and near
the main land- and waterways connecting those. The role
of the Red Sea, which provided an effective route for
goods from Arabia Felix and beyond, should not be
neglected. The importance of the cities along the caravan
route brought about Nabataean domination over the
north Arabian oases. As they controlled the nodes in
the most important trade routes of the time, the
Nabateans had contact with all the ancient empires and
kingdoms. Many aspects of Nabataean history, not known
through Nabataean sources, can thus be studied from
the reports of their neighbors.
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Claudia Näser,
Professor, Humboldt University
Berlin (Germany):
Nomads at the Nile: Towards an Archaeology of Interaction When searching for early nomadic
societies in Africa, a most relevant group are the
so-called Pan-Grave People. Their homeland is considered
to be the desert east of the Nile Valley. In this vast
and widely unexplored region they could, however, not
yet be archaeologically proven. Instead, known sites are
concentrated on the edges of the Lower Nubian and
Egyptian Nile Valley. Habitation sites are rare and the
main database form over 50 cemeteries, distributed over
more than 30 sites from Middle Egypt to southern Lower
Nubia. Additionally, pan-grave pottery has come up in
Egyptian and C-group contexts. Information about the
Pan-Grave People derives from these finds and a limited
number of ancient Egyptian texts. This material forms
the basis for the socio-economic classification of the
Pan-Grave People as nomadic as well as the superficial
descriptions of their social, cultural and economic
constitution that have been presented so far.
This contribution focuses on four aspects: 1) The methodological implications of the fact that the sources on the Pan-Grave People derive not from their "normal existence," but rather from a hybrid context, namely a specific contact situation. Additionally, the Egyptian texts are not "personal testimonials," but "second-hand information." 2) A general evaluation and critical analysis of these sources as to their informational contents. 3) A short review of the social, economic and cultural constitution of the Pan-Grave People. 4) A discussion of the scenario prominent in the available sources, namely the interaction of the Pan-Grave People with their neighbors in the Nile Valley, the Egyptian society and the C-group, specifically addressing the axiom of a nomadic-sedentary symbiosis and picturing the Pan-Grave People as active agents in this context. |
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Richard Holton Pierce, Professor, University of
Bergen (Norway):
The Blemmyes, by Any Other Name... The
focus of this contribution is on ethnicity and cultural
continuities among peoples attested in the Eastern
Desert of Egypt and Sudan during roughly the last two
millennia. Primary written sources are of greatest
concern, but their associations with archaeological
remains are also addressed.
In this context, ethnicity is construed as a set of socially defined identities elicited by interaction across a spectrum of actors ranging from individuals to collectivities of differing scale. Particular attention is paid to the factors that elicit identity and to the perspectives of the sources. The ethnicity of the people referred to as Blemmyes is elaborated as a case in point inasmuch as they feature prominently among the written sources and have been the subject of recent publications. The paucity of those sources in relation to the time span and geographical extent of the scope of the discussion is also considered, and the usefulness of a cultural landscape approach for the integration of the disparate sources for the Eastern Desert is emphasized. |
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Krzysztof Pluskota, Archaeologist (Sweden): Bir Nurayet: A Rock Art Gallery in the Red Sea Hills In
December 1997, a team of two travelers, Arita Baaijens
(biologist) and the author (archaeologist) left
al-Damar, in the Sudanese Nile Valley, for a six week
walk through the Nubian Desert to Mohammed Qol, on the
Red Sea coast; a distance of more than 500 km as the
crow flies. The caravan, however, had to follow paths
through desert valleys (wadies) and
passed dispersed wells (birs), so that
the trip finally covered about 900 km. Our visit was
intended as a reconnaissance of the vast areas of the
