Hendrickx, S., F. Förster & M. Eyckerman (2013), The Pharaonic pottery of the Abu Ballas Trail:...

Desert Road

Archaeology

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

AF

RIC

A P

RA

EH

IST

OR

ICA

emspemsp

27

K Ouml L N 2 0 1 3

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

Monographien zur Archaumlologie und Umwelt Afrikas

Monographs on African Archaeology and Environment

Monographies sur lrsquoArcheacuteologie et lrsquoEnvironnement drsquoAfrique

Edited by Rudolph Kuper

Institut fuumlr Ur- und Fruumlhgeschichte der Universitaumlt zu Koumlln

Forschungsstelle Afrika

Edited by Frank Foumlrster amp Heiko Riemer

in Ancient Egypt and Beyond


Desert Road Archaeology

copy HEINRICH-BARTH-INSTITUT eV Koumlln 2013Jennerstr 8 Dndash50823 Koumlln

httpwwwhbi-evuni-koelnde

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 httpdnbddbde

Financed by Heinrich-Barth-Institut eV

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

7

Prologue by Rudolph Kuper

Foreword by Steven E Sidebotham

Editorsrsquo preface

Introduction

1 Heiko Riemer amp Frank Foumlrster

Ancient desert roads Towards establishing a new field of archaeological research

Methods approaches and historical perspectives

2 Olaf Bubenzer amp 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 Egyptrsquos Western Desert from prehistoric to Old Kingdom times

4 Heidi Koumlpp

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

5 Klaus Peter Kuhlmann

The realm of ldquotwo desertsrdquo Siwah Oasis between east and west

6 Meike Meerpohl

Footprints in the sand Recent long-distance camel trade in the Libyan Desert(northeast Chadsoutheast Libya)

7 Frank Foumlrster Heiko Riemer amp Moez Mahir with an appendix by Frank Darius

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

Contents

10

12

14

19

61

77

107

133

167

193

8

Roads and regions I Egyptrsquos Western Desert and Bayuda

8 John Coleman Darnell with the assistance of Deborah Darnell

The Girga Road Abu Ziyacircr Tundaba and the integration of the southern oases into the Pharaonic state

9 Corinna Rossi amp Salima Ikram

Evidence of desert routes across northern Kharga (Egyptrsquos 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 Foumlrster

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

12 Stan Hendrickx Frank Foumlrster amp Merel Eyckerman

The Pharaonic pottery of the Abu Ballas Trail lsquoFilling stationsrsquo along a deserthighway in southwestern Egypt

13 Andraacutes 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 amp 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 lsquoWadi Abu Dom Itineraryrsquo (WADI)

221

265

283

297

339

381

391

399

425

9

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 amp Heike Moumlller

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

19 James K Hoffmeier amp Stephen O Moshier

ldquoA highway out of Egyptrdquo The main road from Egypt to Canaan

20 Claire Somaglino amp Pierre Tallet

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

Roads and regions III Egyptrsquos Eastern Desert

21 Ian Shaw

ldquoWe went forth to the desert landhelliprdquo Retracing the routes between the Nile Valley and the Hatnub travertine quarries

22 Kathryn A Bard Rodolfo Fattovich amp Andrea Manzo

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

23 Adam Buumllow-Jacobsen

Communication travel and transportation in Egyptrsquos Eastern Desert duringRoman times (1st to 3rd century AD)

Road index

Contributors

439

455

485

511

521

533

557

575

577

Roads and regions II Cyrenaica Marmarica Sinai and Arabian Peninsula

The Pharaonic pottery of the Abu Ballas Trail 339

The Pharaonic pottery of the Abu Ballas Trail lsquoFilling stationsrsquo along adesert highway in southwestern Egypt

Stan Hendrickx Frank Foumlrster amp Merel Eyckerman

Abstract

The Abu Ballas Trail in the Libyan Desert (SW Egypt) consists of about thirty archaeological sites along anancient donkey caravan route and runs almost straight from Dakhla Oasis towards the Gilf Kebir Plateaucovering about 400 km Large storage jars for water are the main finds at these sites and the jars occur in vary-ing numbers and different states of preservation Through study of the pottery several chronological phasesof trail use have been recognized The earliest use dates to the late Old Kingdom or early First IntermediatePeriod (around 22002100 BC) It is the best documented period because pottery from that time has beenfound at nearly all of the sites although the amount of vessels and the composition of the types varies

No doubt the variability in vessel amounts and types is due to functional differences between the indi-vidual sites The donkeys must have been watered at the main stations including the eponymous Abu Bal-las or lsquoPottery Hillrsquo site because of the large amount of storage jars found there (up to more than a hundred)The distances between the main supply depots are roughly equal and most probably relate to the donkeyrsquosability to go without water for two or three days Vats and different types of cups and bowls illustrate the or-ganisation of the people accompanying the caravans andor the men stationed at the individual sites to keepwatch over the provisions The intermittent sites contain far less pottery and can be considered temporarycamp sites or places where vessels accidently broken during transport were left behind

The fabrics and vessel shapes of the late Old Kingdom early First Intermediate Period are strikingly sim-ilar to those from the residence of the Egyptian governors at BalatAyn Asil in the eastern part of Dakhlawhere the Abu Ballas Trail apparently had its departure point There are as yet no vessels of the MiddleKingdom and only very few that can be attributed to the Second Intermediate Period but two different phasesof the New Kingdom are well represented the later 18th dynasty and the Ramesside Period

In addition to a general presentation of the pottery found along the trail this article will focus on an an-cient lsquotechniquersquo of long-distance desert travel the use of pottery deposits as artificial water reservoirs inorder to facilitate the crossing of barren desert regions This lsquotechniquersquo has even been reported by Herodotus(III 6ndash7) and the Abu Ballas Trail is currently the best example

Keywords pottery deposit supply station donkey caravan Libyan Desert Dakhla Gilf Kebir Sheikh Muf-tah culture Old Kingdom First Intermediate Period Second Intermediate Period New Kingdom Roman

1 Introduction

During a geological survey in 1918 and later in1923 a collection of more than a hundred large pot-tery jars was found at the foot of a prominent sand-stone hill about 500 km west of the Nile and 200 kmsouthwest of the Dakhla Oasis the nearest watersource (Ball 1927 122 n Dagger Kemal el-Dine amp

Franchet 1927 Jarvis 1936 114ndash116) Accordinglythe site was called ldquoAbu Ballasrdquo in Arabic ie ldquoFa-ther of jarsrdquo (or ldquoPottery Hillrdquo) Initially there wasmuch speculation about the age origin and pur-pose of these jars After the discovery on the AbuBallas hill of two rock engravings which date backto Pharaonic times (Rhotert 1952 pl XXXVI3ndash6 cfFoumlrster this volume figs 17thinsp 18) it has been in-


creasingly assumed that at least part of the vesselsdates to that period The reason for the presence ofthis huge amount of pottery at such a remote placeremained for a very long time one of the mysteriesof the Libyan Desert (cf Sers 1994 198ndash207 Foumlrster2011 chapter 2) This situation changed in19992000 when Carlo Bergmann a dedicated Ger-man desert traveller who used camels to explore theunknown discovered several new sites with similardeposits of pottery (cf Bergmann 2001 367ndash460)He identified about 30 sites which are located alongan almost perfectly straight line c 360 km long fromDakhla to the outskirts of the Gilf Kebir Plateau[Fig 1] The most important of these pottery con-centrations should be considered water depotsplaced at rather regular distances in order to enabledonkey caravans to travel through the barrendesert With the other smaller sites they make up

a chain of staging posts or depots and prove the ex-istence of a Pharaonic desert route leading deepinto the Libyan Desert and probably continuinginto sub-Saharan regions Since winter 19992000the sites have been under investigation by the ACA-CIA project (ldquoArid Climate Adaptation and Cul-tural Innovation in Africardquo) a Collaborative Re-search Centre (389) at the University of Colognefunded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaftfrom 1995 until 2007 The ACACIA project aimed toelucidate the purpose and destination of this an-cient caravan route that has been labelled the ldquoAbuBallas Trailrdquo (Kuper 2001 2002 2003a 2003bKuhlmann 2002 149ndash158 Schoumlnfeld 2004 Foumlrster2007a 2007b 2010 2011 Foumlrster et al 2010 cfFoumlrster this volume)

The present article presents not only a prelimi-nary publication of the pottery from different peri-

Fig 1 Map of the Abu Ballas Trail and its archaeological sites


ods but also endeavours to show how pottery fromthe very particular circumstances of the Abu BallasTrail sites contributes to both chronological andfunctional understanding of archaeological sitesalong an ancient desert road

The size of the known sites differs greatly rang-ing from fragments of a single jar up to more thana hundred vessels in different states of preserva-tion Some of the jars had been well protectedagainst the wind and are still very well preservedThe large majority however have been eroded todifferent degrees The location and structure of thesites can also be very different Usually the depotsare found at the foot of or near one of the ubiquoussandstone cones dotting the vast regions of this partof the Libyan Desert However some minor depotswere even placed on top of hills The investigationof the environmental context of the pottery ensem-bles is however not the primary interest of thepresent article because this can only be fully dis-cussed by considering the results of the excavationsat several sites which falls beyond the scope of thiscontribution1

Generally the sites can be considered closedcontexts and although a number of them have beendisturbed in antiquity or more recently they nev-ertheless offer possibilities which are hardly everavailable for sites in the Nile Valley Much of thepottery was found broken and although wind ero-sion of the fractures often caused practical prob-lems it was nonetheless most rewarding to searchfor joins between sherds Assessing the minimumnumber of vessels was also possible with far greateraccuracy than is normally expected on excavationsin Egypt The main problem for minimum vesselcounts is that at sites where the pottery was notprotected against the wind extreme erosion mayhave caused the complete disintegration of vesselsParticularly for the New Kingdom sites large stor-age jars were frequently found reduced to smallsherds and their complete disappearance seemedonly a matter of time Despite this issue ceramic en-sembles from the Abu Ballas Trail offer great re-search possibilities

In the following pages the individual sites arereferenced following the lsquoCologne registration sys-

temrsquo which consists of three elements (1) the nameof the study area [cf Tab 1] (2) the year of record-ing and (3) the serial number of the individual siteldquoJaqub 9931rdquo for instance is the 31st site regis-tered in 1999 within the study area ldquoJaqubrdquo Indi-vidual vessels or sherds are referred to by theiridentity number added to the former data in brack-ets eg ldquoJaqub 9931 (2)rdquo

2 Sheikh Muftah culture

Pottery of the pastoral nomads of the so-calledSheikh Muftah culture was found at several sites ofthe Abu Ballas Trail sometimes in combinationwith late Old KingdomFirst Intermediate Periodpottery [Tab 1] Sheikh Muftah sites are concen-trated at the oases of Dakhla and Kharga (Hope1999 2002 2007 McDonald 1999 2002 Warfe 2006Riemer 2011) and it therefore seems logical to con-sider the Sheikh Muftah pottery along the Abu Bal-las Trail as part of the late Old KingdomFirst In-termediate Period ensemble It is indeed acceptedthat local population groups co-existed with theEgyptians after they had occupied the oases of theWestern Desert (cf Mills 1999) at the very latestfrom the 4th dynasty onwards Recently howevera Sheikh Muftah sherd was found on the easternmargins of the Great Sand Sea suggesting that theactivities of these pastoral nomads extended far be-yond the immediate vicinity of the oases (Riemer2009) Even before that the wide distribution of so-called Clayton rings and discs a most characteris-tic element for the Sheikh Muftah culture wasnoted (Riemer amp Kuper 2000 Riemer 2002 2004 cfRiemer 2011 277ndash288 Riemer this volume) There-fore the possibility exists that the Sheikh Muftahpresence at Abu Ballas Trail sites has to be seen sep-arately from the lsquoofficialrsquo Egyptian activities This israther obvious for the sites close to Dakhla butcould also be the case for the more distant sites Tosome extent this is confirmed by the Clayton ringsand discs among the Sheikh Muftah finds Claytonrings and discs hardly ever occur in associationwith late Old KingdomFirst Intermediate Periodpottery if both are found at the same site Most

1 The excavation of the three major sites Abu Ballas 8555 (AbuBallaslsquoPottery Hillrsquo) Jaqub 9931 amp 9932 (lsquoMuhattah Jaqubrsquo aslabelled by C Bergmann) and Jaqub 9930 (lsquoMuhattah Umm el-Alamatrsquo) is presented in an unpublished MA thesis (Schoumlnfeld

2004) For an overview of the main results of the ACACIA exca-vations at sites along the Abu Ballas Trail see Foumlrster 2011 chap-ters 5ndash8


Fig 2 Pottery of the Sheikh Muftah culture 1 Shale tempered bowl Jaqub 0022 (W385 W394)2 Imitation in shale tempered fabric of deep Egyptian bowl Base Camp 0027 (3) 3 Imitation inshale tempered fabric of deep Egyptian bowl Meri 9956 (W135) Scale 13

probably many Clayton rings are part of desert ex-ploitation by Sheikh Muftah people (cf Riemer2002 2004 2011 this volume) independent fromthe lsquoofficial Egyptianrsquo Abu Ballas Trail (cf infra)

Two fabrics occur among the Sheikh Muftah pot-tery The first is a lsquoshalersquo tempered fabric which ismade from the same oasis clay as is used for the lateOld KingdomFirst Intermediate Period pottery butwith a very large amount of coarse clay pellets (05ndash5 mm) added (cf Riemer et al 2005 338 Riemer2011 50 fig 1416ndash17 ldquofabric EK 6Ardquo) The second isalso an oasis clay fabric but the amount of sand init is so high that it has to be considered a temperThis is confirmed by the angular shape of the sand(cf Riemer et al 2005 338 Riemer 2011 41 fig 148ldquofabric EK 3rdquo)

Fire stains and the uneven surface colour of thevessels indicate that they were fired in a bonfirewhich is characteristic for Sheikh Muftah potteryThe vessel types are mainly large deep bowls [Fig21] and the pottery technology (open fire) of bothfabrics also differs strongly from the fabric used bythe Egyptian potters in the Dakhla Oasis (Souki-assian et al 1990 77ndash84) A few vessels should beconsidered imitations of Egyptian types [Fig 22ndash3]and testify the interrelation between the local pop-

ulation and the Egyptian occupants2 It comes as nosurprise that these particular vessels are found inassociation with late Old KingdomFirst Intermedi-ate Period pottery and at sites far away from theDakhla Oasis (eg Base Camp 0027)

Tab 1 (opposite) Overview of the pottery from the Abu BallasTrail Minimum numbers of vessel units attested at individualsites

The sites are arranged according to their distance fromBalatDakhla where the trail apparently had its departure pointin the late Old KingdomFirst Intermediate Period Some pot-tery-bearing sites situated in study area lsquoDakhlarsquo (Dakhla 00120013 0014 0015 up to 40 km from Balat [cf Fig 1]) are not in-cluded here since their possible relation to the Abu Ballas Trailis as yet unclear At least part of these sites which have so faronly been surveyed probably belong to the group of so-calledhilltop sites in the outskirts of Dakhla which had been used atvarious times to control the access points into the oasis (cf Kaperamp Willems 2002 Riemer et al 2005 Foumlrster 2010)

In terms of terminology the typology of the late Old King-domFirst Intermediate Period pottery as well as the early NewKingdom pottery largely follows classifications established bythe IFAO missions working in Balat (Soukiassian et al 19902002) and Hope (1989) respectively (for details see text)

In the given totals so-called Clayton rings and discs have beencounted as separate items although some of them might havebelonged together making up individual ensembles typicallyconsisting of one ring and one disc each (cf Riemer amp Kuper2000)

Symbols added to site numbers

larger part of ceramics still in situ (usually le 10 vessel units) almost all ceramics still in situ (ge 40 vessel units)Dagger (partly) excavated site vessel type or chronological affiliation uncertainge estimated minimum number of vessels

2emspCf however Hope (2002 40 51) who argues that ldquo[]amongst the ceramic bodies utilised by the occupants of the oasisin the Old Kingdom there was also a coarse shale-tempered fab-ric and its makers were experienced potters []rdquo and concludesldquo[] it is possible that the use of shale wares on Egyptian siteswas inspired by the Sheikh Muftah pottersrdquo See also Hope 1999221 (ldquoThere is nothing to show that Egyptian ceramic traditionsof the Old Kingdom influenced the local []rdquo) 224 Soukiassianet al 1990 117ndash119 pls 37 38


Fig 3 Storage jars late Old KingdomFirst Intermediate Period1 Abu Ballas 8555 (5) 2 Abu Ballas 8555 (10) 3 Abu Ballas8555 (11) Scale 16

