Desert Road Archaeology - Hypotheses

Desert Road

Archaeology

H E I N R I C H - B A R T H - I N S T I T U T

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A F R I C A P R A E H I S T O R I C A2 7

Monographien zur Archäologie und Umwelt Afrikas

Monographs on African Archaeology and Environment

Monographies sur l’Archéologie et l’Environnement d’Afrique

Edited by Rudolph Kuper

Institut für Ur- und Frühgeschichte der Universität zu Köln

Forschungsstelle Afrika

Edited by Frank Förster & Heiko Riemer

in Ancient Egypt and Beyond

H E I N R I C H - B A R T H - I N S T I T U T

Desert Road Archaeology

© HEINRICH-BARTH-INSTITUT e.V., Köln 2013Jennerstr. 8, D–50823 Köln

http://www.hbi-ev.uni-koeln.de

This book is in copyright. No reproduction of any part may take place without the written permissionof the publisher.

Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Bibliothek

The Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in theDeutsche Nationalbibliographie; detailed bibliographicdata are available on the Internet at http://dnb.ddb.de

Financed by Heinrich-Barth-Institut e.V.

Printed in Germany by Hans Kock GmbH, BielefeldTypeset and layout: Heiko RiemerCopy editors: Elizabeth Hart and Rachel Herbert

Set in Palatino

ISBN 978-3-927688-41-4ISSN 0947-2673

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Prologue by Rudolph Kuper

Foreword by Steven E. Sidebotham

Editors’ preface

Introduction

1 Heiko Riemer & Frank Förster

Ancient desert roads: Towards establishing a new field of archaeological research

Methods, approaches, and historical perspectives

2 Olaf Bubenzer & Andreas Bolten

Top down: New satellite data and ground-truth data as base for a reconstructionof ancient caravan routes. Examples from the Western Desert of Egypt

3 Heiko Riemer

Lessons in landscape learning: The dawn of long-distance travel and navigationin Egypt’s Western Desert from prehistoric to Old Kingdom times

4 Heidi Köpp

Desert travel and transport in ancient Egypt. An overview based on epigraphic, pictorial and archaeological evidence

5 Klaus Peter Kuhlmann

The realm of “two deserts”: Siwah Oasis between east and west

6 Meike Meerpohl

Footprints in the sand: Recent long-distance camel trade in the Libyan Desert(northeast Chad/southeast Libya)

7 Frank Förster, Heiko Riemer & Moez Mahir, with an appendix by Frank Darius

Donkeys to El-Fasher or how the present informs the past

Contents

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Roads and regions I: Egypt’s Western Desert, and Bayuda

8 John Coleman Darnell, with the assistance of Deborah Darnell

The Girga Road: Abu Ziyâr, Tundaba, and the integration of the southern oases into the Pharaonic state

9 Corinna Rossi & Salima Ikram

Evidence of desert routes across northern Kharga (Egypt’s Western Desert)

10 Laure Pantalacci

Broadening horizons: Distant places and travels in Dakhla and the Western Desert at the end of the 3rd millennium

11 Frank Förster

Beyond Dakhla: The Abu Ballas Trail in the Libyan Desert (SW Egypt)

12 Stan Hendrickx, Frank Förster & Merel Eyckerman

The Pharaonic pottery of the Abu Ballas Trail: ‘Filling stations’ along a deserthighway in southwestern Egypt

13 András Zboray

Prehistoric trails in the environs of Karkur Talh, Jebel Uweinat

14 Heinz-Josef Thissen

Donkeys and water: Demotic ostraca in Cologne as evidence for desert travelbetween Oxyrhynchos and the Bahariya Oasis in the 2nd century BC

15 Per Storemyr, Elizabeth Bloxam, Tom Heldal & Adel Kelany

Ancient desert and quarry roads on the west bank of the Nile in the First Cataract region

16 Angelika Lohwasser

Tracks in the Bayuda desert. The project ‘Wadi Abu Dom Itinerary’ (W.A.D.I.)