A second trip was undertaken in December 1998. This time the route led the team through the mountains near the border between Sudan and Egypt. On New Year’s Eve of 1999, the team reached Bir Nurayet, a well of great importance to the camel breeders of the area. The stopover, which was intended to give our dromedaries and their offspring time to feed and relax, led to the discovery of a huge gallery, or a combination of several galleries of petroglyphs. Cliffs, boulders and stones in the small, labyrinth-like valley adjacent to Wadi Diib are covered by hundreds of representations of cattle, sheep, dromedaries, game animals and people. The unique landscape, a solitary monolith (Gebel Magardi) dominating Wadi Diib at Bir Nurayet, seems to provide an answer as to why this place was chosen by pastoralists to leave rock drawings of their livestock for millennia. The presence at Bir Nurayet of a large number of depictions of cows is the first clear indication of the existence of life-stock raising in the Red Sea Hills of northern Sudan around the fifth millennium BP. The discovery of the rock art gallery at Bir Nurayet was immediately reported to the National Corporation of Antiquities and Museums, and steps for systematical research at the site were undertaken. |
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Tim Power, Graduate Student, University of Oxford (UK): The Material Culture and Economic Rationale of Sedentary Arabs in the Late Roman Eastern Desert of Egypt The
settlement at Shenshef is located about 20 km. southwest
of the Graeco-Roman emporium of Berenike in the Egyptian
Eastern Desert. The site has attracted a fair amount of
attention, owing partially to its unusual courtyard
houses and hill-top shrines, and moreover advertises no
obvious function, such as mining or farming. Early
explorers interpreted the site as an autumn retreat for
the population of Berenike or else as a medieval Arab
slavers' station. Recent examination of the site
suggests a 5th-6th century CE date, on the basis of
ceramic analysis, and notes that "it is still not clear
whether the population consisted of Romans, a Romanized
local population (Blemmyes?) or a combination."
There are, however, problems with the "Romano-Blemmyes" hypothesis. The housing typology of Shenshef has no parallels in the Romano-Egyptian architectural tradition, nor does an association with the essentially nomadic Blemmyes makes sense, especially if certain of the "enigmatic settlements" in the late Roman Eastern Desert and Nubia are interpreted as Blemmyes architecture. Instead, excellent comparenda can be found in the domestic architecture of Arabia. Whilst the pre-Islamic Arabian Peninsula remains poorly known archaeologically, the historically attested Arab population in late antique Syria has been convincingly linked to the site of Umm Jimal, and an undoubtedly Arab domestic architecture has been unearthed in post-conquest layers at Sétif in Algeria. The housing typology further fits with descriptions of the Prophet's house at Medina, and remained current in the Red Sea region as late as the Ottoman period at Suakin and Jeddah. The parallels between the architectural traditions of Arabia and the courtyard houses of Shenshef are striking and borne out in the particulars, as will be shown. This raises the possibility that the population of Shenshef was of Arab extraction. Finally, it remains to consider the historical circumstance of a pre-Islamic Arab involvement in the Red Sea and Eastern Desert. The Red Sea island of Iotabê was captured from the Romans and held for a number of years by the Saracen pirate Amorkesos, suggesting the power of the Arab maritime presence. The Yemenis have a long-standing tradition of sea voyaging, and were found in Sri Lanka by Cosmas Indicopleustes and in Aila at the time of its capitulation to the Prophet. At Berenike, dates have been accorded an Arabian provenance, but Arabia was also known for its leather and gold exports, which have perhaps not been recognized. As for Arabia's principal imports, aside from manufactured goods and Egyptian grain, it is clear from that slave trade was flourishing, with Nubia as a likely source of many of these unfortunates. It is perhaps this, more than anything else, which provided the economic rationale for an Arab mercantile colony in the Eastern Desert of Egypt. |
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Andreas
Reichert, University of Tübingen (Germany):
Rock Art in the Sinai and the Eastern Desert: A Methodological Approach The abundance of rock engravings was astonishing, especially as only two of them appeared to have been published previously by E. Anati, a renowned specialist on Arabian and Sinai rock art (although he erroneously attributed one of the two to a different region). |
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Anna-Katharina
Rieger,
Martin-Luther-University
Halle
Wittenberg (Germany) and Thomas Vetter, University
of Greifswald (Germany):