1 2

3

3 Late Old KingdomFirst Intermediate Period

The majority of the pottery found at the Abu BallasTrail sites dates to the very end of the Old Kingdomor the beginning of the First Intermediate Period(around 22002100 BC) [Tab 1] Nearly all of thepottery is made of the same fabric consisting of theCretaceous red clay of the oases (Soukiassian et al1990 82f) It contains a large amount of sand andlimited quantities of limestone particles the ratio ofwhich can differ Also characteristic though not al-ways present are fine clay pellets (lt 05 mm) oftenreferred to as lsquoshalersquo which are a natural part of theoasis clay Occasionally shiny soft black or redparticles occur and these have been identified asferruginous oxides (Soukiassian et al 1990 104) Anidentical fabric is described for the pottery produc-tion at BalatAyn Asil groupe 1 ceacuteramique fine sans

deacutegraissant ajouteacute (Soukiassian et al 1990 75ndash84)The fabric is hard and dense and fires pink togreenish-grey The limestone particles have occa-sionally started to disintegrate The same clay is alsoused with organic temper and this fabric occurs inlarge quantities at settlement sites (eg Soukiassianet al 1990 113 2002 465ndash467) but is hardly present


Fig 4 Storage jars late Old KingdomFirst Intermediate Period1 Jaqub 9931 (2) 2 Jaqub 9931 (986) 3 Jaqub 9931 (961)Scale 16

1 2

3

at all among the pottery of the Abu Ballas Trail Inaddition to the oasis production a very limitednumber of imports from the Nile Valley have alsobeen found at Abu Ballas Trail sites Both the Nilesilt fabric (Nile B1 and Nile B2 Nordstroumlm amp Bour-riau 1993 171f) as well as the marl fabric (Marl A1Nordstroumlm amp Bourriau 1993 176) are present

For the current discussion the sites at which thelargest amounts of pottery were found will be usedas type sites Abu Ballas 8555 (the original Abu Bal-las or lsquoPottery Hillrsquo site) and Jaqub 9931 For bothsites only three general types of pottery are repre-sented These are large storage jars [Figs 3 4]cupsbowls [Fig 5] and straw tempered vats [Fig6] Additionally a single spouted bowl comes fromsite Jaqub 9935 [Fig 7] The storage jars measur-ing c 45ndash65 cm in height generally do not containany substance (except for some remains of barleygrain in a jar found at site Jaqub 0020 see Foumlrsterthis volume fig 11) Furthermore they sometimesshow mineral stains characteristic of water evapo-ration In a desert context it is not surprising thatthey are water jars nor that they are by far the mostnumerous vessel type at all Abu Ballas Trail sitesThe jars are red-slipped and most of them seem tohave been polished although the surface of the ves-


Fig 5 Bowls late Old KingdomFirst Intermediate Period 1ndash2 Bowls with convex wall 1 Abu Ballas 8555-32 (1) 2 Jaqub 9931 (995) 3 Bowl with convex wall and lip-rim Abu Ballas 8555-16 (25) 4ndash5 Carinated bowls 4 Abu Ballas 8555-16 (1) 5 Jaqub 9931 (51)Scale 13

Fig 6 Vats late Old KingdomFirst Intermediate Period 1 Jaqub 9931 (3) 2 Abu Ballas8555-3 (1) (2) (W494) [cf Fig 9] Scale 16

1 2


sels is often so badly damaged by wind erosion thatthis cannot be confirmed beyond doubt Slippingand polishing jars diminishes the porosity of thevessels an essential quality for a desert environ-ment

Besides the large storage jars both sites alsohave strongly resembling cups and bowls as wellas large organic tempered vats The former are gen-erally heavily used and probably represent the per-sonal lsquotablewarersquo of the expedition members Occa-sionally traces caused by fingers scraping the baseof the bowls when eating can be seen [Fig 8] Thepresence of large vats [Fig 6] is far more remark-able Their importance is indicated by the consider-able effort invested in taking these heavy and bulkyobjects along into the desert The function of thesevats for the preparation of bread dough is wellknown (cf Faltings 1998 115ndash121) and identical ex-amples have been found in situ in the bakery of thegovernorrsquos palace at Ayn Asil (Soukiassian et al2002 205ndash209)

The vessel types illustrate the lsquoeconomicrsquo activityon the Abu Ballas Trail limited to the basics of waterand bread The spouted bowl [Fig 7] facilitates pour-ing without spilling and of course reflects the im-portance of water on the Abu Ballas Trail The ab-sence of so-called Meidum bowls one of the mainarchaeological characteristics of the Old Kingdomshould be noted Although also tableware thesebowls seem to have been considered luxury productsto some extent and were not required in the desert

The chronological position of the pottery from theAbu Ballas Trail is best considered through com-parison with the extensive information available forthe late Old KingdomFirst Intermediate Period atBalatAyn Asil (cf Valloggia 1986 1998 Minault-Gout 1992 Soukiassian et al 1990 2002 Castel et al2001 Castel amp Pantalacci 2005) The average size ofthe Abu Ballas Trail storage jars (between 50 and 60cm in height) exceeds that of the large jars from AynAsil (30ndash40 cm) (cf Valloggia 1986 150 Soukiassianet al 1990 107 2002 490 fig 303 [9341] 498 fig320 [29109]) Jars resembling those from the AbuBallas Trail both in size and shape are known atDakhla from the mastabas of the governors Ima-Pepi (Minault-Gout 1992 167f) and Khentika (Cas-

Fig 7 Spouted bowl late Old KingdomFirst Intermediate Pe-riod Jaqub 9935 (24) Scale 13

Fig 8 Bowl with traces of use late Old KingdomFirst In-termediate Period Jaqub 0022 (W400) Scale 13Close-up of base sherd with traces of use (left) Scale c 11


3 See also Soukiassian et al 1990 95 (coupes agrave caregravene basse groupe

1c) pl 18 nos 20ndash21 Castel et al 2001 fig 137 C98ndash99 Souki-assian et al 2002 479 fig 280

4 See also Soukiassian et al 1990 93 (coupes convexes eacutevaseacutees

groupe 1a1) pl 15 nos 13ndash5 Soukiassian et al 2002 471f figs271 272

5 See also Soukiassian et al 1990 95 (coupes agrave incision externe sous

le rebord groupe 1b) pl 17 no 15 Castel et al 2001 fig 138 C120Soukiassian et al 2002 477 fig 278 (130422)

6 See also Arnold 1982 pl 10b Hope 1979 pl XX4

7 See also Soukiassian et al 1990 112 (bassines agrave deacutegraissant veacutegeacute-

tal) pl 33 Castel et al 2001 fig 135 C78 Soukiassian et al 2002503 fig 335 (12281)

tel 2001 figs 145ndash152) and also from the cemeteriesnext to the mastaba of Khentika (Castel amp Pantalacci2005 541f [C66ndashC67] 551 [C137ndashC138]) Howeverdating the storage jars precisely within the late OldKingdom or First Intermediate Period remainsproblematic because of their limited typologicalevolution over time Despite their restricted num-ber the cups and bowls offer better dating possibil-ities The cupsbowls named agrave caregravene basse [Fig 54ndash5] are particularly informative They are a verycharacteristic product of the Ayn Asil ateliers andalthough they probably originate at the end of theOld Kingdom they are mainly dated to the First In-termediate Period (Soukiassian et al 1990 145)3

The caregravene basse cupsbowls are not represented inthe mastabas of Ima-Pepi (cf Minault-Gout 1992)and Medu-Nefer (cf Valloggia 1986) which date re-spectively to the second half of the reign of PepiIbeginning of the reign of Pepi II and the secondthird of the reign of Pepi II The broad convexcupsbowls [Fig 51ndash2] also point towards the FirstIntermediate Period (Soukiassian et al 1990 144)4

which is less obvious for the cupsbowls of the sameshape but with lip-rim [Fig 53] (Soukiassian et al1990 145)5 For the spouted bowl from site Jaqub9935 [Fig 7] very close parallels are known from

the governorrsquos palace at Ayn Asil (Soukiassian et al2002 478 fig 279 [11529 130404])6 Finally thelarge straw tempered vats [Fig 6] confirm the lateOld KingdomFirst Intermediate Period date (cfSoukiassian et al 1990 112f)7 When compared tothe pottery from the palace of the governors at AynAsil there are important similarities to the potterydated at Ayn Asil to the premiegravere phase post-incendiewhich corresponds to the end of the Old Kingdomor the beginning of the First Intermediate Period

Fig 9 Incised representation of a king on the exterior of the base of a vat [cf Fig 62]late Old KingdomFirst Intermediate Period Abu Ballas 8555-3 (1) (2) (W494) Scale 14


base of a vat from site Abu Ballas 8555 a carefullydrawn representation of a king was found [Fig 9]8

which also points to the lsquoofficialrsquo character of thepottery production It can hardly be doubted thatthe complex logistics and important investment ofmeans behind the desert expeditions indicate thatthe initiative for these activities came from thereigning governor of the oasis (cf Foumlrster this vol-ume)

Wind erosion lines are visible on many storagejars [Fig 10] indicating that the jars were lying withtheir axis at an angle between about 20deg and 45degaperture upwards This clearly shows that all of thejars were empty when left behind Accepting 30litres as average capacity of the jars site Abu Ballas8555 (originally with at least 100 jars perhaps asmany as 200 cf Jarvis 1936 115f) may have repre-sented a water supply of 3000ndash6000 litres and siteJaqub 9931 (min 58 jars) of at least 1740 litres Thejars themselves weigh 14ndash15 kg on average andwhen filled with water their weight would havebeen around 45 kg This is not easy to handle and

(Soukiassian et al 2002 9ndash12 521ndash523 figs 1 5 cfSoukiassian 1997 Jeuthe 2012 14 22 459)

Potmarks occur frequently on the storage jarsincised both before and after firing [cf Figs 3 4] Itis of great importance to note that the same pot-marks occur on jars from both sites indicating thatthey had a common origin The most frequent signis the hieroglyph [cf Fig 42] a potmark thatis also attested at the late Old KingdomFirst Inter-mediate Period site of Ayn Asil in Dakhla moreprecisely at the governorrsquos palace (Soukiassian et al2002 456ndash459 figs 269 [592b 1389] 270 [647e]) Thehieroglyph can be read as h or as an abbreviation ofwsxt both words meaning lsquohall courtyardrsquo (cf Han-nig 2003 383 741) It therefore may refer to thepalace itself meaning that the potters indicated thedestination or ownership of the vessels

The two sites Abu Ballas 8555 and Jaqub 9931are not only contemporaneous but should also beconsidered elements of the same operation Becauseof the above mentioned very close parallels betweenthe pottery from the sites Abu Ballas 8555 andJaqub 9931 and that from Ayn Asil it has to be ac-cepted that all of this pottery was produced at AynAsil at the well-known pottery workshops of thatsite (Soukiassian et al 1990) On the fragmentary

8 The fragments were found among the mass of sherds turnedover by present day visitors to the site Cf Foumlrster this volumefig 24

Fig 10 Photograph taken by L Almaacutesy in spring 1933 showingthe remains of the late Old KingdomFirst Intermediate Periodpottery deposit at Abu Ballas (1) On some of the storage jars inthe foreground damage caused by wind-blown sand is clearlyvisible (Almaacutesy 1934 3rd figure after p 120) Wind erosion linesor even sandblasted holes have also been observed on many jarsfound at other sites along the Abu Ballas Trail such as on thejars excavated at Jaqub 9931 (2)

1

2


the risk of breaking jars during transport seemsrather high The water therefore must have beencarried in much lighter and less vulnerable waterbags made of goat skins (cf Foumlrster this volume)Carrying the water in skins was a necessity anywaybecause it would have been totally ineffective tocarry the heavy jars up and down the Abu BallasTrail Rather they would have been installed as de-pots and repeatedly refilled

The transport of water in water bags and not inthe storage jars themselves is to some extent con-firmed by the fact that nothing has been found thatcould have been used for sealing the jars duringtransport Clay stoppers as used in the Nile Valleyare of course out of question because they wouldimply spilling water needed to mix with the clayThe cups and bowls are far too few in number tohave been used for closing the jars Moreover theirdeep shapes would have been inappropriate andcups or bowls for closing jars are normally used incombination with clay caps which was not possi-ble in the desert environment because again itwould imply spilling water Once the jars werefilled at the individual supply stations it seems thatperishable material such as leather was used forclosing the vessels but this is not a secure methodfor closing water jars during transport

The three most important late Old KingdomFirst Intermediate Period sites are Jaqub 9931 (to-gether with site Jaqub 9932 situated close by) AbuBallas 8555 and Base Camp 0027 Considering thelarge amount of storage jars animals must havebeen watered at these sites and probably also at El-Nahud 007 not far from the Gilf Kebir The dis-tances between these main supply stations areroughly equal (64ndash88 km as the crow flies) and cor-respond to a two or three day journey for a donkeycaravan (cf infra section 8) Vats and different typesof cups and bowls have been found at the first twosites only but this might be explained by the factthat Base Camp 0027 and El-Nahud 007 havehardly been investigated Intermittent sites used ascamp sites andor minor supply stations ndash but notor only to a limited extent for watering animals ndashare represented by Meri 0017 and Jaqub 9935 (be-tween Dakhla and Jaqub 9931) Jaqub 9930 andJaqub 0024 (andor Abu Ballas 0025 cf Bergmann2001 425) and perhaps also Jaqub 0022 (betweenJaqub 9931 and Abu Ballas 8555) and eventuallyAbu Ballas 0026 (between Abu Ballas 8555 and

Base Camp 0027) [cf Tab 1] Vats have not beenfound at the latter sites All of the remaining sitesconsist of only a single or a few jars They may rep-resent small-scale storage but in some cases maysimply consist of broken jars left on the way

A number of relatively small globular jars de-serve a separate note They have been found at sev-eral sites [cf Tab 1] but a well preserved group ofthem is only available from site Jaqub 9935 For allof the sites where these jars have been found largestorage jars are also present However parallels forthe smaller jars are rare in the late Old KingdomFirst Intermediate Period pottery from Ayn Asil(Soukiassian et al 1990 pl 29 no 88 pl 43 no182) The possibility of a late First Intermediate Pe-riod or early Middle Kingdom age was consideredin view of the recent but unexpected discovery atJebel Ouenat of a rock inscription of Mentuhotep II(Clayton et al 2008 cf Foumlrster this volume figs 4041 Pantalacci this volume fig 7) Additionally afew jars tend to become drop-shaped [Fig 111]which is an important characteristic of MiddleKingdom pottery Among these jars globularshapes are also found [Fig 112] and late First In-termediate Period and early Middle Kingdom par-allels are rare At first sight there is a resemblance toglobular jars from el-Tarif (Seidlmayer 1990 83 fig31) but these are smaller and have more pro-nounced necks and rims Comparison can also bemade with globular jars from Dendera (Seidlmayer1990 116 fig 4218940 119 fig 44 top right) whichare similar in size to those from site Jaqub 9935 butagain differ in neck and rim Still for Dendera FirstIntermediate Period ndash 11th dynasty cooking vessels(Marchand 2004 figs 60ndash62) show some resem-blance but these jars are not only smaller but alsomade in an entirely different technique as shownby the clearly visible turning traces on their interiorFinally related jars are known from the Qau-Mat-mar region (Seidlmayer 1990 156 fig 62 K-B2101160 fig 64 K-B3105) but as is also the case for sev-eral of the already mentioned lsquoparallelsrsquo they candate to the end of the Old Kingdom or the (early)First Intermediate Period as well9 Furthermore thejars from site Jaqub 9935 are made of the sameoasis fabric and according to the same technique asthe large jars For all of these reasons and especiallybecause there is no archaeological indication to sep-arate this group of vessels from the late Old King-domearly First Intermediate Period pottery it


should be accepted that late First Intermediate Pe-riod or early Middle Kingdom pottery has not beenfound on the sites of the Abu Ballas Trail The dif-ference between the pottery assemblages at sitesAbu Ballas 8555 and Jaqub 9931 (and others) onthe one hand and at Jaqub 9935 on the other handshould be considered functional and not chrono-logical meaning that Jaqub 9935 was not a realstaging post but rather a camp site