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17 Steven Snape

A stroll along the corniche? Coastal routes between the Nile Delta and Cyrenaica in the Late Bronze Age

18 Thomas Vetter, Anna-Katharina Rieger & Heike Möller

Water, routes and rangelands: Ancient traffic and grazing infrastructure in theeastern Marmarica (northwestern Egypt)

19 James K. Hoffmeier & Stephen O. Moshier

“A highway out of Egypt”: The main road from Egypt to Canaan

20 Claire Somaglino & Pierre Tallet

A road to the Arabian Peninsula in the reign of Ramesses III

Roads and regions III: Egypt’s Eastern Desert

21 Ian Shaw

“We went forth to the desert land…”: Retracing the routes between the Nile Valley and the Hatnub travertine quarries

22 Kathryn A. Bard, Rodolfo Fattovich & Andrea Manzo

The ancient harbor at Mersa/Wadi Gawasis and how to get there: New evidence of Pharaonic seafaring expeditions in the Red Sea

23 Adam Bülow-Jacobsen

Communication, travel, and transportation in Egypt’s Eastern Desert duringRoman times (1st to 3rd century AD)

Road index

Contributors

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Roads and regions II: Cyrenaica, Marmarica, Sinai, and Arabian Peninsula

A road to the Arabian Peninsula 511

A road to the Arabian Peninsula in the reign of Ramesses III *

Claire Somaglino & Pierre Tallet

Abstract

The recent discovery of a rock inscription belonging to Ramesses III near the oasis of Tayma in Saudi Arabiasheds new light on the development of trade routes at the beginning of the 20th dynasty. This inscription issimilar to two other markings of the same king found in Sinai and South-Negev. They can be considered aslandmarks placed on the same desert road linking ancient Egypt to the Arabian Peninsula.

Keywords: rock inscription, trade route, expedition, Saudi Arabia, Tayma Oasis, New Kingdom, 20th dynasty

1. Introduction

In November 2010, Dr. Ali Ibrahim al-Ghabban, thevice-president of the Saudi Commission forTourism and Antiquities (SCTA), and his team an-nounced the discovery of a rock inscription ofRamesses III (1183/82–1152/51 BC) in Saudi Arabianear the oasis of Tayma (cf. Estimo Jr. 2010). Thisfind casts a new light on the development of traderoutes during the 20th dynasty, i.e. in the late 2ndmillennium BC. We propose in this paper to con-sider the inscription in its historical context, by ex-amining the logistics and goals of the long-distanceexpeditions sent by Ramesses III towards the east.

2. Long-distance expeditions in the reign of Ramesses III

The address of Ramesses III to his human subjectsin the last section of the Papyrus Harris I (Grandet1994) gives precious information about the expedi-tions that this king had sent:

• A maritime expedition to the land of Punt(§77,8–78,1). The menesh and ber-boats belonging tothis mission must have landed on the Red Sea coastat the latitude of Koptos according to a modus

* This article was first published in French in the Bulletin de l’In-

stitut français d’archéologie orientale 111 (2011), pp. 361–369 withthe title “Une mystérieuse route sud-orientale sous le règne deRamsès III”. It is our pleasure to thank Chloé Ragazzoli, AdrianTravis and Alexander Murray for re-reading and improving thisslightly modified English version of it.

operandi well established for such expeditions in theMiddle Kingdom (Grandet 1994; cf. Bard & Fat-tovich, eds., 2007; see also Bard et al., this volume).

• An expedition, both by land and by sea, to thecopper mines of Timna, named Gebel Âtak inEgyptian, in the South-Negev. The historical realityof this mission is confirmed by a rock stela ofRamesses III, carved above the New Kingdom sanc-tuary of Hathor, built there (Grandet 1994; Schul-man 1976; Rothenberg 1988).

