Egypt as a Crossroad between Africa and Asia in the Old Bronze Age مصر كنقطة التقاء بين إفريقيا وآسيا في العصر البرونزي القديم Alessandro Roccati* ملخص يقدم هذا املقال رؤية متعمقة لعﻻقات مرص بالعالم اخلاريج خﻻل عرصي ادلولة القديمة والوسطى؛ حيث يمكن تصنيف هذا املقال ضمن املقاﻻت العلمية املرجعية اليت تعتمد ىلع جتميع معلومات مستقاة من مصادر نصية نُرشت من قبل يف مقاﻻت متخصصة. وقمت بمحاولة بناء تصوري ًاعتمادا ىلع هذه املصادر؛ لطرح رؤية جديدة حول عﻻقات مرص باملناطق املحيطة بها سواء يف آسيا أو إفريقيا خﻻل فرتة عرص ادلراسة. 12 Abgadiyat 2017 Downloaded from Brill.com09/24/2021 03:10:57PM via free access Egypt as Crossroads between Africa and Asia in the Old Bronze Age More than one century ago, in 1892, an Italian like those related by Harkhuf in his tomb. A hieratic Egyptologist, Ernesto Schiaparelli visiting Aswan, graffito was discovered on the way through Khashm participated in the discovery of some inscriptions el-Bab, near Bir Ungat, quoting a prince Sabeni, engraved on the facade of the tomb of Harkhuf, a well-known acquaintance in Aswan: may be the high on the cliff of the Necropolis named Qubbet one who had a larger tomb than that of Harkhuf in el-Hawa. Actually his discovery was double, for he the same Necropolis of Qubbet el-Hawa, and who soon realized the importance of the hieroglyphic also travelled southwards.5 inscriptions which showed the first available reports This graffito is located on a track where also one of several trips to Africa.1 of Harkhuf’s itineraries may be supposed, namely Prince Harkhuf lived in the second half of in the ancient land of Irtjet. When Harkhuf came Sixth Dynasty, around 2250 BCE, and he spent back from Yam/Kerma, with his carriages laden some long period of his life travelling southwards with precious goods, the King of Yam granted along different routes, with hundreds of donkeys him troops to escort him in the dangerous hills of to carry the goods the Pharaoh had sent him for. Irtjet. Those desert roads were unsafe in Antiquity The route must have been well known to an Egyptian, as is confirmed by another passage in Harkhuf’s at least since the exploitation of quarries during the wanderings, where he stated to have accompanied Fourth Dynasty at Toshkeh and beyond Dakhla.2 in his turn the King of Yam who went to smite the The geography of these expeditions is now somewhat Tjemeh, and that his help ensured the success. better known thanks to various discoveries, which The land of Tjemeh is likely to lie in the area shed light on very early civilizations of Africa of Jebel Uweinat,6 which was rich in water springs, despite the lack of certitude about the localization and where again a hieroglyphic graffito shows of a number of relevant place names.3 However, Pharaoh Mentuhotep II, the unifier of Egypt ca. Egypt can no longer be considered an isolated and 2000 BCE, receiving the homage of the envoys of self-sufficient power, as the ancient Egyptians Yam and Tekhbeten, another hitherto unrecorded could cover rather long distances and many well- country. The same people of Tjemeh are mentioned to-do foreigners came to settle in their country. in the famous biography of Weni at Abydos, and The excavations carried out by Charles Bonnet, again in the tale of Sinuhe. In this novel, King resuming those of George Reisner in the modern site Amenemhet I, founder of Twelfth Dynasty, is said of Kerma, have revealed an important capital city, to have sent the hereditary prince Sesostris to smite upstream the Third Cataract, which was influential the Tjemeh and to foray their cattle.7 Amenemhet I since the fourth millennium BCE, and after the became king after having been a vizier under the Egyptian conquest around 1500 BCE took the name last kings of Eleventh Dynasty, and he probably of Pnubs (the jujube tree), perhaps a translation of wanted to pursue the policy of his great predecessor the term Yam used in Harkhuf’s inscriptions.4 Mentuhotep II and of the Memphite kings during Some graffiti recently recovered far away in the Old Kingdom, since Sahurê. His action was the Arabian and Libyan deserts bear additional completed by Sesostris once he became King, evidence of the passage of Egyptian expeditions according to a huge stela erected in his eighteenth regnal year, which stood in the fortress of Buhen Issue No. 12 13 Downloaded from Brill.com09/24/2021 03:10:57PM via free access Alessandro Roccati and is now the pride of the Egyptian Museum at silver for his Pharaoh four times.11 That means that Florence.8 On this stela Sesostris I is shown subduing the Egyptians around mid-third millennium BCE the Southern countries. used to travel as far as central Anatolia, and this On another hand, the coeval long inscription result eventually enlarges the area where most of Weni, carved on two limestone slabs now on unidentified localities have to be sited. display in Cairo Egyptian Museum, relates several It is not surprising therefore that the