The absence of late First IntermediatePeriodearly Middle Kingdom pottery along thetrail makes the Mentuhotep II inscription at JebelOuenat all the more enigmatic and even raises thequestion whether it is related to the Abu BallasTrail Nevertheless it might be conceivable that the(rather small) expedition party that left the in-scription behind had re-used some of the old pot-tery deposits of late Old Kingdomearly First Inter-mediate Period times ndash or single jars that remainedintact ndash to get there This would imply that the lat-ter were still known and at least in part still usablein the early reign of Mentuhotep II (cf Foumlrster thisvolume) Recently a radiocarbon date was obtainedfrom a sample of barley remains found in one of agroup of four late Old Kingdomearly First Inter-mediate Period storage jars that have been exca-vated at site Jaqub 0020 (3520 plusmn 35 BP 1845 plusmn 55calBC Poz-23221) This date pointing to activitiesduring the 12th dynasty proves that at least in this

Fig 11 Small storage jars late Old KingdomFirst In-termediate Period 1 Jaqub 9935 (14) 2 Jaqub 9935 (5)Scale 16

case a few old jars were indeed re-used in muchlater times Except for a semi-hieratic rock inscrip-tion found comparatively close to Dakhla at siteMeri 955 (cf Burkard 1997 Foumlrster this volumefig 39) this finding however is the only evidenceso far which attests to Middle Kingdom activitiesalong the trail

4 Second Intermediate Period

Only a very small number of vessels can be attri-buted to the Second Intermediate Period (c 1800ndash1550 BC cf von Beckerath 1997 189) and there areno large storage jars comparable in size to the lateOld KingdomFirst Intermediate Period jars amongthem The identification of the vessels as of SecondIntermediate Period date can not however bedoubted both on typological and technologicalgrounds All of the vessels are made from the un-tempered oasis fabric already in use during the lateOld KingdomFirst Intermediate Period The typesare limited to relatively small jars [Fig 12] aspouted bowl [Fig 131] and a restricted bowl [Fig132] On their inside they show clear traces of veryregular slow turning The upper part of the outersurface is horizontally smoothed while the lowerpart is scrapedbrushed to remove excess clay aftershaping the vessels Parallels for the spouted bowl[Fig 131] are known from Dakhla (Hope 1980 plXXj XXId 1983 fig 2kndashl Ballet 1990 24 no 17)and although its shape is almost identical to that ofthe late Old KingdomFirst Intermediate Period [cfFig 7] the difference in fabrication techniquedemonstrates the chronological difference10 Scrap-

9 See the relevant Stufen attributed by Seidlmayer (1990 395fig 168) to the mentioned pottery types and their chronologicalposition

1 2


Fig 13 Bowls Second Intermediate Period 1 Spouted bowl Jaqub 9931-1 (1402)2 Restricted bowl Meri 9937 (5) Scale 13

ing of the lower part of jars is well attested at AynAsil for the Second Intermediate Period (cf Mar-chand amp Soukiassian 2010 174f 209ndash211) The re-stricted bowl or cup [Fig 132] is to some extentcomparable to a cup with perforations below therim (Ballet 1990 21 no 9) although the examplefrom site Meri 9937 is much broader and the per-forations are lacking11 Comparison to Second In-termediate Period slow turned cups with scrapedbase is also possible (Marchand amp Soukiassian 2010180f) The bad preservation of the jars [Fig 12] hin-ders identification of exact parallels but parallels

should be present among jars found atDakhla (cf Hope 1980 pl XXb XXIIj1983 fig 2ad 1999 228 fig 19 Ballet1990 23 nos 15 16)

The rarity of Second Intermediate Pe-riod pottery on the Abu Ballas Trail at-tested as individual pieces at four sitesonly [cf Tab 1] and especially the ab-sence of large storage jars makes it

doubtful that large-scale operations took place atthat time Furthermore the Second Intermediate Pe-riod vessels were not found in archaeological rela-tion with pottery from other periods although lateOld KingdomFirst Intermediate Period pottery wasalso found on each of the sites In this respect it isimportant to notice that none of the vessels havebeen found beyond a distance of c 130 km fromBalatDakhla and the Second Intermediate Periodactivity may have been limited to small-scale oper-ations for example hunting parties or desert patrols(cf Foumlrster this volume)

11 For a possible parallel from Tell el-Dablsquoa dating to the 13thdynasty see Muumlller 2008 329f fig 191 (K 2205-1)

Fig 12 Jars Second Intermediate Period 1 Jaqub9932 (1616) 2 Jaqub 9935 (25) Scale 16

1

10 See also the Second Intermediate Period spouted bowls fromAyn Asil made in the same manner but with rounded base(Marchand amp Soukiassian 2010 190f)

2


5 New Kingdom 18th dynasty

Vessels from the 18th dynasty occur at several sitesalong the trail and up to 350 km from BalatDakhla[cf Tab 1] However a large number of vessels areattested for only two sites Jaqub 9934 and Abu Bal-las 0025 (min 40 at each) Neither of them has beenexcavated yet and the pottery was only examinedon site limiting the possibilities for typologicalstudy This perhaps also accounts for the completeabsence of cups bowls and spouted vessels Fur-thermore site El-Nahud 006 the only one forwhich all available pottery was studied was prob-ably not found in its original position (but may wellhave constituted another main supply station inthose times) [Fig 14]

The fabric is very similar to the late Old King-domFirst Intermediate Period untempered oasisfabric This fabric seems identical to fabric B23identified by Ecclestone (2002) for New Kingdompottery at Dakhla All of the jars are slowly turnedstarting from a pushed-out base They were proba-bly moulded but this can not be confirmed beyonddoubt because of the heavy wind erosion on mostbases Vertical finger strokes are always visible onthe interior of the base and the walls of the base arevery thick and heavy On the inside the turningmarks have not been worked over while on the out-side they remain visible but have been partiallysmoothed

Among the material studied storage jars withand without handles can be distinguished the firstgroup called lsquoamphoraersquo following Hope (1989 cfHope et al 2002) The shape variation is importantand considering the limited amount of vessels avail-able the types distinguished are represented by afew examples only or even by a single one Thehighly eroded state of the vessels sometimes makesit impossible to know whether or not handles werepresent and for the same reason the shape of thebase can be beyond recognition Amphorae withtwo vertical handles occur with roundedtruncatedbase [Fig 15] and with ring base [Fig 16] For theformer parallels are known from Dakhla (Hope1989 102 figs 17 21 Hope et al 2002 97f 119fMarchand amp Tallet 1999 341 figs 12a 13andashb [])while for the latter no complete examples have yetbeen found but the base type with ring is attestedat Dakhla (Hope et al 2002 120 fig 3m) A singlewell preserved amphora with four vertical handles

[Fig 17] has no parallel at Dakhla but similar ves-sels are known elsewhere from the time of Amen-hotep III (Hope 1989 fig 44) and Akhenaten(Frankfort amp Pendlebury 1933 pl LIII fig XVII9)Vessels with horizontal loop handles occur butnone of them are well preserved [Fig 18] This typeof handles also occurs in Dakhla (Marchand amp Tal-let 1999 fig 12b) Both for the Abu Ballas Trail sitesand for Dakhla horizontal handles are far less nu-merous than vertical ones (Marchand amp Tallet 1999327)

For the storage jars without handles at least twotypes are represented one with rounded profile[Fig 19] the other with angular profile [Fig 20] Noparallels for either of these are currently knownfrom the Dakhla Oasis

It is important to note that the characteristic am-

phores agrave bouton (cf Marchand amp Tallet 1999 342 fig14) are lacking on the Abu Ballas Trail sites Theknobbed bases are obviously a simplified versionof the ring bases known from the Abu Ballas Trailand therefore probably a more recent developmentThe amphores agrave bouton are considered characteristicfor the end of the 18th dynasty by Marchand amp Tal-let (1999 319 328) However the amphores agrave bouton

could also occur during the 19thndash20th dynasties iethe Ramesside Period but the arguments given byAston and accepted by Hope et al (2002 98) remaininconclusive

According to the amphorae typology estab-lished by Hope particularly good parallels for theamphorae with two vertical handles and

Fig 14 El-Nahud 006 Storage jars found at a small rock out-crop may well have been part of a main supply station estab-lished and used during 18th dynasty times


roundedtruncated base from El-Nahud 006 [Fig15] are found with jars dated to the time of Amen-hotep II (Hope 1989 fig 17) and Amenhotep III ndashHoremheb (Hope 1989 fig 21) The late 18th dy-nasty amphorae tend to become more elongatedand tapering compared to those from site El-Nahud006 (Hope 1989 93) Specifically for the DakhlaOasis the high funnel shaped necks of the Abu Bal-

las Trail jars are not represented among the final18th dynasty material from Ayn Asil published byMarchand amp Tallet (1999) For all of these reasons adate in the second half of the 18th dynasty (c 1400ndash1300 BC cf von Beckerath 1997 189f) seems mostlikely

Remarkably better parallels for the jars from siteEl-Nahud 006 are found in the Nile Valley than

Fig 16 Amphorae with two vertical handles(not preserved in the shown examples) andring base New Kingdom 18th dynasty 1 El-Nahud 006 (19) 2 Abu Ballas 8555 (2)Scale 16

Fig 15 Amphorae with two vertical handlesand roundedtruncated base New Kingdom18th dynasty 1 El-Nahud 006 (32) 2 Jaqub9931 (442) Scale 16


Fig 17 Amphora with four vertical handles and ring base NewKingdom 18th dynasty El-Nahud 006 (24) Scale 16

Fig 19 Storage jar with rounded profile New Kingdom 18thdynasty El-Nahud 006 (26) Scale 16

Fig 20 Storage jar with angular profile New Kingdom 18thdynasty El-Nahud 006 (25) Scale 16

Fig 18 Amphora with two horizontal handles New Kingdom18th dynasty El-Nahud 006 (20) Scale 16


Fig 21 Jars late New Kingdom 1 Jaqub 9933 (1) 2 Jaqub 9933 (3) 3 Jaqub 9933 (4)Scale 16

among the amphorae produced in the oases Theoasis jars found in dated contexts in the Nile Valleyat Malkata (Hope et al 2002 123 18th dynastyAmenhotep III) el-Amarna (opcit 128ndash130 18thdynasty Thutmosis IV ndash Akhenaten) Theban Tomb253 (opcit 127 fig 10a 18th dynasty ThutmosisIIIndashIV) and Qantir (opcit 121 19th dynasty Ram-ses I ndash Merenptah) show on the interior pushed-uptraces of fingers up to nearly half of the height ofthe vessels The vessel walls tend to remain verythick up to that height This technique is not attestedfor the jars found at the Abu Ballas Trail sites Fur-thermore the shapes of the oasis jars just mentionedare more slender and the shoulder is less pro-nounced (lsquoregularly curvedrsquo jars) compared to thosefrom the Abu Ballas Trail This might very well in-dicate a direct influence from the Nile Valley for theAbu Ballas Trail vessels

There are three principal sites or main supplystations where animals were watered Jaqub 9934Abu Ballas 0025 and probably El-Nahud 006 In-

termittent sites used as camp sites andor minorsupply stations could be Meri 9955 (betweenDakhla and Jaqub 9934) Jaqub 9931 (betweenJaqub 9934 and Abu Ballas 0025) and Abu Ballas8555 (between Abu Ballas 0025 and El-Nahud006) Another one may have been Base Camp 0027where only one 18th dynasty storage jar is currentlyattested but this site has as yet hardly been inves-tigated Compared to the late Old KingdomFirstIntermediate Period the first main supply stationsite Jaqub 9934 is located closer to Dakhla whichmight imply a different starting-point in the oasisperhaps at Mut el-Kharab or its surroundings [cfFig 1]

6 Late New Kingdom (Ramesside Period)

Two sites Jaqub 9930 and Jaqub 9933 yielded alarge number of identical slow-turned and thin-walled jars [Fig 21] Both sites have been excavated


been identified and obviously represents an importfrom the Nile Valley Contrary to the late Old King-domFirst Intermediate Period sites Abu Ballas8555 and Jaqub 9931 there are no vats or othervessels related to bread production at the late NewKingdom sites

All of the jars are slow turned and nearly all ofthe bases are turned as part of the lower section ofthe vessel rather than pinched or moulded In a fewcases finger strokes are visible on the interior of thebase but these may be due to reworking of a turnedbase The turning marks remain visible on the jarsboth on the inside and outside Occasionally theoutside is (partially) covered with a white washThe jars show a particularly large number of defor-mations and were obviously made without muchcare [Fig 24] Despite this all of them were func-tional Furthermore the jars show no traces of usesuch as damage on the rim and seem to have beenin mint condition when taken into the desert Mostlikely they were made especially for this purpose

Often potmarks incised before firing are pres-ent just above the base These small marks were ap-plied when the vessels were drying standing up-side down and must relate to the organisation ofthe pottery workshop The same type of potmarkshas also been noted on pottery from Ayn Asil dating

and all of the material found was studied The stateof preservation of the jars is very bad especially forthe necks and rims and many vessels have been re-duced to almost shapeless wall sherds eroded fromall sides12 All of the vessels are (again) made fromthe untempered oasis fabric with limited presenceof fine clay pellets (lt 05 mm) The same matrix alsooccurs with limited presence of (unidentified)grains but these are probably incidental inclusionsand need not be considered actual temper Besidesthe jars a spouted vessel [Fig 22] a small plate [Fig231] and a fragmentary restricted bowl [Fig 232]are the only other vessels made from oasis fabricFurthermore a single Marl A4 cup [Fig 233] has

Fig 22 Spouted vessel late New Kingdom Jaqub 9933 (400ndash408 442) Scale 13

12 A difference in the wind erosion can be observed betweenthe late Old KingdomFirst Intermediate Period jars and thosefrom the late New Kingdom The late Old KingdomFirst Inter-mediate Period jars were lying with their axis in an angle be-tween about 20deg and 45deg aperture upwards while the late NewKingdom jars were generally lying horizontal or with their axisin an angle below 20deg This is apparently only a consequence ofthe difference in shape and of the very thick and heavy bases ofthe late Old KingdomFirst Intermediate Period jars which re-sist wind erosion better It does however indicate that all of thejars were empty when left behind

Fig 23 Bowl plate and cup late New Kingdom 1 Plate Jaqub9930 (282) 2 Restricted bowl Jaqub 9930 (324) 3 Cup Jaqub9930-1 (4468a) Scale 13

1

2

3


to the end of the 18th dynasty (Marchand amp Tallet1999 342 fig 14)

The shape of the jars is rather uniform certainlywhen compared to the 18th dynasty vessels alreadydiscussed The jars are ovoid to oval in shape gen-erally with small vertical handles They havepointed bases low necks and a narrow apertureand are related to amphores agrave col court type A1 (Mar-chand amp Tallet 1999 330 fig 8) which date to theend of the 18th dynasty However the necks ofthese amphores agrave col court type A1 are generallylonger the aperture wider and the handles largerThere are no good parallels from the Nile Valley13

although the small vertical handles are characteris-

tic for the Ramesside Period (cf Bavay et al 200083) Furthermore the size of the vessels for whichthe height is definitely known (565ndash603 cm 4 ex-amples) seems to exceed the size of similar vesselsknown from the Nile Valley All of this confirms theimpression that the vessels were specially made forand adapted to a desert expedition Unfortunatelyno parallels have been found for the spouted vessel[Fig 22] while the few other vessels besides the jarsare not sufficiently characteristic to allow dating

From a typological point of view what can besaid at present is that the vessels most likely dateto the late New Kingdom ie the Ramesside Period(c 1300ndash1070 BC cf von Beckerath 1997 190) Thisis confirmed and substantiated by a radiocarbondate (2995 plusmn 37 BP 1230 plusmn 70 calBC UtC-8868) thathas been obtained from a sample of the well pre-served remains of a basket found at site Jaqub9933 The basket is directly linked to the potteryand therefore provides a most reliable chronologi-cal indicator It was still covered with some vesselswhen found (cf Foumlrster this volume fig 27) likely

Fig 24 Remains of late New Kingdom jars exhibiting deformations 1 Jaqub 9933 (337) 2 Jaqub 9933 (40) 3 Jaqub 9933 (385) Scale c 16

13 Cf Nagel 1938 passim Holthoer 1977 pl 17 1851221pl 22 ldquoordinary amphorae Q12rdquo Aston 1998 499 no 1956 507nos 1994 1995 Bavay et al 2000 Holthoer 1993 43ndash56 figs L MThomas 1981 pl 7 Although not identical the Nile silt Rames-side amphorae from Qantir also seem related (cf Aston 1998 197no 584)


Fig 25 Vessels with donkey potmarks late New Kingdom 1 Jaqub 9930-3 (185) 2 Jaqub9933 (2) Scale of potmarks 13 Scale of vessels 16

it had been used for transporting large storage jarsThe radiocarbon date points to the 19th or early20th dynasty