• An expedition to turquoise mines datable toyear 23 of Ramesses III, thanks to a stela found inthe temple of Serabit el-Khadim (Grandet 1994; Gar-diner et al. 1952).

Although P. Harris I does not give any dates forthese expeditions, there is little doubt that the firsttwo also took place during the second part of thereign, i.e. during the peaceful period that followedthe military campaigns against the Libyans and theSea Peoples.


3. A new rock inscription of Ramesses III at Tayma

According to press photographs from which ourfacsimile is drawn [Fig. 1], the inscription found in2010 by the SCTA shows two cartouches of the kingfacing each other – a layout attested elsewhere(Rothenberg 1988: pl. 119.3; Couyat & Montet 1912:no. 22) –, with a line of text below. The cartouchesare about 60 cm long (personal communication ofDr. Ali Ibrahim al-Ghabban). The inscription can beconsidered as a landmark of a type and size attestedelsewhere during the reign of Ramesses III (seebelow). The text can be read as follows:

[1] nswt bity nb tAwy Wsr-MAat-Ra mry Imn

[2] sA Ra nb xaw Ra-ms-s(w) HqA Iwnw

[3] mry HqA aA (n) tA nb

“[1] The King of Upper and Lower Egypt, lord ofthe Two-Lands Usermaatre beloved of Amun,[2] the son of Re, lord of crowns Ramesses-prince-of-Heliopolis, [3] beloved of the ‘greatprince of every land’.”

The expression HqA aA (n) tA nb at the end of the in-scription is fairly equivocal. From the known par-allels it should apply to the king of Egypt. Pharaohwas named with the same formula in a few textsdating to Ramesses III and Ramesses IV (O. OIC169991, 9: Wente 1961; Kitchen 1983: 559f.; P.LouvreN3136, X, 9: Spalinger 2000), or with the slightly dif-ferent formula HqA n tA nb (P.Harris I, §§75,7 and56b,3: Erichsen 1933). It nevertheless remains fairlyrare, and seems characteristic of the first part of the20th dynasty.

The structure of the Tayma inscription indicatesthat the king was given the protection of a divineentity, “the great prince of every land”, which is ob-viously no-one but himself. The expression is fairlysimilar to the programmatic name of some ofRamesses II’s royal colossi, which was similarly in-

scribed under the cartouches of the king (Habachi1969). In this inscription HqA aA (n) tA nb aims at re-calling the domination of Pharaoh over the very re-gion where the inscription was carved. The use ofHqA is just what we would expect, since it is oftenused in similar formulae to express the Pharaonicdomination over territories beyond Egyptian bor-ders (cf. Grimal 1986).

4. Similar rock inscriptions in the WadiAbu Gada (Sinai) and Themilat Radadi(South-Negev)

The outstanding presence of an Egyptian rock in-scription in the Arabian Peninsula far away fromthe Red Sea coast must be linked with two othersimilar inscriptions of Ramesses III, which also dis-play the cartouches of the king.

The first one is located in the central part ofSinai, in the upstream section of the Wadi Abu Gada[Fig. 2] (Tallet 2003; forthcoming). Two cartouchesof the king measuring 40 cm high by 30 cm widthwere carved on a limestone block on the edge of thetrail leading to the Tih plateau near a water point.The survey carried out there in 2004 by a joint teamof the Institut français d’archéologie orientale(IFAO) and the Institut de recherche pour ledéveloppement (IRD) discovered no Pharaonicstructures nor any signs of mining activities with apossible link to this inscription.

Fig. 1 Rock inscription of Ramesses III near Tayma Oasis, SaudiArabia.


