The Theban Desert Road Survey is an archaeological research project operated in conjunction with the Egyptian Ministry of Culture's Supreme Council for Antiquities that is being conducted in the Western Desert in Egypt that focuses on the ancient connections between Thebes and such settlements as the Kharga Oasis. The project uses remote sensing to identify roads and caravan trails that were used in antiquity to identify possible sites of previously unknown communities. [1] Established in 1991 by Egyptologists Deborah Darnell and her then-husband John Coleman Darnell, the survey project grew substantially when it gained the support of Yale University in 1998. [1] The Theban Desert Road Survey has discovered sites from Predynastic Egypt, including substantial caches of pottery and other artifacts. [1]
The project was begun by Deborah Darnell and John Coleman Darnell, who started searching along caravan trails in the Western Desert west of Luxor in the early 1990s under an approach they described as desert road archaeology. [2] [3] Among their discoveries are inscriptions found at Wadi el-Hol, dating back 3,800 years, which are in the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet, some of the earliest known examples of phonetic alphabetic writing, in contrast to the pictographs used in Egyptian hieroglyphs. [4] [1]
In 2010, Zahi Hawass announced that the team had found a 218 acres (88 ha) site of a major residential and military center at Kharga Oasis at the end of the Girga Road dating back 3,500 years, the earliest known urban development in the Egyptian desert. The initial finds were made around the year 2000 providing evidence of a Persian outpost near a temple dating to over 2,500 years old, which led the Darnells to conclude that the site must be one of some importance. Other finds at the site showed pottery that indicated that there had been trade over a wide area and that there had been intensive baking operations and "large-scale ceramic production", all signs that the site had been a major settlement in antiquity. [1]
At the site named Umm Mawagir (أم مواجير,"mother of bread molds" in Arabic), the Darnells discovered a substantial cache of bread molds, grinding stones and other baking implements, with a total of 1,000 lb of objects found, more than enough material to be "baking enough bread to feed an army" at a site with a population in the thousands during the period from 1650 BCE to 1550 BCE, a thousand years before any other known settlement in the area of the Kharga Oasis. The site "completely explains the rise and importance of Thebes", as that city's control over the oasis communities to its west at Kharga and Dakhla Oasis allowed it to retain control of the area and to avoid the incursions of the Hyksos who controlled the Nile Delta to the north and the Nubian people of Kerma to the south. [1] [5]
Thebes, known to the ancient Egyptians as Waset, was an ancient Egyptian city located along the Nile about 800 kilometers (500 mi) south of the Mediterranean. Its ruins lie within the modern Egyptian city of Luxor. Thebes was the main city of the fourth Upper Egyptian nome and was the capital of Egypt for long periods during the Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom eras. It was close to Nubia and the Eastern Desert, with its valuable mineral resources and trade routes. It was a cult center and the most venerated city during many periods of ancient Egyptian history. The site of Thebes includes areas on both the eastern bank of the Nile, where the temples of Karnak and Luxor stand and where the city was situated; and the western bank, where a necropolis of large private and royal cemeteries and funerary complexes can be found. In 1979, the ruins of ancient Thebes were classified by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.
Hannu, Hennu or Henenu was an Egyptian noble, serving as m-r-pr "majordomo" to Mentuhotep III in the 20th century BC. He reportedly re-opened the trade routes to Punt and Libya for the Middle Kingdom of Egypt. He was buried in a tomb in Deir el-Bahri, in the Theban Necropolis, which has been catalogued as TT313.
Dakhla Oasis, is one of the seven oases of Egypt's Western Desert. Dakhla Oasis lies in the New Valley Governorate, 350 km (220 mi.) from the Nile and between the oases of Farafra and Kharga. It measures approximately 80 km (50 mi) from east to west and 25 km (16 mi) from north to south.
Sehertawy Intef I was a local nomarch at Thebes during the early First Intermediate Period and the first member of the 11th Dynasty to lay claim to a Horus name. Intef reigned from 4 to 16 years c. 2120 BC or c. 2070 BC during which time he probably waged war with his northern neighbor, the Coptite nomarch Tjauti. Intef was buried in a saff tomb at El-Tarif, known today as Saff el-Dawaba.
Proto-Sinaitic is considered the earliest trace of alphabetic writing and the common ancestor of both the Ancient South Arabian script and the Phoenician alphabet, which led to many modern alphabets including the Greek alphabet. According to common theory, Canaanites or Hyksos who spoke a Semitic language repurposed Egyptian hieroglyphs to construct a different script. The script is attested in a small corpus of inscriptions found at Serabit el-Khadim in the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt, dating to the Middle Bronze Age.