The type of jars from sites Jaqub 9933 and Jaqub9930 has not been found on any of the other AbuBallas Trail sites with the possible exception of asingle jar at site Jaqub 001914 For sites Jaqub 9933and Jaqub 9930 95 and 71 storage jars respectivelywere identified and the original number probablywas not much higher These two sites are certainlypart of the same operation as is remarkably illus-trated through potmarks (incised before firing) rep-resenting donkeys One example was found on eachsite [Fig 25] but they were probably made by thesame person15 Although the two sites are certainlyrelated they are located rather close to each otherSite Jaqub 9933 is situated at a distance of at leastthree days by donkey from Dakhla (c 120 km fromBalatAyn Asil and c 90 km from Mut el-Kharab)but site Jaqub 9930 is only about 33 km further andnormally it would not have been necessary to waterthe donkeys again at this place As no late New

Kingdom vessels have been found further west onthe Abu Ballas Trail it is tempting to consider thetwo sites involved as evidence for an aborted un-dertaking (cf Foumlrster this volume)

14 Possibly this type of jar was also present at site Abu Ballas8555 (lsquoPottery Hillrsquo) as can be seen on a photo from the 1980staken by KP Kuhlmann (Kuhlmann 1988 pl 51f bottom leftand right) One of the two vessels on this photo has a pointedbase while the inside of the other jar does not show fingerstrokes but is turned both of which are characteristics of the jarsfrom sites Jaqub 9930 and Jaqub 9933 If indeed this is correctit would push the distance from Dakhla (Balat) at which suchjars are found from 153 to 207 km Unfortunately the jars visi-ble on the photo mentioned above were not among the materialretrieved and studied for site Abu Ballas 8555 Therefore con-fusion remains possible with the 18th dynasty pottery certainlypresent for site Abu Ballas 8555

15 At site Jaqub 9933 a second incomplete and highly erodedexample was found Jaqub 9933 (472C)


7 Roman

Occasionally fragments of pottery turned on thekick wheel were found Most of them are probablyRoman Kegs are the main identifiable vessel typefragments of which have been found at a few sitesbut the shape was only reconstructed for one ex-ample from site Jaqub 0023 [Fig 26] It is barrel-shaped with a short neck and is made in an oasisfabric Besides this keg with ribbed surface frag-

Fig 26 Keg Roman Jaqub 0023 (W437) Scale 16

Fig 27 Qullas Roman (or Byzantine period) 1 Meri 9955 (W152) 2 Meri 9955 (W153) Scale 13


ments of other kegs with smooth surface were alsopresent at the same site within a concentration ofsherds This ensemble has not yet been investigatedbut the rim type with distinct ribs confirms a datein the Roman period Unfortunately the typologyand chronology of the Roman kegs remain largelyunknown (cf Ballet 1998 39 fig 11 Hope 1999 2322000 189 fig 6c see also Marchand 2000 Aston2007 441f) For the few uncharacteristic fragmentsof kegs from other sites nothing can be said withcertainty but they most probably also date to theRoman period

At site Meri 9955 two qullas (a water bottle witha filter in its neck that is still used in Dakhla todaycf Henein 1997 104ndash108 154f) were found both ofthem made in an oasis fabric [Fig 27] Given theirfragmentary preservation it is not possible to con-firm for certain that they belong to the Roman (orByzantine) period although this seems most likely

No pattern can be recognised in the distributionof the sites where Roman pottery has been foundThis however is not really surprising given the factthat by that time camels were used for desert traveland transportation (cf Shaw 1979) A rather impor-tant water supply is only identifiable at site Jaqub0023 This site is situated 173 km from Dakhla(Balat) but camels could easily travel further fromthe oasis without needing water (cf Shaw amp New-bold 1928 Schmidt-Nielsen 1965 33ndash70)

8 lsquoFilling stationsrsquo along an ancient deserthighway

Only a few years after the discovery of the mainpottery deposit at Abu Ballas in 1923 P Borchardt(1929 304) and RA Bermann (1934 458f) inde-pendently related this mysterious assemblage ofstorage jars in the midst of the desert to a reportgiven by Herodotus the Greek lsquofather of historio-graphyrsquo (cf also Almaacutesy 1936 87f)

(6) τὸ δὲ ὀλίγοι τῶν ἐς Αἴγυπτον ναυτιλλομένωνἐννενώκασι τοῦτο ἔρχομαι φράσων ἐς Αἴγυπτονἐκ τῆς Ἑλλάδος πάσης καὶ πρὸς ἐκ Φοινίκηςκέραμος ἐσάγεται πλήρης οἴνου δὶς τοῦ ἔτεοςἑκάστου καὶ ἓν κεράμιον οἰνηρὸν ἀριθμῷ κεινὸνοὐκ ἔστι ὡς λόγῳ εἰπεῖν ἰδέσθαι κοῦ δῆτα εἴποιτις ἄν ταῦτα ἀναισιμοῦται ἐγὼ καὶ τοῦτοφράσω δεῖ τὸν μὲν δήμαρχον ἕκαστον ἐκ τῆς

ἑωυτοῦ πόλιος συλλέξαντα πάντα τὸν κέραμονἄγειν ἐς Μέμφιν τοὺς δὲ ἐκ Μέμφιος ἐς ταῦτα δὴτὰ ἄνυδρα τῆς Συρίης κομίζειν πλήσανταςὕδατος οὕτω ὁ ἐπιφοιτέων κέραμος καὶἐξαιρεόμενος ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ ἐπὶ τὸν παλαιὸνκομίζεται ἐς Συρίην (7) οὕτω μέν νυν Πέρσαι εἰσὶοἱ τὴν ἐσβολὴν ταύτην παρασκευάσαντες ἐςΑἴγυπτον κατὰ δὴ τὰ εἰρημένα σάξαντες ὕδατιἐπείτε τάχιστα παρέλαβον Αἴγυπτον []

ldquo(6) I will now mention something of which few voyagers to

Egypt are aware Throughout the year not only from all parts of

Greece but from Phoenicia as well wine is imported into Egypt

in earthenware jars yet one might say that not a single empty

wine-jar is to be seen anywhere in the country The obvious

question is what becomes of them I will explain The local offi-

cial of each place has orders to collect all the jars from his town

and send them to Memphis and the people of Memphis have to

fill them with water and send them to this tract of desert in Syria

In this way every fresh jar of wine imported into Egypt and

there emptied of its contents finds its way into Syria to join the

previous ones (7) It was the Persians immediately after their

conquest of Egypt who devised this means of storing water in

the desert and so making the passage into the country practica-

ble []rdquo (Herodotus III 6ndash7)16

This lsquotechniquersquo of storing water along routesthrough barren desert regions is obviously an age-old practice and was certainly not lsquoinventedrsquo by thePersians in the late 6th century BC Many such pot-tery deposits usually stumbled upon by accidentin modern times are known from various parts ofthe Libyan Desert and elsewhere (cf Kemal el Dineamp Franchet 1927 Almaacutesy 1936 87f Kuhlmann1988 69 n 444 2002 147 Foumlrster 2011 chapter 92)However most of them seem to date to rather re-cent epochs ie to Late Period Ptolemaic Romanor even Islamic times and some of them are situ-ated rather close to inhabited areas For example asite called lsquoAbu Zalarsquo where the remains of about1000 Roman vessels were found is only some 30km north of Birket Qarun (Fayum Oasis) (cf Kemalel Dine amp Franchet 1927 597f figs 258 259Almaacutesy 1936 87f Caton-Thompson amp Gardner

16 Translation by A de Seacutelincourt (1954) as given in HerodotusThe Histories Translated by Aubrey de Seacutelincourt Revised withIntroduction and Notes by John Marincola London et al Pen-guin Group (revised edition 2003) 172


1934 9 158 pl 1002) Another example is a recentlydiscovered dump of c 40 Roman () kegs all delib-erately destroyed with a pointed implement about80 km southwest of MutDakhla (not related to theAbu Ballas Trail cf Foumlrster et al 2010 55 figs 2425 Riemer 2011 238ndash240) [Fig 28]

Accordingly it has been assumed for a long timethat such isolated pottery concentrations in thedesert were the remains of water supply stations ndashcalled lsquomahattarsquo or lsquomahattehrsquo in Arabic (Winlock1936 XI) ndash that were established and used duringcomparatively late periods when the camel had al-ready been introduced into northeastern Africa Inthe case of the old pottery dump at Abu Ballas itwas even suggested that it may relate to Tibu no-mads from the southwest who used it as a supplybase for their raids on Dakhla in recent centuries(Kemal el Dine amp Franchet 1927 596f Ball 1927122f Hoellriegel 1938 44f) Another proposal wasto connect it ldquowith Cambysesrsquo ill-fated expeditionfrom Dakhla to subdue the Ammonites of Siwardquo

(Jarvis 1936 115 cf Bermann 1934 458f Hoell-riegel 1938 46ndash48) According to Herodotus (III 25ndash26) shortly after the conquest of the Nile Valley thePersian king Cambyses (529ndash522 BC) sent an armyconsisting of 50000 soldiers from Thebes to SiwaOasis via Kharga and Dakhla Reportedly thewhole army was surprised en route by a sudden ex-ceptionally strong sandstorm and disappearedwithout a trace somewhere in the Great Sand SeaAlso the Hungarian desert explorer L Almaacutesythought of Abu Ballas as an artificial water stationestablished for camel caravans at some point dur-ing the first millennium BC In his opinion itmarked the first third of a route connecting Dakhlawith the Kufra Oases in modern Libya and one ofthe lsquogreenrsquo valleys of the western Gilf Kebir WadiAbd el-Melik (which he claimed was the legendarylost oasis of lsquoZarzurarsquo) was another intermediatestop after two thirds of the distance (Almaacutesy 1999108f cf Almaacutesy 1936 87f) Caravans consisting ofcamels that are able to go for several days without

Fig 28 The remains of a Roman () pottery deposit about 80 kmsouthwest of MutDakhla The site (Jaqub 02100) is several kilo-metres off the Abu Ballas Trail and consists of about 40 largekegs all deliberately destroyed with a pointed implement


water (cf Shaw amp Newbold 1928 Schmidt-Nielsen1965 33ndash70) would of course not need more inter-mittent watering stations to cover such distances

Gertrude Caton-Thompson in view of a photo-graph of one of the late Old Kingdomearly First In-termediate Period storage jars found at Abu Ballaswas the first scholar who in 1934 assumed that thiskind of vessel may actually belong to an early pe-riod of Pharaonic civilisation when the principalbeast of burden was the donkey ldquoThe form [] re-calls a certain shape of the earliest Egyptian dynas-tiesrdquo (Caton-Thompson in Bermann 1934 467) Thisstatement is introduced by the following words(opcit 466)

ldquo[] When great dumps of pottery which are not uncommon

over parts of the Libyan Desert are discovered there is a ten-

dency to conclude that they indicate comparatively late caravan

trade movements in the desert somewhere in the Roman Ptole-

maic or at earliest the Persian periods I am not at all sure that is

always the case I know dumps containing 300 or 400 of these

great amphorae which are undoubtedly of Roman or Ptolemaic

age But I think it is becoming more and more apparent that the

ancient Egyptians also went far out into the desert in search of

some of those beautiful rocks with which they made certain of

their stone vessels There was a striking example of that the win-

ter before last when in the Western Nubian Desert a new source

for particular varieties of diorite was quite accidentally discov-

ered [ie the so-called Chephrenrsquos Quarries at Gebel el-Asr

about 80 km west of Toshka cf Engelbach 1933 1938 Murray

1939] That quarry dates back to the Old Kingdom of the third

millennium []rdquo

At present a number of pottery dumps that defi-nitely date back to comparatively early periods ofPharaonic civilisation are known these dumpswere obviously used as supply depots for move-ments in the desert Examples are Abu Ziyacircr on the

Girga Road between the Nile Valley and KhargaOasis (cf Darnell this volume) and a collection ofmore than 20 large storage jars of 12th dynastytimes recently excavated at Gebel el-Asr (Shaw2009 74f fig 4 Shaw et al 2010 300f fig 6) Todayit can hardly be doubted that the ancient Egyptiansrsquouse of desert routes for long-distance travel tradecommunication and exploitation of natural re-sources was much more common than hitherto as-sumed The rather limited number of Pharaonicpottery deposits currently known is probably onlya consequence of the fact that so far only little sys-tematic research has been carried out in order to de-tect and properly investigate such routes

Looking for relevant ancient Egyptian pictorialor textual evidence it comes as no surprise that thisquite ordinary lsquotechniquersquo of storing provisions inthe desert was barely mentioned or depicted in theavailable sources (cf Foumlrster 2011 chapter 93) Nev-ertheless there are a few indications For instancea representation in the 18th dynasty rock tomb ofthe chief of police Mahu at Amarna shows a num-ber of Nubian soldiers patrolling the desert aroundthe city of Akhenaten and four large storage jars aswell as a bag and two other items are depicted asplaced next to a little acacia tree indicating a depotof provisions used by the group [Fig 29] (for some-what similar scenes see Hayes 1953 160 fig 96Davies 1963 pl 2) As for related textual evidencea short Middle Kingdom rock inscription may bementioned [Fig 30] It is located at Tenida in theeastern part of Dakhla from where two caravanroutes the Darb el-Ghubari and Darb el-Ayn Amurlead to Kharga Oasis The inscription records thecreation of a water reservoir that had been orderedby a local governorrsquos son (sA HAty-a) called Mery Al-though the reading of the quite unusual hieroglyphndash three water-lines framed on three sides by a sim-

Fig 29 Supply depot including fourlarge storage jars of Nubian mercenariespatrolling the desert around the city ofAkhenaten Depiction in the rock tomb ofMahu chief of police of Amarna 18th dy-nasty (detail from Davies 1906 pl 26)


ple line ndash remains unclear it may well denote awater supply stored in ceramic vessels rather thana well dug at this place (cf Baud et al 1999 3f) An-other though indirect attestation is provided by aletter written on a clay tablet that was excavated inthe late Old Kingdom governorrsquos palace at AynAsil It mentions a potter who had been sent to oneof the villages in the oasisrsquo outskirts in order ldquotoprepare a wayrdquo (r irt wAt) for the chief of a foreign re-gion called Demi-iu (Pantalacci 1998 306ndash310 fig1) Most probably the potterrsquos task was to producesome storage jars that were to be placed filled withwater along a desert route to facilitate movementsof foreign groups coming to Dakhla There is evenreason to assume that the route in question was theAbu Ballas Trail (cf Foumlrster this volume) The la-conic phrase wbA wAt ldquoto open (ie to make passable)a wayrdquo through barren regions which occurs in au-tobiographical texts of expedition leaders such asHarkhuf might very well refer to ndash or imply as onemeasure ndash the application of the same lsquotechniquersquofor preparing long-distance desert travels inPharaonic times (Erman amp Grapow 1926ndash1931 vol1 2908ndash9 cf Kuhlmann 2002 139f 142 n 21)

In the Eastern Desert of Egypt the general situ-ation was much different because wells or cisternswere available at places and the distances to be cov-ered were relatively short (cf Bard et al this vol-ume) Henu an official under the reign of Men-tuhotep III (11th dynasty) boasts in a rock

inscription of having ldquoturned a (desert) road into ariverrdquo in order to lead an expedition consisting of3000 men from the Nile Valley to the Red Sea coast(and further on by sea to Punt) He did so by con-structing no less than 15 lsquowellsrsquo (Xnmwt for the var-ious meanings of this term see Franzmeier 2008)along the Wadi Hammamat where his inscriptionwas found (Couyat amp Montet 1912 pl 31 no 114cf Lichtheim 1988 53 Gasse 1994 170 173f) Nev-ertheless in view of the limited availability of nat-ural water sources in this area Henu might alsohave placed some pottery dumps as additional sup-ply stations for the c 150 km long journey acrossthe desert (for similar chains of wells or cisternsalong desert routes used in Pharaonic times seeHoffmeier amp Moshier this volume Snape this vol-ume Darnell 1986 19f)