A second landmark of the same type (60 cm high by40 cm width) was reported in 1970 at ThemilatRadadi on the Israeli-Egyptian border to the northof Eilat [Fig. 3] (Avner 1972). It is also located neara water point. U. Avner told us that he found someTimna-type pottery dated from the late 2nd millen-nium BC on a site located some 400 m west ofThemilat Radadi. He and B. Rothenberg also col-lected the same kind of pottery on the island ofGeziret al-Faraoun in front of Taba. The location ofthis island was ideal for a stopover on a possiblemaritime route, and the whole set of data fits verywell within the journey to Timna described inP.Harris I, a journey both by land and by sea:

“I sent my messengers to the Gebel Âtak, to thegreat copper mines which are in this place; theyembarked on their menesh-boats, and otherstravelled by land on their donkeys.” (§78,1–2)

The inscriptions of Wadi Abu Gada and ThemilatRadadi might have marked out the land route lead-ing to Timna, but not the trail to Serabit el-Khadim,for Abu Gada is located some 40 km north of themining area of South-Sinai. This itinerary is still fol-lowed nowadays, and a detailed survey of this par-ticular road would surely lead to the locating ofother markings of this type. In any case the discov-ery of a new landmark near Tayma makes veryclear that the same route led up to the ArabianPeninsula during the reign of Ramesses III.

5. The beginning of the road

This renewed interest for the south-eastern roadduring the reign of Ramesses III is confirmed by therenovation and building work carried out on siteslocated on the Egyptian north-eastern border, that isto say on the first part of these long-distance desertand/or maritime expeditions.

The most important settlement in this regard isthe khetem of Tjeku, the present Tell el-Retaba(Rzepka et al. 2009a; 2009b; 2010), located in thestrategic Wadi Tumilat, which constitutes one of thetwo main ways in and out of the eastern Delta (cf.Hoffmeier & Moshier, this volume). This importantborder-post was put into use during the 18th dy-nasty and reinforced at the beginning of the 19thdynasty, just like many other border-posts and atthe same time as shrines and stelae were erected be-tween the western mouth of the Wadi Tumilat andthe Suez gulf (Schmitt 2005). The border-post ofTjeku was enlarged during the reign of RamessesIII, with the building of a larger and thicker enclo-sure wall, named “wall 2” by Petrie (c. 410 x 188.8 mby 9.5 m thick contra 366 x 183 m by 3.15 and then5 m thick for the more ancient “wall 1”: Petrie 1906b;Rzepka et al. 2009; 2010). The foundation depositfound by Petrie under the south-eastern corner ofthis “wall 2” provides a basis for this dating (Petrie1906b).

This khetem of Tjeku, like other structures of thesame type, monitored the entrance and exit of the

Fig. 2 Rock inscription of Ramesses III in Wadi Abu Gada, cen-tral Sinai.

Fig. 3 Rock inscription of Ramesses III in Themilat Radadi,South-Negev.


Egyptian territory, secured the border area and wasa landmark that symbolized the power of theEgyptian Pharaohs at the door of Egypt. Moreover,it assumed a logistical role as a platform for tradeand mining expeditions (cf. Somaglino 2010a;2010b). Located at a convenient distance from bothMemphis and Pi-Ramesses (see P.Anastasi V, 19,2–6) and equipped with storage facilities, the khetem

of Tjeku also controlled furthermore the waterpoints of the central part of the Wadi Tumilat, thelast abundant water sources before travellers leftEgypt. Thus it was an important staging post. Thestaff positioned at the khetem could even have par-ticipated in these expeditions. For instance, threemembers of the administration of the border-postof Tjeku led expeditions to Serabit el-Khadim andBir Nasib (Tallet 2003). Another dignitary, “User-maatrenakht of Tjeku”, whose doorjamb was foundby Petrie at Tell el-Retaba (Petrie 1906a), might alsohave been involved in these expeditions to the “farsouth-east”. He was “overseer of troops, overseerof foreign countries, overseer of a domain” (Hry-pDt,