The Desert Dwellers of the Marmarica (Western Desert) as a Case Study for the Eastern Desert The scarce ecological
resources make the Marmarica on the Northern fringe of
the Libyan Desert, embedded between Cyrenaica and the
Data about water and
soil harvesting systems, agricultural production as well
as the extension and utilization of rangelands, the
route network and the necessary waypoints at cisterns
(all mainly of Greco-Roman age) were compiled. The
combination of methods like satellite image remote
sensing, geographical, pedological and archaeological
surveys and analysis, as well as “classical”
archaeological field work yielded a broad spectrum of
results. They enable to reconstruct adapted economic
strategies by which the scarce resources of the region
were utilized most efficiently by combining sedentary
and nomadic life-styles and give for the first time a
detailed view of ancient life in the northern part of
the
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Alan
Roe, Research Adjunct, Charles Darwin University
(Australia):
Change and Adaptation in Natural Resources Exploitation among Beja Communities of Wadi Allaqi The southern part of the Egyptian
Eastern Desert has been occupied and utilized by
nomadic populations for thousands of years (see De
Simone and al-Aawah above). At different times and in
different ways, desert dwellers have interacted with
and settled among neighboring populations along the
desert fringes, possibly responding to economic
opportunity or changing conditions in the desert.
The basis for life in the Eastern Desert is a sophisticated understanding of the natural environment and its potential for human exploitation. This contribution examines how Ababda and Bishareen communities along the tributaries of the Wadi Allaqi traditionally managed natural resources to sustain a desert livelihood. It further considers how patterns of natural resources exploitation may be modified in response to both short and longer term environmental change, considering the recent examples of localized drought and the emergence of new ecological systems following the creation of Lake Nasser. Evidence suggests that within a delicately balanced system of resource use, even relatively small modifications may result in corporate re-organization and displacement within desert communities. It is postulated that recognition of this process of adaptation may be relevant to understanding episodic shifts in how desert communities have historically interacted with their neighbors. |
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Barbara
Tratsaert, University of Gent (Belgium):
Wadi Bakariya: A
Roman Gold Mine Settlement in the Eastern Desert
of Egypt
Wadi
Bakariya
lies
in
the central portion of the Egyptian Eastern Desert,
along the asphalt road from Edfu to Marsa Alam on the
Red Sea coast. The settlement covers an area of 3,4
km² consisting of five parallel valleys (wadis),
intersected by narrow side wadis. The site is named
after the wadi that cuts the site in half; the mine
was found to be on top of primary deposits with some
minor alluvial pits near outcropping veins.
The
organization of the mining settlement was inferred from
six distinctive areas designated to industrial,
administrative and domestic functions, and most probably
also for religious purposes, with indications for at least
two phases. During Phase I the mine was an enlargement of
the wadi at the center of the site; the mine expanded to
its current perimeters in Phase II. Each section has its
own type of architecture; administration and defensive
buildings are near the centre of the mine, residential
buildings in the southeast section of the settlement,
while industrial architecture covers large parts of the
site.
Open
trenches and two shafts show the location of the once
auriferous veins. A large number of stone tools have
been discovered on site. These are three types of
grinding stones, saddle querns (most likely the oldest
querns on site), rotating querns and a third type most
likely used for milling grain, as well as hammers,
pounders, polishing stones and anvils. The washing
tables, which have previously been mentioned to be
present in Wadi Bakariya, and also furnaces are yet to
be found.
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Pierre
M. Vermeersch, Professor, Catholic University Leuven
(Belgium):
Contributions to the Understanding of the Prehistory of the Egyptian Eastern Desert The
Belgian Middle Egypt Prehistoric Project of the Catholic
University Leuven has organized, during the last decade,
a restricted survey in a limited area of the Egyptian
Eastern Desert. This resulted in the discovery and
excavations of prehistoric sites dating to very
different time periods.