Until the discovery of the Abu Ballas Trail andits stations there was no firm archaeological evi-dence of any chains of such pottery deposits alongspecific desert routes in Egypt either of Pharaonicdate or more recent To our knowledge the only(possible) exception is a sequence of sites betweenAbydos and northern Kharga which yielded vari-ous amounts of ceramic remains (Caton-Thompson1931 78 1952 IXf pl 126 cf Roe 2005ndash2006 128Graeff 2005 75ndash80) Notably it was G Caton-Thompson and her team who discovered and cur-sorily investigated these remains during an expedi-tion by camels in the early 1930s ldquoThe route wefollowed from the Nile valley to Kharga is dottedwith Roman watering stations placed at regular in-tervals five big ones were noted and their positionsfixed they consist now of litters or piles of brokenamphorae reddening the ground where they lierdquo(Caton-Thompson 1931 78) According to a maplater published by Caton-Thompson (1952 pl 126)however these sites are all situated within the firsthalf of the c 150 km long route and the distancesbetween them range between c 4 and 12 km onlyThis pattern of distribution raises considerabledoubts as to whether these main pottery concentra-tions (as well as some minor ones) indeed belongtogether as elements of the same desert operation(s)ndash the distances between the lsquowatering stationsrsquo aremuch too short to reflect daily travel rates either bycamel or donkey

Against this background the comparatively wellpreserved archaeological evidence of the Abu BallasTrail provides for the first time valuable insights

Fig 30 Middle Kingdom rock inscription at Tenida in the north-eastern outskirts of Dakhla (Baud et al 1999 fig 4) It recordsthe creation of a water reservoir ndash possibly a dump of storagejars ndash that had been ordered by a local governorrsquos son calledMery


into the ancient lsquotechniquersquo mentioned ndash but not de-scribed in detail ndash by Herodotus for the late 6th cen-tury BC Moreover it proves that the application ofthis logistical method for long-distance desert travelalready occured in the late third millennium BC ndashand for remote regions that hitherto have been re-garded as terra incognita for the ancient EgyptiansGiven that the climatic and environmental settingsin those times did not differ much from today (cfKuper amp Kroumlpelin 2006) a crossing of the vast wa-terless terrain between Dakhla and the Gilf Kebirby donkey caravans indeed would hardly havebeen possible without taking such measures As al-ready pointed out above (and in contrast to whatHerodotus wrote) the storage jars certainly weretransported empty and only after they had reachedtheir final destination at the individual supply sta-tions were they filled with water that had been car-ried separately in much lighter and less vulnerablewaterskins The successive installation of these sup-ply stations from the Dakhla Oasis up to the GilfKebir and the repeated refilling of their storage ca-pacities when going back and forth was evidentlyan enormous effort which exponentially increasedwith the distance and certainly involved many don-key convoys Of course the latter needed their ownprovisions during this preparation phase and onlya fraction of their freight could be deposited at se-lected places Once all the lsquofilling stationsrsquo wereready for use they resembled to some extent theRoman hydreumata chains of fortified wells thatwere usually established at intervals of c 20ndash30 kmalong routes in the Eastern Desert (cf Peacock 1997266 2000 434f Hamilton-Dyer 1998 123f fig171) An example is the quarry road to Mons Clau-dianus ldquoEach station is approximately 25 km fromthe next which coincides with the distance a loadedpack donkey could be expected to travel per dayrdquo(Hamilton-Dyer 1998 124)

The daily travel rate of a train of loaded packdonkeys certainly also determined the shape of thelogistical infrastructure of the Abu Ballas TrailHowever the distances between the main supplydepots along the route are considerably larger com-pared to the more conveniently placed hydreumata

of Roman times [cf Tab 2]17 The key to under-standing the general distribution pattern of theprincipal watering stations in Pharaonic times isprovided by the distance between the late OldKingdomFirst Intermediate Period sites Jaqub

9931ndash32 (lsquoMuhattah Jaqubrsquo as labelled byC Bergmann) and Abu Ballas 8555 since both sitescertainly were part of the same operation(s) andthere are definitely no great dumps of pottery in be-tween [cf Tab 1] This distance 78 km as the crowflies most likely reflects the donkeyrsquos ability to gowithout water for two or three days (cf Seligman1934 69ndash71 Murray 1935 102 Wainwright 1935260f Dill 1938 104 109 Keimer 1952ndash1953 486

Fig 31 A small sandstone stela found in the surroundings ofthe Kurkur Oasis in Lower Nubia and dating to the reign ofTutankhamun 18th dynasty (Darnell 2003 fig on p 76) Thetext mentions the daily duty of a Medjai soldier (and perhaps asmall lightly armed and provisioned group) to patrol a desertroute between Aswan and Kurkur probably in the region of theSinn el-Kaddab escarpment The distance to be covered each dayis specified as four itrw ie about 42 km (cf Darnell 2003 82ndash84) According to Spalinger (2005 34) who refers to textual dataon the Meggido campaign of Thutmosis III ldquo[] an ordinarymarch by the Egyptian army in Dynasties XVIIIndashXX would takeabout 16 to 24 kmday maximumrdquo (cf also Faulkner 1942 2Redford 2003 202) One may therefore assume that the normalpace of a heavily loaded donkey caravan in ancient Egypt wassomewhere in between that of a light patrol on the one handand that of large troops on the other leading to an average dailytravel rate of c 25ndash30 km or slightly more

17 Except for the distance between the late New Kingdom sitesJaqub 9933 and Jaqub 9930 (33 km as the crow flies) whichconstitutes a special case (see below)

Groves 1974 110 Jones et al 1989 Osborn amp Os-bornovaacute 1998 132 Adams 2007 58) There is no rea-son to assume that the ancient Egyptians did nottake full advantage of this special lsquoqualityrsquo of thedomesticated donkey which as the principal beastof burden in those times was probably bred in sig-nificant quantities in the Dakhla Oasis Thus thepack animals either walked c 40 km per day andwere watered at the end of every second or theyneeded three days at a rate of c 25ndash30 km to coverthe distance getting their water at the end of everythird Though the former figure cannot be excludedcomparative data both of ancient (see egSpalinger 2005 34 Darnell 2003 [Fig 31] cf Derck-sen 2004 255f n 656 703 Nashef 1987 62f 65f n39 43) and more recent times (cf Foumlrster et al thisvolume) suggests the latter to be more realisticunder the given circumstances (for details seeFoumlrster 2011 chapter 112) Moreover the positionsof intermediate smaller sites where people couldspend the night before arriving at a main supplydepot (or after leaving one) support such an inter-pretation (see above cf Tab 1)

The positions of the other main supply stationsplaced at distances ranging from 64 to c 90 km[Tab 2] fit quite well into this general scheme Thevariations in interval lengths are most probably

due first of all to the various landscape units to becrossed by the caravans exhibiting different ter-rains in terms of topography and surface cover (cfRiemer this volume fig 20) For example therather short distance of 64 km between Abu Ballas8555 and Base Camp 0027 can easily be explainedby the fact that along this part of the route the AbuBallas Scarp had to be crossed an incline (or risedepending on the direction of movement) of morethan 200 metres Steep escarpments frequent upsand downs in hilly or mountainous country as wellas very soft sandy subsoils or even dune trains asnatural obstacles would certainly have increasedthe journey time whereas compact soils on levelground would have facilitated rapid movementThe physical shape of the country is however onlyone of the factors that might have had an impact ondaily travel rates (cf Meerpohl 2009 176ff this vol-ume Foumlrster et al this volume) In a word one can-not expect a mathematically exact distribution ofsupply depots but rather one that had been dic-tated by practical considerations and experience

As for the establishment and earliest use of thetrail in the late Old KingdomFirst Intermediate Pe-riod four (main) watering stations can be identified(from northeast to southwest) [cf Tab 2 Fig 32]Jaqub 9931ndash32 (lsquoMuhattah Jaqubrsquo1ndash2) [Fig 33 cf


Minimum

storage capacity

attested (litres)

Main supply station

Mut

el-Kharab

Balat Ayn Asil

Average daily

marching

rate

Distance to

previous main

supply station

Late Old Kingdom First Intermediate Period

ge 156 2010

ge 3030 ge 1200 ge 600

Meri 9958ndash59 (or surroundings)Jaqub 9931ndash32 Abu Ballas 8555 Base Camp 0027 El-Nahud 007

19 km

99 km

177 km

241 km

329 km

49 km129 km207 km271 km359 km

-c 27 km

26 km21 km29 km

-c 80 km

78 km64 km88 km

12345

Hypothetical or questionable

Assuming athree day jour-ney by donkeycaravan betweenthe individualmain supply sta-tions (see text)

New Kingdom 18th dynasty

ge 800 ge 800

[ge 800]220 [+ x]

Jaqub 9934Abu Ballas 0025[NN]El-Nahud 006

75 km

147 km

[c 222ndash237 km]320 km

105 km 177 km


-24 km

[c 25ndash30 km][c 28ndash33 km]

-72 km


1234

Late New Kingdom 19th20th dynasty (Ramesside Period)

19001420

Jaqub 9933Jaqub 9930

90 km

123 km

120 km153 km

-11 km

-33 km

12

Tab 2 Spatial distribution and minimum storage capacities of the main supply stations along the Abu BallasTrail [cf Fig 32] Distances are given as the crow flies

Distance to Dakhla

366


Fig 32 Distribution of archaeological sites along the Abu BallasTrail according to the various Pharaonic periods of use as at-tested through ceramic evidence late Old KingdomFirst Inter-mediate Period Second Intermediate Period 18th dynasty and19th20th dynasty The positions of the main supply stations in-dicated by framed site numbers show the basic logistical infra-structure of the trail during the respective periods of use [cf Tab

2] Except for the Ramesside sites the distances between theselsquofilling stationsrsquo are roughly equal and most probably relate tothe donkeyrsquos ability to go without water for two or three days


Fig 102] Abu Ballas 8555 (the original Abu Ballasor lsquoPottery Hillrsquo site Foumlrster this volume fig 3 cfFig 101) Base Camp 0027 (lsquoMuhattah Fatimarsquo)and El-Nahud 007 (lsquoMuhattah Rashidrsquo) Accordingto the logistic scheme described above anothermain station presumably existed between Dakhlaand Jaqub 9931ndash32 probably at site Meri 9958ndash59(lsquoMuhattah el-Askerirsquo 1ndash2) or its surroundings At adistance of c 49 km from Balat and less than 20 kmfrom the oasisrsquo southwestern outskirts this positionis rather close to Dakhla In terms of logistical effi-ciency while building up a chain of supply stationshowever such a placement of the first steppingstone in the desert would make perfect sense Don-key convoys carrying provisions to be stored therewould not need to consume part of their valuablefreight but could have returned to Dakhla withoutdrinking water The fact that no huge amounts of

late Old KingdomFirst Intermediate Period storagejars have yet been detected at lsquoMuhattah el-Askerirsquoor its surroundings [cf Tab 1] might be explainedby the possibility that considering the short dis-tance from the oasis many intact jars had been re-moved in later times and reused in Dakhla forother purposes A number of simple stone struc-tures found at lsquoMuhattah el-Askerirsquo (cf Bergmann2001 fig facing p 368) seem to support this viewsince they are also known from main supply sta-tions further to the southwest where they probablyserved as basins for watering or feeding donkeys[cf Figs 34 35]

A slightly different pattern of distribution can beobserved for the 18th dynasty activities along theroute (the previous Second Intermediate Period ac-tivities did not leave any great pottery dumps at allpointing to small-scale operations for which nohuge numbers of pack animals were needed) Twosites Jaqub 9934 (lsquoMuhattah Amphoraersquo) [Fig 34]and Abu Ballas 0025 (lsquoBint Ballasrsquo) certainly servedas principal watering stations and most probablyalso site El-Nahud 006 (lsquoKhasin Berlinrsquo) [cf Fig 14]though the vessels at the latter site were probablynot found in their original position This constella-tion proves that the trail had been travelled alongin its full length up to the Gilf Kebir during thosetimes and consequently a fourth main watering

Fig 33 Aerial photograph taken by means of a camera-bearingkite of late Old KingdomFirst Intermediate Period pottery de-posits at site Jaqub 9931 (lsquoMuhattah Jaqubrsquo1) (left) On the rightanother concentration of vessel remains at the same site viewedfrom the ground


station must have existed between Abu Ballas 0025and El-Nahud 006 the remains of which are yet tobe discovered (lsquoNNrsquo in Tab 2 and Fig 32) Com-pared to the late Old KingdomFirst IntermediatePeriod of use the distances between the main sup-ply stations are more or less the same but the indi-vidual stations were placed much further to thesouthwest This shifted pattern of distributionmight very well be explained by the rise of Mut el-Kharab a settlement situated in the southwesternpart of Dakhla which became the oasisrsquo capital inthe New Kingdom (cf Hope 2005 Hope et al 2008)While trade caravans of the late Old KingdomFirstIntermediate Period in all probability started at (oraimed for depending on the direction of move-ment) the local governorrsquos residence in BalatAynAsil in the northeastern part of Dakhla this newpoint of departure (or arrival) would have consid-

erably reduced both the logistical efforts and thejourney time Now the establishment and mainte-nance of only four instead of five main supply sta-tions between Dakhla and the Gilf Kebir wouldhave sufficed to enable donkey caravans to coverthe whole distance within less than two weeksHowever both the rather small number of 18th dy-nasty sites in general [cf Tab 1] as well as the lim-ited amount of storage capacities at the main wa-tering stations [cf Tab 2] seem to point to a lowerintensity of traffic when compared to the late OldKingdomFirst Intermediate Period Despite of amore efficient logistical infrastructure the activitiesduring the 18th dynasty along the Abu Ballas Trailwere probably restricted to a relatively short periodof time

Little can be said in terms of logistics and or-ganisation for the activities in the Ramesside Period

Fig 34 Aerial photograph and close-up of the main pottery deposit at siteJaqub 9934 (lsquoMuhattah Amphoraersquo) 18th dynasty At a few metresrsquo distancefrom the heavily sandblasted amphorae a simple stone circle has been foundthat probably served as a basin for watering or feeding donkeys (insert on theleft) [cf Fig 35]


(19th20th dynasty) Apart from a single jar found atsite Jaqub 0019 there are only two sites dating tothis period [cf Tab 2 Fig 32] Jaqub 9933 (lsquoMuhat-tah el-Homareenrsquo) [Fig 35] and Jaqub 9930(lsquoMuhattah Umm el-Alamatrsquo) Both sites howeverrange among the greatest dumps of pottery discov-ered along the route and as outlined above theywere certainly part of the same desert operation forwhich all the vessels had been specially producedWhile Jaqub 9933 is situated at a distance ofc 90 km from Mut el-Kharab (and therefore stillfits into our general scheme) site Jaqub 9930 is only33 km further ie about a single dayrsquos march bydonkey Given that no late New Kingdom dumpshave been found further west on the trail there is

little doubt that the sites represent a failed attemptto build up another chain of supply stations ndash anundertaking that was perhaps hampered by a sud-den sandstorm and never taken up again

Admittedly the above reconstruction of the in-dividual patterns of distribution is to some extenthypothetical due to a number of gaps in the avail-able archaeological record (cf Foumlrster 2011 chapter12) This also holds true for attempts to estimate thesize of trade caravans and in turn the amount ofgoods that could have been transported along theroute once all the stations and deposits were readyfor use Nevertheless approaches and rough calcu-lations are possible by applying some general dataThe basic question is How much water was avail-

Trough structure

Fig 35 Aerial photograph of the Ramesside pottery dump at site Jaqub 9933(lsquoMuhattah el-Homareenrsquo) before excavation In the upper right corner of the pic-ture the remains of a small stone circle are visible similar to the one detected at siteJaqub 9934 [cf Fig 34] As the insert on the right illustrates such simple stonestructures are still used in modern Sudan for watering camels or other pack ani-mals (van der Stappen 2007 fig on p 330) The insert on the left shows the detailof four jars placed in a row probably representing a batch of containers that hadbeen carried along by a single donkey


able at each main supply station and how manydonkeys could thereby be provisioned Althoughonly very few vessels have been found completeand could be used to directly determine their ca-pacities a considerable number of broken andorhighly eroded remains of additional jars facilitatedrather accurate reconstructions in scale drawingsBy applying the so-called lsquosummed (or stacked)cylindersrsquo method [cf Fig 36] it was possible to es-timate the volume of all in all 58 storage jars or am-phorae based on their reconstructed profiles 35 oflate Old KingdomFirst Intermediate Period age 7of 18th dynasty and 16 of Ramesside times (cfFoumlrster 2011 chapter 10) It turned out that the av-erage capacity of the large late Old KingdomFirstIntermediate Period storage jars is about 30 litreswhereas that of the New Kingdom amphorae ofboth periods concerned appears to be around 20litres Thus the minimum storage capacities onceavailable at the individual stations could be roughlycalculated the results are listed in Tab 2 (for the re-spective numbers of vessel units detected at thesites see Tab 1)

