The Egyptian World the Deserts

This article was downloaded by: 10.3.98.104 On: 27 Sep 2021 Access details: subscription number Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG, UK The Egyptian World Toby Wilkinson The Deserts Publication details https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9780203820933.ch3 John C. Darnell Published online on: 18 Sep 2007 How to cite :- John C. Darnell. 18 Sep 2007, The Deserts from: The Egyptian World Routledge Accessed on: 27 Sep 2021 https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9780203820933.ch3 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR DOCUMENT Full terms and conditions of use: https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/legal-notices/terms This Document PDF may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproductions, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The publisher shall not be liable for an loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material. CHAPTER THREE THE DESERTS ᇹᇺᇹ John C. Darnell he Nile Valley is a narrow ribbon of agricultural land cutting through the North TAfrican desert, and the oases of the Western Desert are but small islands of water and cultivable land afloat in a sea of rock and sand.1 The majority of the territory that fell easily within the control of the pharaonic state was desert. This Red Land greatly exceeded the small areas of Black Land, as the Egyptians well understood, and they neither ignored nor feared either the rocky and mountainous wilderness to their east, or the even more awesome wastes to their west. The deserts contained many major routes, linking the Nile Valley with the oases and even more remote areas; they were the repository for most of the mineral wealth of Egypt and Nubia;2 and the stones and minerals from these desert areas were the physical foundations for the architecture and economy of the pharaonic state. The quarries and mining regions in the Eastern and Western Deserts were connected to the Nile Valley by often well-constructed roads (Murray 1939; Harrell and Brown 1995; Bloxam 2002; Shaw 2006), while additional road networks linked the Nile Valley with the Red Sea to the east and the oases and more distant points to the west (Figure 3.1). Pharaonic desert roads range from raised causeways to swept tracks to caravan routes formed by the tracks of numerous animals, and literally paved with sherds (D. Darnell 2002); the tracks often follow a relatively straight course, and are not averse to steep ascents, which people and donkeys negotiated with relative ease. Far from being limited to thoroughfares for stone and minerals, ancient Egyptian desert roads, particularly routes through the Western Desert, were important conduits for trade and travel. Tracks frequently ran parallel to the course of the Nile and cut off great bends of the river to bypass the cataracts and other areas of difficult naviga- tion (Degas 1994; Darnell et al. 2002: 1–3; contra Graham 2005: 44), and would have continued to function when the Nile itself was low and closed to all but the smallest vessels. Even the gods themselves had to find their ways between the Nile Valley and the oases, and the roads might carry their divinity as well (cf. Kaper 1987; Klotz 2006: 9–10). The deserts were important areas of cultural development before the rise of the Early Dynastic Egyptian state, and were fully integrated into the cultural topography of the pharaonic mind. The earliest pre-pharaonic cultures of north-east Africa emerged 29 Downloaded By: 10.3.98.104 At: 21:08 27 Sep 2021; For: 9780203820933, chapter3, 10.4324/9780203820933.ch3 — John C. Darnell — Figure 3.1 Ancient caravan tracks along a major route between the Nile Valley (southern Thebaid) and Kharga Oasis. from those deserts, and throughout pharaonic history the desert regions surrounding Egypt and Nubia formed part of the inscribed landscape of Nilotic civilization. While rock inscriptions could serve such mundane functions as sign posts and meeting places (for a rock inscription as a landmark for a desert patrol, see Smither 1945: pl. 3a, line 12), many reveal religious motives, and relate to a peculiarly Egyptian approach to annexing and ‘Niloticizing’ the desert. A number of desert sites are second only to larger temple complexes in terms of the importance and complexity of the inscribed material they preserve, and the information they provide regarding otherwise little known and poorly attested aspects of ancient Egyptian religion. PREDYNASTIC AND PROTODYNASTIC EGYPT The deserts that surround the Nile Valley and the western oases were once major centres of cultural change and interacton in north-east Africa. The desert hinterlands of Egypt – especially the vast expanses of