Egyptian Long-Distance Trade in the Middle Kingdom and the Evidence at the Red Sea Harbour at Mersa/Wadi Gawasis

Home , Beni Hasan, Ivory, Khnumhotep II, Middle Egypt, Senusret II

Kathryn Bard Boston University

Rodolfo Fattovich University of Naples l’Orientale

Long-distance Trade in the Middle Kingdom

After a period of breakdown of the centralized state in the late third millen- nium BC (the First Intermediate Period), Egypt was reunified as a result of warfare. The victors of this warfare were kings of the later 11th Dynasty, whose power base was in the south, in Thebes. Known as the Middle Kingdom, this reunified state consolidated in the 12th Dynasty. The accomplishments of this dynasty are many, including a number of seafaring expeditions sent to the Southern Red Sea region from the harbor of Saww at Mersa/Wadi Gawasis. In the Early Middle Kingdom the reunified Egyptian state began to expand its activities outside the Nile Valley and abroad, especially for the exploitation and/or trade of raw materials used to make elite artifacts and tools, as well as timbers with which to build boats—all not available in Egypt. Copper and turquoise mines were actively exploited by expeditions in Southwestern Sinai, where extensive mines date to the Middle and New Kingdoms (Kemp 2006: 141–142; O’Connor 2006: 226). Cedar was imported in large quantities from Lebanon, and was used to make coffins for high status officials (Berman 2009), as well as to build seafaring ships that have been excavated at Egypt’s harbor on the Red Sea at Mersa/Wadi Gawasis (Bard and Fattovich 2007, 2010, 2012). Since Old Kingdom times Byblos was an important trading center in Lebanon and continued to be so in the Middle Kingdom (see Kemp 2006: 144–147; Montet 1928: 274–279; Redford 1992: 71–97). In the Middle Kingdom rulers there even took Egyptian titles (“mayor”, “governor”) (Grajetzki 2006: 136). Contact with the Levant is also evidenced in the Canaanite pottery found at sites in the Delta in Northern Egypt (Bietak 1991: 28–29). The so-called Tod Treasure, a votive deposit of four bronze chests excavated in the Temple of Montu at Tod in Upper Egypt, shows the wide extent of connections with the Near East. The chests were dedicated by Senusret I and contained gold and

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��5 | doi ��.��63/9789004302563_002 2 Bard and Fattovich silver ingots; silver artifacts; lapis lazuli from Afghanistan; seals and amulets from the Aegean, Levant and Mesopotamia; and silver cups which are probably Minoan (see Pierrat-Bonnefois 2008). Foreign/long-distance trade was not only conducted by Egyptians: Asiatics were also coming into Egypt. At Tell el-Dab’a in the Northeastern Delta archaeological evidence indicates the increasing presence of Syro-Palestinian Middle Bronze Age peoples in an Egyptian city in the late 12th and 13th Dynasties (Bietak 1996). At Beni Hasan in Middle Egypt there is the well known scene of 37 ‘Amu (men, women and children) in the 12th Dynasty tomb of Khnumhotep II (Tomb 3; Newberry 1893), who was nomarch of the Oryx nome—and “Overseer of the Eastern Desert” during the reign of Senusret II. Much has been written about this scene, which has usually been described as a caravan of Asiatics (or Bedouin/Eastern Desert nomads; see Franke 1991: 56; Shaw 1998: 248). Their principal product of trade (“gifts”; Franke 1991: 56) was galena (lead sulphide) used for eye paint, which may have been obtained at Gebel Zeit in the Eastern Desert. If these ‘Amu were Asiatics, their route to Gebel Zeit would have required a long detour to the south of the Eastern Delta, their entry point into Egypt, and then desert tracks to the Nile Valley (Aufrère 2002: 211). The galena mines at Gebel Zeit are located to the north of Mersa/Wadi Gawasis (see Castel and Soukiassian 1989). According to Shaw (1994: 111), it is not clear whether the exploitation of raw materials outside the Nile Valley was always a royal monopoly, and he makes a distinction between low-level exploitation of mineral resources by individuals, such as may be represented in the Beni Hasan scene, and large-scale expeditions for stone and metals for elite purposes, such as the seafaring expeditions to Punt, the scale of which could only have been undertaken by the Crown. To the south of Egypt’s border with Nubia, however, Egypt faced a major competitor for access to resources in Upper Nubia and beyond—the Kerma kingdom, which had become a powerful polity in Upper Nubia by ca. 2000 BC (and possibly earlier: see Bonnet 2004: 72). Thus, in Lower Nubia the Egyptians built more permanent facilities of control in the 12th Dynasty than had existed there earlier in the Old Kingdom. To the southeast of the Kerma kingdom was the land of Punt, known in ancient Egyptian texts, which was the source of several important raw materials, including elephant ivory, ebony and incense, as well as gold and exotic live animals (see Kitchen 1993). Punt was probably a region on the African side of the Southern Red Sea (Bard and Fattovich 2013). In the later Old Kingdom (5th Dynasty) a seafaring expedition was sent to Punt by King Sahura, as known from information recorded on the Palermo Stone king list and reliefs recently restored from this king’s pyramid causeway (see El Awady 2006). The sea route