It goes almost without saying that the originalnumber of jars was probably considerably higher atmost of the sites under discussion The circum-

stances of extreme wind erosion in the desert mayhave caused the complete disappearance of somevessels and others may have been removed or de-stroyed in ancient or more recent times Moreovera number of sites have not yet been excavated (hereonly the exposed vessels visible on the surface havebeen counted) and it should be expected that somedeposits along the route as well as additional jars atalready known stations still await discovery [cfFig 37] Therefore the given figures should be re-garded as absolute minimum numbers

Nevertheless it can reasonably be argued that ateach of the main supply stations used in the late OldKingdomFirst Intermediate Period about 100 largestorage jars were originally deposited This is cer-

Fig 36 The lsquosummed (or stacked) cylindersrsquo method of esti-mating the volume of a vessel based on the reconstruction of itsprofile in drawing (Rice 1987 222 fig 78 slightly modified) Thevessel is divided into a series of equal horizontal slides or thincylinders the volume of each cylinder is calculated by the for-mula V = π r2 h and then these are summed to give an estimateof the total volume of the container (cf also Thalmann 2007 En-gels et al 2009)

Fig 37 The remains of some late Old KingdomFirst Interme-diate Period storage jars found in the surroundings of site Jaqub9932 (lsquoMuhattah Jaqubrsquo2) in March 2004 Covered by a sanddune the pottery was invisible during former visits to the siteand was only recently exposed through wind action that hadshifted the dune for some metres This striking example confirmsthe assumption that more pottery concentrations along the AbuBallas Trail still await discovery


tainly the case for Abu Ballas 8555 (cf Ball 1927fig facing p 125 above = Foumlrster this volume fig 3Gabriel 1986 12f) and can also be assumed for9931ndash32 lsquoMuhattah Jaqubrsquo where the remains of 67identifiable vessel units have been excavated AtBase Camp 0027 lsquoMuhattah Fatimarsquo and El-Nahud007 lsquoMuhattah Rashidrsquo the remains of only c 40and 20 jars respectively are currently known butno excavations have been carried out and a consid-erable number of additional vessels might still becovered by sand (for the special case of Meri 9958ndash59 lsquoMuhattah el-Askerirsquo see above) 100 storage jarswould have provided about 3000 litres of water ateach site That amount might have sufficed for wa-tering up to 100 donkeys each getting c 30 litresafter a three day journey between the individualmain supply stations18 A caravan of such a sizewould not match the one that Harkhuf led backfrom Yam to Egypt in the late 6th dynasty In theautobiographical text still preserved in his rocktomb at Qubbet el-Hawa near Aswan Harkhufboasts of having returned with 300 donkeys ladenwith ldquoall sorts of good productsrdquo such as incenseebony oils panther skins and ivory (Sethe 1933126f) But our estimate would be well comparablewith the caravan mentioned by Sabni one ofHarkhufrsquos successors as the governor of UpperEgypt who undertook a trade expedition to Wawatin Lower Nubia which consisted of 100 donkeysladen with various oils honey clothes and fayence(Sethe 1933 136)

Any calculations however must also take intoaccount the amount of provisions needed for thedonkey drivers although the number of humansaccompanying a caravan was probably not veryhigh (cf Foumlrster et al this volume) Moreover someof the jars deposited at the individual stations mightnot have been filled with water but with grain orother foodstuffs in addition to both the provisionscarried along and the (sparse) vegetation perhapsavailable along the route during the rainy season orshortly after which could have been used as fod-der for the pack animals Therefore a (minimum)

number of 75ndash90 donkeys per caravan seems per-haps more reasonable for the activities that tookplace during the late Old KingdomFirst Interme-diate Period Assuming an average payload of c 60kg per donkey (neglecting the additional weight ofpacking devices such as baskets or bags ropes packsaddles and the weight of some provisions andequipment carried along) such a caravan wouldhave been able to transport cargoes of c 45ndash54tons

Compared under the same parameters the ex-peditions during the 18th dynasty appear to havebeen considerably smaller in scale Around 40ndash50amphorae deposited at each of the main supply sta-tions19 would have provided water for about 25ndash30donkeys at best Trade caravans of such a scalecould have transported a freight of no more than c15ndash18 tons mdash ie a third of what was possible inlate Old KindomFirst Intermediate Period timesFinally judging from the number and capacity ofvessels excavated at sites Jaqub 9933 lsquoMuhattah el-Homareenrsquo [cf Fig 35] and Jaqub 9930 lsquoMuhattahUmm el-Alamatrsquo ndash 95 and 71 amphorae respec-tively ndash it can be said that the aborted undertakingin Ramesside times aimed to pave the way for don-key caravans of a size and load capacity somewherebetween those of the former two periods (for a moredetailed discussion of these aspects see Foumlrster2011 chapter 14 with further references)

Most probably all these journeys were under-taken in the colder seasons ie in winter or earlyspring when water requirements of both humansand animals usually walking in the daytime wererelatively low In addition winter rains might evenhave provided fresh grass in places which couldhave been used as succulent fodder for the pack an-imals Under the above assumptions travelling theAbu Ballas Trail from Dakhla to the Gilf Kebir (orvice versa) by donkey caravan was a matter ofaround two weeks Naturally enabling a trade car-avan to return to its starting-point was as importantas the preparations for launching it which raisesthe question of how long the water could be stored

18 The domesticated donkey can tolerate a dehydration of upto 30 of its body weight (Maloiy 1970 Maloiy amp Boarer 1971Smith amp Pearson 2005 6f) To repair such a deficit a dehydrateddonkey can drink 24ndash30 litres of water within 2ndash5 minutes whenwater becomes available (opcit)

19 At least at site Jaqub 9934 lsquoMuhattah Amphoraersquo situated ina rocky area with stony subsoils where only very little sand hasaccumulated [cf Fig 34] the original number of jars probablywould not have been much higher than the c 40 vessel units de-tected during the surveys


in the vessels A number of factors might have hadan impact on its evaporation rate general climatesurrounding temperature and air humidity fabricand quality of the clay surface treatment of the ves-sels duration of exposure to insolation etc (cfFoumlrster 2011 chapter 94) None of the storage jarsfound along the trail showed the application of spe-cial measures to decrease permeability such as slip-ping the inner surface However regular slippingand polishing of the outer surface was still visibleon many late Old KingdomFirst Intermediate Pe-riod jars (which probably have been closed with apiece of leather when filled) and might have di-minished the porosity of the vessels to a sufficientdegree More important however is the generaldeposition and protection of the pottery dumpsMost of them were placed at or near the foot of ahill or close to a rock outcrop which protectedthem to some extent against the sun and wind[Figs 14 33 34 cf Figs 101 28] In general thelate Old KingdomFirst Intermediate Period de-posits appear to have been installed more thor-oughly and were better sheltered compared to theones from the New Kingdom probably reflecting agreater intensity of use and a need to maintainthem for a longer period of time According toJarvis (1936 114f) the storage jars discovered atAbu Ballas in 1923 were found ldquoburied in the soil[]rdquo and they ldquowere laid in orderly rows of tenrdquoThis is also noted by Ball (1927 122 n Dagger) ldquo[] theexcavations made by the Prince [Kemal el Din] inthe sand around the foot of the hill revealed the ex-istence of hundreds of additional jars many ofthem intact set in regular order in the sand and ob-viously forming a water-dumprdquo Also at site Jaqub9931 lsquoMuhattah Jaqub1rsquo at least some storage jarsseem to have been intentionally protected by a sandcover when left behind in Pharaonic times (cfFoumlrster 2011 chapter 614)

Under such favourable conditions the loss ofwater during a storage period of some days or evenweeks in the colder seasons would not be very highSome evaporation through the vessel walls wouldeven have had the benefit of keeping the water cooland fresh The lapse of time between vessel fillingand water consumption presumably ranged be-tween a couple of days and a few weeks only de-pending on the distance of the individual supplystations And when a caravan was expected to come(or return) to Dakhla in the foreseeable future all

the storage jars at the main stations probably couldhave been refilled at relatively short notice albeitwith considerable effort

To sum up an appraisal by GA Wainwrightdating back to the 1930s and not shared by manyscholars in those days can absolutely be confirmedin view of the evidence now on hand ldquoHence ifthey had the need the ancients could have done agood deal of desert travel with their donkeysrdquo(Wainwright 1935 261) Provided they had enoughstorage jars and water bags one might add

9 Conclusions

The investigation of the Pharaonic pottery foundalong the Abu Ballas Trail provides valuable in-sights into several aspects of long-distance deserttravel and transportation in ancient times when theprincipal beast of burden was the donkey Variousperiods of use can be determined rather exactlyand the intensity of traffic can be estimated for eachof the chronological phases Ceramics ndash either usedfor transport storage or as personal lsquotablewarersquo ofthe expedition members involved ndash usually consti-tute the most common type of find along ancientand more recent desert routes The special case ofthe Abu Ballas Trail however offers some additionalclues regarding the organisational and logisticalframework necessary to conduct large-scale donkeycaravan traffic over hundreds of kilometers throughwaterless regions Various functions or types of pot-tery-bearing sites can be distinguished according tosize structure complexity the association withother artefacts and the embedding in the land-scape temporary camp sites main road stations in-termittent smaller supply depots or localitieswhere jars accidently broken during transport hadbeen left behind Most informative however arethe main supply stations consisting of dozens oreven more than a hundred large storage jars oncefilled with water (and in part perhaps also grainor other foodstuffs) that have been deposited atrather regular distances for the donkeys and theirdrivers Storage capacity and pattern of distributionof these supply depots make up the basic infra-structure of the trail which likely was closely re-lated to the donkeyrsquos ability to go without water fortwo or three days and took full advantage of thisquality The calculated (minimum) amount of stor-


age capacities at the individual main supply sta-tions in turn allows a rough estimate of the size andtransport capacities of the donkey trade caravansthat were launched once all the stations and de-posits were ready for use

The ceramic evidence available from the trailrsquossites is a stroke of luck for archaeology since theseancient activities are thereby not only datable (andcan be related to specific historical situations cfFoumlrster this volume) but can be evaluated with re-gard to organisation and logistics as discussedabove Although a number of the sites had been dis-turbed to some degree in antiquity or more recentlymost of them reflect the original situation when leftbehind after their last use in Pharaonic times Thisis certainly due to the trailrsquos general character as anextremely difficult desert route that required anenormous effort to be crossed by donkey caravansand was therefore apparently only episodicallyused over many centuries probably motivated inmost cases by specific circumstances In contrast toheavily trafficked caravan routes such as the fa-mous Darb el-Arbain between the Darfur region inSudan and Asyut at the Egyptian Nile the archae-ological features of the Abu Ballas Trail have onlybeen shaped a little by later human activities How-ever it must be kept in mind that desert circum-stances causing extreme wind erosion may have ledto the complete disintegration of some vessels Theoriginal number of storage jars once placed at theindividual supply stations was perhaps consider-ably higher and the remains of some pottery de-posits now covered by sand may still await discov-ery

It is hoped that other long-distance desert routesexhibiting a similar logistical infrastructure ofPharaonic or lsquopre-camelrsquo times will be discoveredin the near future enabling comparison For thetime being however the Abu Ballas Trail consti-tutes the only known case where a detailed studyand analysis of Herodotusrsquo lsquotechniquersquo of storingwater along routes through arid wastes is possible

Acknowledgements

The participation of Stan Hendrickx in the field work carried outby the ACACIA missions was made possible by grants from theFonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek ndash Vlaanderen (Belgium)The large majority of the drawings presented in this article weremade by Merel Eyckerman but we gratefully acknowledge theadditional illustration work of Bieke Van Gompel (2004) andHannah Joris (2007) Thanks are also due to Elizabeth Hart forproof-reading the English text

Adams C (2007)emspLand Transport in Roman Egypt A Study ofEconomics and Administration in a Roman Province (Ox-fordNew York Oxford University Press)

Almaacutesy LE (1934)emspAz ismeretlen Szahara [The Unknown Sa-hara] (Budapest Franklin-Taacutersulat)

mdash (1936)emspReacutecentes Explorations dans le Deacutesert Libyque(1932ndash1936) Publications de la Socieacuteteacute Royale de Geacuteo-graphie drsquoEacutegypte (Le Caire Schindler)

mdash (1999)emspSchwimmer in der Wuumlste Auf der Suche nachder Oase Zarzura (Muumlnchen Deutscher TaschenbuchVerlag) [new and enlarged edition of Almaacutesy LE (1939)Unbekannte Sahara Mit Flugzeug und Auto in derLibyschen Wuumlste (Leipzig Brockhaus)]

Arnold D (1982)emspKeramikfunde aus Qilarsquo el-Dabba In JOsing M Moursi D Arnold O Neugebauer RAParker D Pingree amp MA Nur-el-Din Denkmaumller derOase Dachla aus dem Nachlaszlig von Ahmed FakhryArchaumlologische Veroumlffentlichungen des DeutschenArchaumlologischen Instituts Abteilung Kairo 28 (MainzPhilipp von Zabern) 42ndash56

Aston DA (1998)emspDie Keramik des Grabungsplatzes Q I Teil1 Corpus of Fabrics Wares and Shapes Grabungen desPelizaeus-Museums Hildesheim in Qantir ndash Pi-Ramesse Forschungen in der Ramses-Stadt 1 (Mainz Philipp vonZabern)

mdash (2007)emspAmphorae Storage Jars and Kegs from Ele-phantine A Brief Survey of Vessels from the EighthndashSev-enth Centuries BC to the SeventhndashEighth Centuries ADCahiers de la ceacuteramique eacutegyptienne 82 419ndash445

Ball J (1927)emspProblems of the Libyan Desert GeographicalJournal 70 21ndash38 105ndash128 209ndash224

Ballet P (1990)emspLa ceacuteramique du Kocircm I In S Aufregravere Laneacutecropole sud de Qilarsquo al-Dabba (oasis de Dakhla secteurde Balat) un palimpseste archeacuteologique Bulletin de lrsquoIn-stitut franccedilais drsquoarcheacuteologie orientale 90 18ndash28

mdash (1998)emspCultures mateacuterielles de deacuteserts drsquoEacutegypte sous leHaut et le Bas-Empire Productions et eacutechanges In OEKaper (ed) Life on the Fringe Living in the SouthernEgyptian Deserts during the Roman and early-ByzantinePeriods Proceedings of a Colloquium Held on the Occa-sion of the 25th Anniversary of the Netherlands Institutefor Archaeology and Arabic Studies in Cairo 9ndash12 De-cember 1996 CNWS Publications 71 (Leiden CNWS) 31ndash54

References


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Bavay L S Marchand amp P Tallet (2000)emspLes jarres inscrites duNouvel Empire provenant de Deir al-Meacutedina Cahiers dela ceacuteramique eacutegyptienne 6 77ndash89

Bergmann C (2001)emspDer letzte Beduine Meine Karawanen zuden Geheimnissen der Wuumlste (Reinbek bei HamburgRowohlt)

Bermann RA (1934)emspHistoric Problems of the Libyan DesertGeographical Journal 83 456ndash470

Borchardt P (1929)emspOasen und Wege der suumldlichen LibyschenWuumlste Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen 75 302ndash306

Burkard G (1997)emspInscription in the Dakhla Region TextTranslation and Comments Sahara 9 152ndash153

Castel G amp L Pantalacci (2005)emspLes cimetiegraveres est et ouest dumastaba de Khentika Oasis de Dakhla Balat VII Fouillesde lrsquoInstitut franccedilais drsquoarcheacuteologie orientale 52 (Le CaireInstitut franccedilais drsquoarcheacuteologie orientale)

Castel G L Pantalacci amp N Cherpion (2001)emspLe mastaba deKhentika Tombeau drsquoun gouverneur de lrsquoOasis agrave la finde lrsquoAncien Empire Balat V Fouilles de lrsquoInstitut franccedilaisdrsquoarcheacuteologie orientale 40 (Le Caire Institut franccedilaisdrsquoarcheacuteologie orientale)

Caton-Thompson G (1931)emspRoyal Anthropological InstitutersquosPrehistoric Research Expedition to Kharga Oasis EgyptPreliminary Outline of the Seasonrsquos Work Man 31 77ndash84

mdash (1952) Kharga Oasis in Prehistory With a PhysiographicIntroduction by EW Gardner (London Athlone Press)

Caton-Thompson G amp EW Gardner (1934)emspThe DesertFayum [2 vols text and plates] (London The Royal An-thropological Institute)

Clayton J A De Trafford amp M Borda (2008)emspA HieroglyphicInscription found at Jebel Uweinat mentioning Yam andTekhebet Sahara 19 129ndash134