Annals of mighty military campaigns against peoples living Amenemhet II found at Memphis speak of military to the north, in the area of the Near East, where expeditions towards the southern coast of Anatolia, archaeology is disclosing an unexpected literate mentioning the town of Ura, which was linked to culture for those old times.9 Here again, the the copper trade from Cyprus.12 Unfortunately, precise knowledge of the extent of the outreach of neither towns (Burrus-handa nor Ura) have been the Egyptian power is largely open to debate, located, in order to check any complementary unless the place names can be compared with evidence. All in all, it is however a confirmation of the information of external sources, what was what was already stated in the literary level: ‘None indisputable almost only for Byblos, due to indeed sail north to Byblos today. What shall we the lack of cross data in the growing number of do for pine trees for our mummies? Free men are available materials. One example is provided buried with their produce, nobles are embalmed by the enormous archives found in 1977 at Tell with their bitumen as far as Kftȝw (Kaphtor/ Mardikh, ancient Ebla, contemporary with pharaoh Crete) ...’.13 Pepi I: over ten-thousand clay tablets, concerning It is also interesting to observe the ways a commercial network with important partners, the distinguished officials of Pharaoh were among which Egypt must remain a keen conjecture rewarded after their painstaking achievements. of the Assyriologist Maria Giovanna Biga.10 Unlike Weni, who undertook an honorable political Additional data has recently arrived from Japan, career, as he became the head of Upper Egypt, where an outstanding hieroglyphic inscription others received special food products as privileges. belonging to the tomb of Iny, illicitly dismantled in When Harkhuf returned from his last trip to Nubia the necropolis of Memphis, has been rediscovered during the reign of Mernerê, some ships were sent by another Italian scholar, Michele Marcolin. from the capital city to meet him, laden with ‘date The text is not very long, but exceedingly rich in wine, cake, bread, and beer’. In turn, Iny received information, and among more topographical terms higher appointments by Pepi II (Unique Friend, that were still unrecorded or not well localized, Lector Priest, and God’s Chancellor), besides being it provides a unique quotation of a town, which was a guest at the King’s table ‘because the Pharaoh to become a trade node some centuries later in the wished to see him eating more than any other peer activity of the Assyrian merchants, whose archives of his’. Among the many gifts of value that Sinuhe, were discovered at Kültepe, ancient Kanesh. at the end of his life, was granted by Sesostris I, Therein a commercial center for silver is quoted, were meals from the Palace even three or four times Burrus-handa, that corresponds (with the omission a day, regardless of what was brought to him by of ‘handa’) to the place where Iny went to purchase the King’s children. Unfortunately, in the known 14 Abgadiyat 2017 Downloaded from Brill.com09/24/2021 03:10:57PM via free access Egypt as Crossroads between Africa and Asia in the Old Bronze Age Egyptian data of the period, nothing is mentioned a departure point for some expeditions along with about envoys from foreign countries, who certainly Abydos and possibly Asyut. The life account of arrived in Egypt and were even mentioned in the Ebla Weni was entrusted to his tomb in Abydos, in line tablets. Otherwise, no Egyptian official is referred with his last position as Chief of Upper Egypt. to in the same sources, although there are several Concerning Iny, nothing is indeed ascertained, but accounts for goods exchange. On another hand, the nature of the recovered inscribed slabs makes it is probably no hazard if jubilee vessels of Pepi I, its burial likely in the Memphite necropolis, rather sent as gifts to foreign rulers, have been found in than some other locality in Lower Egypt.17 That Byblos, Crete, Ebla and Kerma, confirming thereby means that the officials who reported about their the wide economic–political horizon of Egypt northern journeys had their seats in the North of under that great sovereign. We can conclude that Egypt, and that would be in agreement with Iny’s the Egyptians already had a deep knowledge of the reward in the King’s palace. The tale of Sinuhe surrounding countries long before they conquered is also sited in its happy end at the royal court in some of them in the New Kingdom.14 Owing to Memphis; nevertheless Sinuhe travelled from the millenary span of time covered by the data, the Western Desert eastwards as far as Syria, joining the political–cultural scenery must have differed Africa and Asia (Near East); however, the story is accordingly, despite some featuring trends due to included in papyrus manuscripts of uncertain origin, the geographical setting.