The Kharga Oasislit. 'the outer'; Coptic: (ϯ)ⲟⲩⲁϩ ⲛ̀ϩⲏⲃ(di)wah enhib, "Oasis of Hib", (ϯ)ⲟⲩⲁϩ ⲙ̀ⲯⲟⲓ(di)wah empsoi "Oasis of Psoi") is the southernmost of Egypt's five western oases. It is located in the Western Desert, about 200 km to the west of the Nile valley. "Kharga" or "El Kharga" is also the name of a major town located in the oasis, the capital of New Valley Governorate. The oasis, which was known as the 'Southern Oasis' to the Ancient Egyptians and Oasis Magna to the Romans, is the largest of the oases in the Libyan desert of Egypt. It is in a depression about 160 km long and from 20 km to 80 km wide. Its population is 67,700 (2012).
The year 1999 in archaeology involved some significant events.
Nubkheperre Intef was an Egyptian king of the Seventeenth Dynasty of Egypt at Thebes during the Second Intermediate Period, when Egypt was divided by rival dynasties including the Hyksos in Lower Egypt.
The Valley of the Kings, also known as the Valley of the Gates of the Kings, is a valley in Egypt where, for a period of nearly 500 years from the 16th to 11th century BC, rock-cut tombs were excavated for the pharaohs and powerful nobles of the New Kingdom.
Herbert Eustis Winlock was an American Egyptologist and archaeologist, employed by the Metropolitan Museum of Art for his entire career. Between 1906 and 1931 he took part in excavations at El-Lisht, Kharga Oasis and around Luxor, before serving as director of the Metropolitan Museum from 1932 to 1939.
The stone quarries of ancient Egypt once produced quality stone for the construction of decorative monuments such as sculptures and obelisks. These quarries are now recognised archaeological sites. Eighty percent of the ancient quarry sites are in the Nile valley; some of them have disappeared under the waters of Lake Nasser and some others were lost due to modern mining activity.
Wadi Hammamat is a dry river bed in Egypt's Eastern Desert, about halfway between Al-Qusayr and Qena. It was a major mining region and trade route east from the Nile Valley in ancient times, and three thousand years of rock carvings and graffiti make it a major scientific and tourist site today.
Wadi el-Hol is a valley on the Farshut Road, north-west of Luxor on the Qena Bend, situated on the west bank of the river Nile in Egypt. Rock inscriptions in the valley appear to show the oldest examples of phonetic alphabetic writing discovered to date.
John Coleman Darnell is an American Egyptologist.
Colleen Darnell is an American Egyptologist. Her areas of expertise include Late Period uses of the Underworld Books, ancient Egyptian military history, the literature of New Kingdom Egypt, and Egyptian revival history.
Tjauti was an ancient Egyptian official who lived at the end of the Eighth Dynasty, around 2150 BC. He is known from a number of sources providing evidence that he was an important figure in the Coptic Nome in Upper Egypt. However, the sources are often broken and the figure of Tjauti remains therefore enigmatic. The most important objects naming Tjauti are the fragments of a false door found near Khozam where he is called overseer of Upper Egypt, which was one of the most important titles in the Old Kingdom. He is also called the one who fills the heart of the king showing some close connection to the royal court. A person called Tjauti-iqer also appears in several inscriptions in the Wadi Hammamat, reporting the transport of stones: Tjauti-iqer seems to be a variant of the name. The inscriptions also mentions the god's father Idy, who was the son of Shemay. Shemay lived at the end of the Eighth Dynasty providing also a date for Tjauti to about the same period.
F. W. "Chip" Dobbs-Allsopp is a biblical scholar, epigrapher, and literary theorist. Currently professor of Old Testament, or Hebrew Bible, at Princeton Theological Seminary, he has taught and written extensively on Semitic languages, the origins of alphabetic writing, biblical poetry, poetics, and literary criticism.
Gebel Tjauti is a rock formation in Egypt. The rock is named after Tjauti, an ancient Egyptian official who lived at the end of the Eighth Dynasty, around 2150 BC.
Darb El Arba'īn is the easternmost of the great north–south Trans-Saharan trade routes. The Darb El Arba'īn route was used to move trade goods, livestock and slaves via a chain of oases from the interior of Africa to portage on the Nile River and thence to the rest of the world.