Couyat J amp P Montet (1912)emspLes inscriptions hieacuteroglyphiqueset hieacuteratiques du Ouacircdi Hammacircmacirct Meacutemoires publieacutespar les membres de lrsquoInstitut franccedilais drsquoarcheacuteologie ori-entale du Caire 34 (Le Caire Institut franccedilais drsquoarcheacuteolo-gie orientale du Caire)

Darnell JC (1986)emspIrem and the Ghost of Kerma GoumlttingerMiszellen 94 17ndash23

mdash (2003)emspA Stela of the Reign of Tutankhamun from theRegion of Kurkur Oasis Studien zur Altaumlgyptischen Kul-tur 31 73ndash91

Davies N de Garis (1906)emspThe rock tombs of El Amarna PartIV The tombs of Penthu Mahu and others Archaeolog-ical Survey of Egypt Memoir 16 (London Egypt Explo-ration Fund)

mdash (1963)emspScenes from some Theban tombs (nos 38 66162 with excerpts from 81) Private Tombs at Thebes 4(Oxford Oxford University Press)

Dercksen JG (2004)emspOld Assyrian Institutions MOS Studies4 Uitgaven van het Nederlands Instituut voor het NabijeOosten te Leiden 98 (Leiden Nederlands Instituut voorhet Nabije Oosten)

Dill DB (1938)emspLife Heat and Altitude Physiological Effectsof Hot Climates and Great Heights (Cambridge HarvardUniversity Press)

Ecclestone MJ (2002)emspMacroscopic and Microscopic Analysisof New Kingdom Dakhleh Oasis Amphorae Fabrics InRF Friedman (ed) Egypt and Nubia Gifts of the Desert(London British Museum Press) 106ndash109

Engelbach R (1933)emspThe Quarries of the Western NubianDesert Annales du Service des Antiquiteacutes de lrsquoEacutegypte 3365ndash74

mdash (1938)emspThe Quarries of the Western Nubian Desert andthe Ancient Road to Tushka Annales du Service des An-tiquiteacutes de lrsquoEacutegypte 38 369ndash390

Engels L L Bavay amp A Tsingarida (2009)emspCalculating vesselcapacities A new web-based solution In A Tsingarida(ed) Shapes and Uses of Greek Vases (7th ndash 4th centuriesBC) Eacutetudes drsquoarcheacuteologie 3 (Bruxelles Centre deRecherches en Archeacuteologie et Patrimoine Universiteacute librede Bruxelles) 129ndash133

Erman A amp H Grapow (1926ndash1931)emsp Woumlrterbuch der aumlgyp-tischen Sprache vol 1ndash5 (Leipzig Hinrichsrsquosche Buch-handlung)

Faltings D (1998)emspDie Keramik der Lebensmittelproduktionim Alten Reich Ikonographie und Archaumlologie eines Ge-brauchsartikels Studien zur Archaumlologie und GeschichteAltaumlgyptens 14 (Heidelberg Heidelberger Orientverlag)

Faulkner RO (1942)emspThe Battle of Meggido Journal of Egypt-ian Archaeology 28 2ndash15

Foumlrster F (2007a)emspWith donkeys jars and water bags into theLibyan Desert the Abu Ballas Trail in the late Old King-domFirst Intermediate Period British Museum Studiesin Ancient Egypt and Sudan 7 1ndash36

mdash (2007b)emspThe Abu Ballas Trail a Pharaonic donkey-cara-van route in the Libyan Desert (SW-Egypt) In O Buben-zer A Bolten amp F Darius (eds) Atlas of Cultural and En-vironmental Change in Arid Africa Africa Praehistorica21 (Koumlln Heinrich-Barth-Institut) 130ndash133

mdash (2010)emspGottes Ohr in der Wuumlste Ein demotisch undhieroglyphisch beschrifteter Steinblock von einem soge-nannten hilltop site suumldlich der Oase Dachla In H KnufC Leitz amp D von Recklinghausen (eds) Honi soit quimal y pense Studien zum pharaonischen griechisch-roumlmischen und spaumltantiken Aumlgypten zu Ehren vonHeinz-Josef Thissen Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 194(Leuven et al Peeters Publishers) 69ndash78

mdash (2011)emspDer Abu Ballas-Weg Eine pharaonische Karawa-nenroute durch die Libysche Wuumlste Unpublished PhDthesis University of Cologne

Foumlrster F H Riemer A Bolten O Bubenzer S Hendrickx amp FDarius (2010)emspTracing Linear Structures Remote Sens-ing Landscape Classification and the Archaeology ofDesert Roads in the Eastern Sahara In WJG Moumlhlig OBubenzer amp G Menz (eds) Towards InterdisciplinarityExperiences of the Long-term ACACIA Project Topics inInterdisciplinary African Studies 15 (Koumlln RuumldigerKoumlppe) 49ndash75

Frankfort H amp JDS Pendlebury (1933)emspThe City of Akhen-aten Part II The North Suburb and the Desert Altars Ex-cavation Memoirs 40 (London Egypt Exploration Soci-ety)

Franzmeier H (2008)emspWells and Cisterns in Pharaonic EgyptThe Development of a Technology as a Progress of Adap-tation to Environmental Situations and Consumersrsquo De-mands In K Griffin (ed) Current Research in Egypto-logy 2007 Proceedings of the Eighth Annual Symposiumwhich Took Place at Swansea University April 2007 (Ox-ford Oxbow) 37ndash51

Gabriel B (1986)emspDie oumlstliche Libysche Wuumlste im JungquartaumlrBerliner geographische Studien 19 (Berlin Institut fuumlrGeographie der Technischen Universitaumlt Berlin)

Gasse A (1994)emspLrsquoapprovisionnement en eau dans les mines etcarriegraveres In B Menu (ed) Les problegravemes institutionnelsde lrsquoeau en Eacutegypte ancienne et dans lrsquoAntiquiteacute meacutediter-raneacuteenne Colloque AIDEA Voguumleacute 1992 BibliothegravequedrsquoEacutetude 110 (Le Caire Institut franccedilais drsquoarcheacuteologie ori-entale du Caire) 169ndash176

Graeff J-P (2005)emspDie Straszligen Aumlgyptens (Berlin dissertatio-nende)

Groves CP (1974)emspHorses Asses and Zebras in the Wild(Newton Abbot David amp Charles)

Hamilton-Dyer S (1998)emspRoman Egypt ndash Provisioning the Set-tlements of the Eastern Desert with Particular Referenceto the Quarry Settlement of Mons Claudianus In CMMills amp G Coles (eds) Life on the Edge Human Settle-ment and Marginality Symposia of the Association forEnvironmental Archaeology No 13 Oxbow Monograph100 (Oxford Oxbow) 121ndash126

Hannig R (2003)emspAumlgyptisches Woumlrterbuch I Altes Reich undErste Zwischenzeit (Hannig-Lexica 4) Kulturgeschichteder antiken Welt 98 (Mainz Philipp von Zabern)

Hayes WC (1953)emspThe Scepter of Egypt A Background for theStudy of the Egyptian Antiquities in The MetropolitanMuseum of Art Part I From the Earliest Times to the Endof the Middle Kingdom (New York Harper)

Henein NH (1997)emspPoterie et potiers drsquoal-Qasr Oasis deDakhla Bibliothegraveque drsquoEacutetude 116 (Le Caire Institutfranccedilais drsquoarcheacuteologie orientale)

Hoellriegel A [alias RA Bermann] (1938)emspZarzura die Oaseder kleinen Voumlgel Die Geschichte einer Expedition in dieLibysche Wuumlste (Zuumlrich Fuumlssli)

Holthoer R (1977)emspNew Kingdom Pharaonic Sites The Pot-tery Scandinavian Joint Expedition to Sudanese Nubia51 (Copenhagen Munksgaard)

mdash (1993)emspThe Pottery In J Baines (ed) Stone Vessels Pot-tery and Sealings from the Tomb of Tutlsquoankhamun (Ox-ford Griffith Institute amp Ashmolean Museum) 37ndash85


Hope CA (1979)emspDakhleh Oasis Project Report on the Studyof the Pottery and Kilns Journal of the Society for theStudy of Egyptian Antiquities 9 187ndash201

mdash (1980)emspDakhleh Oasis Project Report on the Study ofthe Pottery and Kilns Journal of the Society for the Studyof Egyptian Antiquities 10 283ndash313

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mdash (2000)emspKegs and Flasks from the Dakhleh Oasis Cahiersde la ceacuteramique eacutegyptienne 6 189ndash210

mdash (2002)emspEarly and Mid-Holocene Ceramics from theDakhleh Oasis Traditions and Influences In R Fried-man (ed) Egypt and Nubia Gifts of the Desert (LondonBritish Museum Press) 39ndash61

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mdash (2007)emspEgypt and lsquoLibyarsquo to the End of the Old King-dom A View from Dakhleh Oasis In ZA Hawass amp JRichards (eds) The Archaeology and Art of AncientEgypt Essays in Honor of David B OrsquoConnor Annalesdu Service des Antiquiteacutes de lrsquoEacutegypte Cahiers 362 (LeCaire Service des Antiquiteacutes de lrsquoEacutegypte) 399ndash415

Hope CA M Eccleston P Rose amp J Bourriau (2002)emspOasesAmphorae of the New Kingdom In RF Friedman (ed)Egypt and Nubia Gifts of the Desert (London BritishMuseum Press) 95ndash131

Hope CA GE Bowen W Dolling E Healey J Milner amp OEKaper (2008)emspThe Excavations at Mut el-KharabDakhleh Oasis in 2008 Bulletin of the Australian Centrefor Egyptology 19 49ndash71

Jarvis CS (1936)emspThree Deserts (London John Murray)

Jeuthe C (2012)emspEin Werkstattkomplex im Palast der 1Zwischenzeit in Ayn Asil Balat X Fouilles de lrsquoInstitutfranccedilais drsquoarcheacuteologie orientale 71 (Le Caire Institutfranccedilais drsquoarcheacuteologie orientale)

Jones NL KA Houpt amp TR Houpt (1989)emspStimuli of Thirstin Donkeys (Equus asinus) Physiology amp Behavior 46661ndash665

Kaper OE amp H Willems (2002)emspPolicing the Desert Old King-dom Activity around the Dakhleh Oasis In RF Fried-man (ed) Egypt and Nubia Gifts of the Desert (LondonBritish Museum Press) 79ndash94

Keimer L (1952ndash1953)emspNotes prises chez les Bišarīn et les Nu-biens drsquoAssouan (cinquiegraveme partie suite) Bulletin delrsquoInstitut drsquoEacutegypte 35 447ndash533


Kemal el Dine H amp L Franchet (1927)emspLes deacutepots de jarres dudeacutesert de Lybie [sic] Revue scientifique 65 596ndash600

Kuhlmann KP (1988)emspDas Ammoneion ArchaumlologieGeschichte und Kultpraxis des Orakels von SiwaArchaumlologische Veroumlffentlichungen des DeutschenArchaumlologischen Instituts Abteilung Kairo 75 (MainzPhilipp von Zabern)

mdash (2002)emspThe ldquoOasis Bypathrdquo or The Issue of Desert Tradein Pharaonic Times In ldquoJennerstrasse 8rdquo (ed) Tides ofthe Desert ndash Gezeiten der Wuumlste Contributions to the Ar-chaeology and Environmental History of Africa in Hon-our of Rudolph Kuper Africa Praehistorica 14 (KoumllnHeinrich-Barth-Institut) 125ndash170

Kuper R (2001)emspBy Donkey Train to Kufra ndash How Mr MeriWent West Antiquity 75 801ndash802

mdash (2002)emspRoutes and Roots in Egyptrsquos Western Desert TheEarly Holocene Resettlement of the Eastern Sahara InRF Friedman (ed) Egypt and Nubia Gifts of the Desert(London British Museum Press) 1ndash12

mdash (2003a)emspThe Abu Ballas Trail Pharaonic Advances intothe Libyan Desert In Z Hawass amp L Pinch Brock (eds)Egyptology at the Dawn of the Twenty-First CenturyProceedings of the Eighth International Congress ofEgyptologists Cairo 2000 Vol 2 History Religion(CairoNew York American University in Cairo Press)372ndash376

mdash (2003b)emspLes marches occidentales de lrsquoEgypte derniegraveresnouvelles Bulletin de la Socieacuteteacute franccedilaise drsquoEgyptologie158 12ndash34

Kuper R amp S Kroumlpelin (2006)emspClimate-Controlled HoloceneOccupation in the Sahara Motor of Africarsquos EvolutionScience 313 803ndash807

Lichtheim M (1988)emspAncient Egyptian AutobiographiesChiefly of the Middle Kingdom A Study and an Antho-logy Orbis biblicus et orientalis 84 (FreiburgSchweizGoumlttingen Universitaumlts-Verlag)

Maloiy GMO (1970)emspWater Economy of the Somali DonkeyAmerican Journal of Physiology 219 1522ndash1527

Maloiy GMO amp CDH Boarer (1971)emspResponse of the Somalidonkey to dehydration hematological changes Ameri-can Journal of Physiology 221 (1) 37ndash41

Marchand S (2000)emspLes siga des Oasis dateacutees de la XXVIIendashXXIXe dynastie et de lrsquoeacutepoque ptoleacutemaiumlque anciennetrouveacutees agrave Ayn Manacircwicircr (Oasis de Kharga) et agrave Tebtynis(Fayoum) Cahiers de la ceacuteramique eacutegyptienne 6 221ndash225

mdash (2004)emspFouilles reacutecentes dans la zone urbaine de Den-dara La ceacuteramique de la fin de lrsquoAncien Empire au deacutebutde la XIIe dynastie Cahiers de la ceacuteramique eacutegyptienne7 211ndash238

Marchand S amp G Soukiassian (2010)emspUn habitat de la XIIIedynastie ndash 2e Peacuteriode Intermeacutediaire agrave Ayn Asil Fouillesde lrsquoInstitut franccedilais drsquoarcheacuteologie orientale 59 (Le CaireInstitut franccedilais drsquoarcheacuteologie orientale)

Marchand S amp P Tallet (1999)emspAyn Asil et lrsquooasis de Dakhla auNouvel Empire Bulletin de lrsquoInstitut franccedilais drsquoarcheacuteolo-gie orientale 99 307ndash352

McDonald MMA (1999)emspNeolithic Cultural Units and Adap-tations in the Dakhleh Oasis In CS Churcher amp AJMills (eds) Reports from the Survey of the DakhlehOasis Western Desert of Egypt 1977ndash1987 OxbowMonograph 99 Dakhleh Oasis Project Monograph 2(Oxford Oxbow) 117ndash132

mdash (2002) Dakhleh Oasis in Predynastic and Early Dynastictimes Bashendi B and the Sheikh Muftah Cultural UnitsArcheacuteo-Nil 12 109ndash120

Meerpohl M (2009)emspKamele und Zucker Transsahara-Handelzwischen Tschad und Libyen PhD dissertation Uni-versity of Cologne lthttpkupsubuni-koelnde3263gt(April 2011)

Mills AJ (1999)emspPharaonic Egyptians in the Dakhleh Oasis InCS Churcher amp AJ Mills (eds) Reports from the Sur-vey of the Dakhleh Oasis Western Desert of Egypt 1977ndash1987 Oxbow Monograph 99 Dakhleh Oasis ProjectMonograph 2 (Oxford Oxbow) 171ndash178

Minault-Gout A (1992)emspLe mastaba drsquoIma-Pepi (Mastaba II)fin de lrsquoAncien Empire Balat II Fouilles de lrsquoInstitutfranccedilais drsquoarcheacuteologie orientale 33 (Le Caire Institutfranccedilais drsquoarcheacuteologie orientale)

Muumlller V (2008)emspOpferdeponierungen in der Hyksoshaupt-stadt Auaris (Tell el-Dablsquoa) vom spaumlten Mittleren Reichbis zum fruumlhen Neuen Reich Tell el-Dablsquoa XVII Oumlster-reichische Akademie der Wissenschaften Denkschriftender Gesamtakademie 45 Untersuchungen der Zweig-stelle Kairo des Oumlsterreichischen Archaumlologischen Insti-tutes 29 (Wien Verlag der Oumlsterreichischen Akademieder Wissenschaften)

Murray GW (1935)emspSons of Ishmael A Study of the EgyptianBedouin (London Routledge amp Sons)

mdash (1939) The Road to Chephrenrsquos Quarries GeographicalJournal 94 97ndash114

Nagel G (1938)emspLa ceacuteramique du Nouvel Empire agrave Deir elMeacutedineh Documents de fouilles de lrsquoInstitut franccedilaisdrsquoarcheacuteologie orientale 10 (Le Caire Institut franccedilaisdrsquoarcheologie orientale)