imy-rA xAswt, imy-rA Hwt) and “overseer of the foreigncountries of Ta-netjer” (imy-rA xAswt tA-nTr). This stringof titles indicates that he probably ran the khetem ofTjeku and was commissioned to countries at theeast of Egypt, as is indicated by the very generalplace-name “Ta-netjer”. In the context of Tjeku, itwas more probably the south-east rather than thenorth-east that Ta-netjer was meant to designate.Unfortunately, it is difficult to date with certaintythis Usermaatrenakht, but it is very tempting to linkhim with Ramesses III (cf. Petrie 1906a) and the ex-pedition to the Arabian Peninsula. In any case, theidentification suggested by Edel (1976, followed,amongst others, by Morris 2005) between this dig-nitary and the Wasmu’ri’a-nakhta of two letters ex-changed between the Hittite and Egyptian courtsduring the reign of Ramesses II cannot be proved,since Usermaatrenakht is too common a name dur-ing the Ramesside Period (cf. Abd el-Gelil et al.1996).

It is no wonder that Ramesses III chose to rein-force and enlarge this khetem border-post of Tjeku,when he decided to significantly revive the tradeand mining activities during the second part of hisreign. Such building works have often been consid-ered as an answer to regional insecurity. But theminor campaign of the king against the ShosuBedouins, attested by P.Harris I (§76,9–11; Grandet

1994), was probably enough to make a security en-hancement of the area. It seems more logical to ex-plain them by the new interest for far-going expe-ditions during this reign and therefore anincreasing need for logistic support.

Other building works might have been done inthe Wadi Tumilat or the Suez area during this pe-riod. In P. Harris I again, the section dedicated tothe “works of peace”, which followed the “warworks” in the discourse addressed to the humansubjects, begins with the account of the building ofa very large fortified Xnmt-well in xAst ayn, “thedesert region of Ayn” (§77,6–8; Grandet 1994). Thereport of the expeditions to Punt, Timna and Ser-abit el-Khadim immediately follows this account.The place-name Ayn is only attested in this text; itwas often connected with the “cistern of Aynen”(a-y-n-n), which appears in P.Anastasi I, written dur-ing the reign of Ramesses II, amongst the posts ofthe North-Sinai route from Egypt to Palestine(P.Anastasi I, 27,6; cf. Gardiner 1911; Grandet 1994).Nevertheless, Ayn is a common semitic word mean-ing “well” that could have been employed to des-ignate different places. The structure of the sectiondedicated to the “works of peace” in P.Harris Iprompts the notion that this fortified “great cisternof the desert region of Ayn” was not on the via

maris, but in the Wadi Tumilat or the Suez region,for it had been built during the preparation of theopening of the south-eastern road. Perhaps this“cistern” was another designation of the khetem ofTjeku, or the name of the fortified settlement builtby Ramesses III at Tell Qolzum (Morris 2005; seebelow for this settlement), even though the sur-roundings of Suez are not famed for their abun-dance in fresh water.

The Wadi Tumilat was the main road, but it wasnot the only one to reach the Suez gulf (cf.Hoffmeier & Moshier, this volume). Some of thetroops of Ramesses III might have left from Mem-phis and gone along the more direct route leadingto Suez from Heliopolis through the desert. A pro-phylactic statue of the king, represented alongsidethe goddess Hathor, was unearthed in the 1930snear Almaza in the vicinity of Heliopolis (Cairo JE69771: Drioton 1939; Grandet 1994). According tothe formulae inscribed on the statue, the latter wasintended to protect the travellers against snakebitesand scorpion stings. The presence of such a monu-ment at the entrance of a desert trail is not surpris-


ing, for we know that a “remover of scorpions” hadsometimes accompanied that kind of expedition(see for instance a rock inscription of year 6 ofAmenemhat III at Ayn Soukhna: Abd el-Raziq et al.2002), and that Hathor protected mining expedi-tions to the deserts in general and in Sinai in par-ticular. No other traces of use of this trail during an-tiquity are attested although caravans and pilgrimsgoing to Mecca via Suez went through it later on (cf.Raue 1999).