Excavations in the Sodmein area, near Safaga, provided some data on the Middle Palaeolithic. In addition to some surface sites, the most important data were recovered from Sodmein Cave. This gave us a stratigraphic sequence of occupation by Middle Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers, mainly during the last Interglacial. Faunal and botanical remains provided elements for the reconstruction of the environment during that period. The lithics can be compared with what has been recorded in the Nile Valley. A rather well preserved surface site on the right bank of Wadi Bili, near al-Gouna, with a typical Levallois assemblage, seems to integrate into the Middle Palaeolithic in which a laminar flaking technology is already observed. Its chronological position remains unclear. During the Oxygen Isopic Stage 4-2 (OIS or MIS 4-2: 110,000-12,000 ka) the area was deserted by humans. Indeed, no occupation remains have been localized, with the possible exception of Level 2 from the Sodmein sequence. If this hypothesis is correct, it implies that the "out of Africa" hypothesis for modern humans, that is so often is correlated with a route along the Red Sea, is difficult to maintain. Reoccupation of the area started around 8000 BP with the Epipalaeolithic occupation of the Tree Shelter, near Safaga. In this small shelter the stratigraphic sequence starts with a microlithic assemblage, attributed to the Elkabian. The assemblage, associated with a subsistence still entirely based on hunting and gathering, points to contacts with the Nile Valley and the Western Desert. However, no ceramics are associated with this occupation. The remains of ovicaprid herders appear around 7000 BP in the Sodmein cave as well as in the Tree Shelter. Ceramics are present but rare. The youngest occupation is probably related to the Tasian or the Badarian. At both sites, the prehistoric visits came to and end around 5000 BP. Along the coast, near al-Gouna,
the presence of shell mounds from around 5000 BP is
attested. In Wadi Bili, Stein Plätze from the same time
period have been recognized. At the Rens Shelter, near the
Sodmein Cave, a large assemblage of flaked flint was
found in association with a hearth. From this site a
small sculpture, apparently representing a human foot
in white translucent calcite-alabaster, was found. A
radiocarbon date suggests that the area was
occasionally used by people who, around 1250 CE
(cal.), still used flint as a major raw material.
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Petra Weschenfelder, Graduate Student, Humboldt
University Berlin (Germany):
Prolegomena to the Ethnohistory of the Eastern Desert Dwellers In recent years archaeologists
working in Northeast Africa
have
become increasingly interested in the desert east of the
Nile Valley and excavations have contributed
significantly to our knowledge of the Eastern Desert
dwellers. However, the rich corpus of ethnohistorical
data on the contemporary peoples of the Eastern Desert,
the various Beja groups, has received little attention,
although interconnections between the modern and ancient
Eastern Desert dwellers have been proposed.
Ethnohistorical sources on the peoples of the Eastern Desert include cultural anthropological accounts compiled during the 1970-80s, detailed reports of British government administrators from the beginning of the 20th century, books written by European travelers in the 18th-19th centuries, as well as descriptions by Arab writers dating back to the Middle Ages. These provide not only vivid accounts of Beja life, but also include information on the settlement areas of the various Beja groups, on the routes taken during their transhumance cycles and on the tracks used for trading. As the sources also point to various political and environmental shifts in the region, they allow for the partial reconstruction of the history of the Beja people. The written accounts are of great interest to archaeologists, as their critical use may provide a more solid foundation for the interpretation of various archaeological data in the region, while they indicate areas that merit new archaeological projects. In my contribution I will follow some of the pathways created by preceding scholars. By focusing one specific geographical area of the Eastern Desert, I will present a range of sources dealing the Beja nomadic life. Step by step I will show how these sources contribute to the (ethno)history of this region and which potential they hold for the archaeological research of the Eastern Desert. |
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Netherlands-Flemish Institute
in Cairo 1, Sharia Dr. Mahmoud Azmi 11211 Zamalek, Cairo Arab Republic of Egypt |
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Cotsen Institute of Archaeology
at UCLA PO-Box 951510 Los Angeles, CA 90095 United States of America |
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