the Western Desert – were the areas in which Neolithic traditions from the Sahara, the Sudan and south-western Asia met and combined to create the nascent pharaonic civilization. During the last Ice Age the Sahara was much drier and larger than it is today. In one of many climatic fluctuations (Hassan 2002; Hoelzmann 2002), this period of hyper-aridity drew to a close around 12000 BC, when the southern monsoonal rains 30 Downloaded By: 10.3.98.104 At: 21:08 27 Sep 2021; For: 9780203820933, chapter3, 10.4324/9780203820933.ch3 — The deserts — – determined by the northern extent of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (Smithson in Barker et al. 1996: 52–9) – spread to the north, bringing with them an expansion of the Sahelian grasslands and acacia scrublands over 800 kilometres further north than their present extent. During this period of time, different versions of an essentially Neolithic lifestyle began to develop in north-eastern Africa and Western Asia. Ceramic technology and cattle domestication are two important early developments in the Western Desert, the foundations of an otherwise Neolithic lifestyle, often centred around temporary occupation of wells and seasonal lakes (playa basins), in which agriculture and permanent settlements were not of primary importance. Pottery appears in the Sudan and in the Western Desert/Eastern Sahara during the ninth millennium BC, independent of the almost simultaneous development of a ceramic tradition in Western Asia. Two basic ceramic traditions appear in north-east Africa: an undecorated, northern (earlier Capsian and later Nilo-Nubian) style, the vessel shapes often pointed, present by 9000 BC at Regenfeld in the Great Sand Sea, by 7600 BC at Dakhla Oasis and elsewhere in the Western Desert, and by c.5500 BC at Nabta Playa in the south-east; and an overall decorated, southern (Saharo-Sudanese) style, most often on essentially globular vessels, established at Khartoum by 7000 BC (Nelson et al. 2002; Kuper 2002). The deserts were also the centres of African cattle domestication and the adoption of Near Eastern caprid herding (Hassan 2002). Roughly coeval with the development of pottery, by societies that appear originally to have relied on hunting and fishing around seasonal lakes and streams, is the domestication of cattle, attested by 8500 BC at Bir Kiseiba and Nabta Playa, approximately 1,000 years earlier than in Western Asia (Kuper 2002; Wendorf and Schild 2002a, 2002b; Schild and Wendorf 2002). With the advent of a dry period c.7600 BC, cattle pastoralism appears to have spread out from its probable origin in areas nearer the Nubian Nile, and by 7000 BC had reached the Niger (Wendorf et al. 2001: 625–9, 631–2, 655–8, 671; Hassan 2002: 11–26, 198–201, 209–23; for linguistic evidence, see Ehret 1993). Sheep and goats, apparently introduced from south-western Asia, are in evidence in the area of Nabta Playa, the oases of Dakhla and Farafra, and the Eastern Desert during the fifth millennium BC, apparently earlier than in the Nile Valley (Wendorf et al. 2001: 623–5, 634–5, 663; Hassan 2002: 201–3). Plant domestication probably never occurred in the Western Desert, and the sewing of wild sorghum at seasonal sites seems, for a variety of reasons, not to have led to early domestication (Wendorf et al. 2001: 590–1; Hassan 2002: 111–22, 157–69). Nevertheless, later desert patrolmen (Clère and Vandier 1948: 19, §23, line 17) and nomads (cf. Murray 1939: 100–1) continued to engage in modest seasonal cultivation, probably in the old playa areas. By the early sixth millennium BC, the centre for major cultural development was shifting from the desert to the Nile Valley, with the Badarians, present at Hemamia by about 6100 BC, leading in a direct line of development ultimately to pharaonic civilization. This new Nilotic culture may owe something to the Tasians, perhaps a desert component of Badarian culture, showing strong Libo-Nubian traits in their ceramic tradition. Evidence of Tasian activity – including pottery, rock art and burials – along routes through the Western and Eastern Deserts suggests that the Tasians were a conduit by which the incipient Nilotic cultures interacted with desert- dwelling and Nubian groups (D. Darnell 2002: 156–69; for more Western Desert Tasian material see Hope 1998, 2002a: 48; for Eastern Desert evidence, see Friedman 31 Downloaded By: 10.3.98.104 At: 21:08 27 Sep 2021; For: 9780203820933, chapter3, 10.4324/9780203820933.ch3 — John C. Darnell — and Hobbs 2002). Epigraphic and archaeological evidence in the Rayayna Desert south of Thebes further reveals the interaction of several Nilotic and desert cultures, including Tasian, Badarian and Abkan (D.

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