Whether the starting point of these expeditionswas Memphis or Pi-Ramesses, whether they wentthrough the Wadi Tumilat or along the desert routefrom Heliopolis, they had to pass through the re-gion of Suez. Besides, a fortified settlement datingto Ramesses III and surrounded by a mud-brick en-closure wall of 7 m thick was unearthed at TellQolzum, the ancient Klysma, by the SupremeCouncil of Antiquities at the beginning of the 1960s(cf. Leclant 1964). Little information is availableabout this settlement, but it doubtless played therole of a logistic centre for both the maritime andthe land expeditions dispatched to Sinai, Arabia,

and Punt. It is the most likely starting point for theboats of the expedition to Punt known from theP.Harris I.

6. Tayma and the “incense route”

The members of the Egyptian expedition whocarved the cartouches of Ramesses III on a rock nearthe oasis of Tayma may have tried to join the cara-van route that linked the South-Arabian Peninsulato the northern coastal cities, a route which wasdedicated to the trade of spices and incense fromthe Indian world (De Maigret 2003).

This incense route is attested since the 8th cen-tury BC, from a cuneiform text which recounts indetail the capture of a caravan from Tayma by agovernor of Suhu and Mari. However, ongoing re-search tends to demonstrate that this route is moreancient, maybe contemporary with the domestica-tion of the dromedary, at the cusp of the 13th and12th centuries BC (Potts 2010; Demange 2010) [cf.

Fig. 4]. The excavations led since 2004 at Tayma by

Fig. 4 Representation of a dromedary on the interior of a bro-ken dish made from local Nile clay, excavated in Qantir/Pi-Ramesses and dating to the late 18th or early 19th dynasty(Pusch 1996: figs. 5; 7; slightly modified). Scratched into the clayafter firing, this is the oldest safely attested two-dimensional pic-ture of a dromedary currently known from Pharaonic Egypt.


a joint mission of the SCTA and the German Ar-chaeological Institute have shown that this oasishad in fact been occupied since the 3rd millenniumBC. The Egyptian material – a Ramesside scaraboidand a series of figurines of Egyptian gods – found inthe archaeological layers dated to the end of theLate Bronze Age (“occupational period 4”) mightindicate the existence of regular contacts with Egypt(Hausleiter 2010). The location of Tayma along the“caravan route of incense”, and the important roleit played as stopover and trade-post, seemed tohave been critical in its development.

One can imagine that the expedition to the Ara-bian Peninsula under Ramesses III was an early en-deavour by the Egyptians to adapt to the majorchanges in the new configuration of regional trade,which began in this period. By taking the initiativein establishing the southern stretch of this route

Fig. 5 Map ofsouth-easterntrade routes inthe time ofRamesses III.

under their own control, they could have avoidedthe proliferation of middlemen in a region under-going massive changes.

In the current state of our knowledge, we canonly recount very hypothetically the course of thissouth-eastern road of Ramesses III [Fig. 5], as wellas the duration of its use. Sources from Timna andSerabit el-Khadim indicate that these mines wereexploited till the reigns of Ramesses V for the for-mer (Rothenberg 1988) and Ramesses VI for the lat-ter (Gardiner et al. 1952; Hikade 2001). Even so, itremains impossible to say whether Egyptian expe-ditions to the Arabian Peninsula constituted a short-lived initiative restricted to the reign of RamessesIII, or whether more of them were dispatched afterhis death. Let us hope that more research in thisfield will one day bring further answers.


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Addendum

This paper was already submitted when a fourthrock inscription showing the two cartouches ofRamesses III — very similar in size and shape to thethree others (55 x 35 cm) — was found in Sinai onthe track going from the Red Sea shore to the AbuGada area. This seems to confirm that each leg ofthis road was systematically marked, and we canexpect several other inscriptions of this kind to befound, if carefully looked for, in the following years.The Tayma inscription has most recently also beendealt with by Sperveslage & Eichmann (2012).


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