Nashef K (1987)emspRekonstruktion der Reiserouten zur Zeit deraltassyrischen Handelsniederlassungen Tuumlbinger Atlasdes Vorderen Orients Beihefte Reihe B Nr 83 (Wies-baden Harrassowitz)

Nordstroumlm H-A amp JD Bourriau (1993)emspCeramic TechnologyClays and Fabrics In D Arnold amp JD Bourriau (eds)An Introduction to Ancient Egyptian Pottery Sonder-schriften des Deutschen Archaumlologischen InstitutsAbteilung Kairo 17 (Mainz Philipp von Zabern) 143ndash190

Osborn DJ amp J Osbornovaacute (1998)emspThe Mammals of AncientEgypt The Natural History of Egypt 4 (Warminster Arisamp Phillips)

Pantalacci L (1998)emspLa documentation eacutepistolaire du palaisdes gouverneurs agrave Balat-Ayn Asil Bulletin de lrsquoInstitutfranccedilais drsquoarcheacuteologie orientale 98 303ndash315

Peacock DPS (1997)emspRoutes and Transportation In DPSPeacock amp VA Maxfield Survey and Excavation MonsClaudianus 1987ndash1993 Volume 1 Topography andQuarries Fouilles de lrsquoInstitut franccedilais drsquoarcheacuteologie ori-entale 37 (Le Caire Institut franccedilais drsquoarcheacuteologie orien-tale) 259ndash274

mdash (2000)emspThe Roman Period In I Shaw (ed) The OxfordHistory of Ancient Egypt (Oxford Oxford UniversityPress) 422ndash445

Redford DB (2003)emspThe Wars in Syria and Palestine of Thut-mose III Culture and History of the Ancient Near East16 (LeidenBoston Brill)

Rhotert H (1952)emspLibysche Felsbilder Ergebnisse der XI undXII Deutschen Inner-Afrikanischen Forschungs-Expedi-tion (DIAFE) 193319341935 Veroumlffentlichung desFrobenius-Instituts an der Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Uni-versitaumlt Frankfurt am Main (Darmstadt LC Wittich)

Rice PM (1987)emspPottery Analysis A Sourcebook (Chicago TheUniversity of Chicago Press)

Riemer H (2002)emspTrouvailles preacutedynastiques et des premiegraveresdynasties du deacutesert de lrsquoOuest et libyque Reacutesultats duprojet ACACIA Archeacuteo-Nil 12 95ndash100

mdash (2004)emspNews about the Clayton Rings Long DistanceDesert Travellers during Egyptrsquos Predynastic In S Hen-drickx RF Friedman KM Ciałowicz amp M Chłodnicki(eds) Egypt at its Origins Studies in Memory of BarbaraAdams Proceedings of the International ConferenceldquoOrigin of the State Predynastic and Early DynasticEgyptrdquo Krakow 28th August ndash 1st September 2002 Ori-entalia Lovaniensia Analecta 138 (Leuven et al PeetersPublishers) 971ndash989

mdash (2009)emsp A potsherd from northwest of Abu Minqar andthe dispersal of Sheikh Muftah pottery in the WesternDesert of Egypt Sahara 20 57ndash62

mdash (2011)emspEl Kharafish The archaeology of Sheikh Muftahpastoral nomads in the desert around Dakhla Oasis(Egypt) Africa Praehistorica 25 (Koumlln Heinrich-Barth-Institut)

Riemer H amp R Kuper (2000)emspldquoClayton ringsrdquo enigmatic an-cient pottery in the Eastern Sahara Sahara 12 91ndash100

Riemer H F Foumlrster S Hendrickx B Eichhorn S NuszligbaumN Poumlllath P Schoumlnfeld amp G Wagner (2005)emspZweipharaonische Wuumlstenstationen suumldwestlich von DachlaMitteilungen des Deutschen Archaumlologischen InstitutsAbteilung Kairo 61 291ndash350

Roe A (2005ndash2006)emspThe Old Darb al Arbein Caravan Route andKharga Oasis in Antiquity Journal of the American Re-search Center in Egypt 42 119ndash129

Schmidt-Nielsen K (1965)emspDesert Animals PhysiologicalProblems of Heat and Water (Oxford Clarendon Press)

Schoumlnfeld P (2004)emspWegstationen auf dem Abu Ballas TrailDynastische Fundplaumltze aus der Western DesertAumlgyptens Unpublished MA thesis Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitaumlt zu Bonn [summary in Archaumlolo-gische Informationen 301 2007 133ndash140]


Seidlmayer SJ (1990)emspGraumlberfelder aus dem Uumlbergang vomAlten zum Mittleren Reich Studien zur Archaumlologie derErsten Zwischenzeit Studien zur Archaumlologie undGeschichte Altaumlgyptens 1 (Heidelberg Heidelberger Ori-entverlag)

Seligman CG (1934)emspEgypt and Negro Africa A Study in Di-vine Kingship (London Routledge amp Sons)

Sers J-F (1994)emspDeacutesert libyque (sous la direction de TheacuteodoreMonod) (Paris Arthaud)

Sethe K (1933)emspUrkunden des Alten Reichs I Urkunden desaumlgyptischen Altertums 1 Abt Bd I (Leipzig JC Hin-richs)

Shaw BD (1979)emspThe Camel in Roman North Africa and theSahara History Biology and Human Economy Bulletinde lrsquoInstitut Fondamental drsquoAfrique noire (seacuter B) 41 663ndash721

Shaw I (2009)emspNon-textual marks and the twelfth Dynasty dy-namics of centre and periphery A case-study of pot-marks at the Gebel el-Asr gneiss quarries In P An-draacutessy J Budka amp F Kammerzell (eds) Non-textualmarking systems writing and pseudo script from pre-history to modern times Lingua Aegyptia Studia mono-graphica 8 (Goumlttingen Seminar fuumlr Aumlgyptologie undKoptologie) 69ndash82

Shaw I E Bloxam T Heldal amp P Storemyr (2010)emspQuarryingand landscape at Gebel el-Asr in the Old and MiddleKingdoms In F Raffaele M Nuzzolo amp I Incordino(eds) Recent Discoveries and Latest Researches in Egyp-tology Proceedings of the First Neapolitan Congress ofEgyptology Naples June 18thndash20th 2008 (WiesbadenHarrassowitz) 293ndash312

Shaw WBK amp D Newbold (1928)emspSupplies equipmentwater etc for men and camels (Appendix VIII) SudanNotes and Records 11 171ndash181

Smith DG amp RA Pearson (2005)emspA Review of the Factors Af-fecting the Survival of Donkeys in Semi-arid Regions ofSub-Saharan Africa Tropical Animal Health and Pro-duction 37 Suppl 1 1ndash19

Soukiassian G M Wuttmann L Pantalacci P Ballet amp MPicon (1990)emspLes ateliers de potiers drsquoAyn-Asil Fin delrsquoAncien Empire Premiegravere Peacuteriode intermeacutediaire BalatIII Fouilles de lrsquoInstitut franccedilais drsquoarcheacuteologie orientale34 (Le Caire Institut franccedilais drsquoarcheacuteologie orientale)

Soukiassian G M Wuttmann amp L Pantalacci (2002)emspLe palaisdes gouverneurs de lrsquoeacutepoque de Peacutepy II Les sanctuairesde ka et leurs deacutependances Balat VI Fouilles de lrsquoInsti-tut franccedilais drsquoarcheacuteologie orientale 46 (Le Caire Institutfranccedilais drsquoarcheacuteologie orientale)

Spalinger AJ (2005)emspWar in Ancient Egypt the New Kingdom(Malden Mass Blackwell)

Thalmann J-P (2007)emspA Seldom Used Parameter in PotteryStudies The Capacity of Pottery Vessels In M Bietak ampE Czerny (eds) The Synchronisation of Civilisations inthe Eastern Mediterranean in the Second MillenniumBC III Proceedings of the SCIEM 2000 ndash 2nd EuroCon-ference Vienna 28th of May ndash 1st of June 2003Oumlsterreichische Akademie der WissenschaftenDenkschriften der Gesamtakademie 37 (WienOumlsterreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften) 431ndash438


Thomas AP (1981)emspGurob A New Kingdom Town Egypto-logy Today 5 (Warminster Aris amp Phillips)

Valloggia M (1986)emspLe mastaba de Medou-Nefer Balat IFouilles de lrsquoInstitut franccedilais drsquoarcheacuteologie orientale 311ndash2 (Le Caire Institut franccedilais drsquoarcheacuteologie orientale)

mdash (1998)emspLe monument funeacuteraire drsquoIma-PepyIma-Meryrecirc Balat IV Fouilles de lrsquoInstitut franccedilais drsquoarcheacuteolo-gie orientale 381ndash2 (Le Caire Institut franccedilais drsquoarcheacuteolo-gie orientale)

van der Stappen X (2007)emspLe dromadaire In M-C Bruwier(ed) Pharaons noirs Sur la Piste des Quarante JoursCatalogue de lrsquoexposition du 9 mars au 2 septembre 2007par le Museacutee royal de Mariemont (Mariemont Museacuteeroyal de Mariemont) 327ndash330

von Beckerath J (1997)emspChronologie des pharaonischenAumlgypten Die Zeitbestimmung der aumlgyptischenGeschichte von der Vorzeit bis 332 v Chr MuumlnchnerAumlgyptologische Studien 46 (Mainz Philipp von Zabern)

Wainwright GA (1935)emsp[Review of] CG Seligman Egyptand Negro Africa A Study in Divine Kingship London1934 Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 21 259ndash261

Warfe AR (2006)emspReconsidering the argument for an earlyHolocene pottery tradition in Dakhleh Oasis centralWestern Desert Egypt Sahara 17 19ndash28

Winlock HE (1936)emspEd Dakhleh Oasis Journal of a CamelTrip Made in 1908 With an Appendix by L Bull TheMetropolitan Museum of Art Department of EgyptianArt vol V (New York Metropolitan Museum of Art)

AP27_00 COVER-CONTENTS

AP27_000_Cover dummy klein

DRA 00 Contents-Sidebothem-Preface_Layout 1

AP27_12 Hendrickx-Eyckerman-Foumlrster_Layout 1

K Ouml L N 2 0 1 3

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

Monographien zur Archaumlologie und Umwelt Afrikas

Monographs on African Archaeology and Environment

Monographies sur lrsquoArcheacuteologie et lrsquoEnvironnement drsquoAfrique

Edited by Rudolph Kuper

Institut fuumlr Ur- und Fruumlhgeschichte der Universitaumlt zu Koumlln

Forschungsstelle Afrika












Set in Palatino

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

7




Introduction






3 Heiko Riemer


4 Heidi Koumlpp




6 Meike Meerpohl




Contents

10

12

14

19

61

77

107

133

167

193

8






10 Laure Pantalacci


11 Frank Foumlrster












221

265

283

297

339

381

391

399

425

9

17 Steven Snape









21 Ian Shaw






Road index

Contributors

439

455

485

511

521

533

557

575

577





Abstract






1 Introduction

































1 2

3






1 2

3






1 2
































1

2















1 2









1


2







































1

2

3

















7 Roman





















































millennium []rdquo
























Minimum

storage capacity

attested (litres)

Main supply station

Mut

el-Kharab

Balat Ayn Asil

Average daily

marching

rate

Distance to

previous main

supply station


ge 156 2010

ge 3030 ge 1200 ge 600


19 km

99 km

177 km

241 km

329 km

49 km129 km207 km271 km359 km

-c 27 km

26 km21 km29 km

-c 80 km

78 km64 km88 km

12345




ge 800 ge 800

[ge 800]220 [+ x]


75 km

147 km


105 km 177 km


-24 km


-72 km


1234


19001420


90 km

123 km

120 km153 km

-11 km

-33 km

12


Distance to Dakhla

366


















Trough structure






















9 Conclusions






Acknowledgements












References
















































































































































Set in Palatino

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

7




Introduction






3 Heiko Riemer


4 Heidi Koumlpp




6 Meike Meerpohl




Contents

10

12

14

19

61

77

107

133

167

193

8






10 Laure Pantalacci


11 Frank Foumlrster












221

265

283

297

339

381

391

399

425

9

17 Steven Snape









21 Ian Shaw






Road index

Contributors

439

455

485

511

521

533

557

575

577





Abstract






1 Introduction

































1 2

3






1 2

3






1 2
































1

2















1 2









1


2







































1

2

3

















7 Roman





















































millennium []rdquo
























Minimum

storage capacity

attested (litres)

Main supply station

Mut

el-Kharab

Balat Ayn Asil

Average daily

marching

rate

Distance to

previous main

supply station


ge 156 2010

ge 3030 ge 1200 ge 600


19 km

99 km

177 km

241 km

329 km

49 km129 km207 km271 km359 km

-c 27 km

26 km21 km29 km

-c 80 km

78 km64 km88 km

12345




ge 800 ge 800

[ge 800]220 [+ x]


75 km

147 km


105 km 177 km


-24 km


-72 km


1234


19001420


90 km

123 km

120 km153 km

-11 km

-33 km

12


Distance to Dakhla

366


















Trough structure






















9 Conclusions






Acknowledgements












References





































































































































7




Introduction






3 Heiko Riemer


4 Heidi Koumlpp




6 Meike Meerpohl




Contents

10

12

14

19

61

77

107

133

167

193

8






10 Laure Pantalacci


11 Frank Foumlrster












221

265

283

297

339

381

391

399

425

9

17 Steven Snape









21 Ian Shaw






Road index

Contributors

439

455

485

511

521

533

557

575

577





Abstract






1 Introduction

































1 2

3






1 2

3






1 2
































1

2















1 2









1


2







































1

2

3

















7 Roman





















































millennium []rdquo
























Minimum

storage capacity

attested (litres)

Main supply station

Mut

el-Kharab

Balat Ayn Asil

Average daily

marching

rate

Distance to

previous main

supply station


ge 156 2010

ge 3030 ge 1200 ge 600


19 km

99 km

177 km

241 km

329 km

49 km129 km207 km271 km359 km

-c 27 km

26 km21 km29 km

-c 80 km

78 km64 km88 km

12345




ge 800 ge 800

[ge 800]220 [+ x]


75 km

147 km


105 km 177 km


-24 km


-72 km


1234


19001420


90 km

123 km

120 km153 km

-11 km

-33 km

12


Distance to Dakhla

366


















Trough structure






















9 Conclusions






Acknowledgements












References





































































































































8






10 Laure Pantalacci


11 Frank Foumlrster












221

265

283

297

339

381

391

399

425

9

17 Steven Snape









21 Ian Shaw






Road index

Contributors

439

455

485

511

521

533

557

575

577





Abstract






1 Introduction

































1 2

3






1 2

3






1 2
































1

2















1 2









1


2







































1

2

3

















7 Roman





















































millennium []rdquo
























Minimum

storage capacity

attested (litres)

Main supply station

Mut

el-Kharab

Balat Ayn Asil

Average daily

marching

rate

Distance to

previous main

supply station


ge 156 2010

ge 3030 ge 1200 ge 600


19 km

99 km

177 km

241 km

329 km

49 km129 km207 km271 km359 km

-c 27 km

26 km21 km29 km

-c 80 km

78 km64 km88 km

12345




ge 800 ge 800

[ge 800]220 [+ x]


75 km

147 km


105 km 177 km


-24 km


-72 km


1234


19001420


90 km

123 km

120 km153 km

-11 km

-33 km

12


Distance to Dakhla

366


















Trough structure






















9 Conclusions






Acknowledgements












References





































































































































9

17 Steven Snape









21 Ian Shaw






Road index

Contributors

439

455

485

511

521

533

557

575

577





Abstract






1 Introduction

































1 2

3






1 2

3






1 2
































1

2















1 2









1


2







































1

2

3

















7 Roman





















































millennium []rdquo
























Minimum

storage capacity

attested (litres)

Main supply station

Mut

el-Kharab

Balat Ayn Asil

Average daily

marching

rate

Distance to

previous main

supply station


ge 156 2010

ge 3030 ge 1200 ge 600


19 km

99 km

177 km

241 km

329 km

49 km129 km207 km271 km359 km

-c 27 km

26 km21 km29 km

-c 80 km

78 km64 km88 km

12345




ge 800 ge 800

[ge 800]220 [+ x]


75 km

147 km


105 km 177 km


-24 km


-72 km


1234


19001420


90 km

123 km

120 km153 km

-11 km

-33 km

12


Distance to Dakhla

366


















Trough structure






















9 Conclusions






Acknowledgements












References








































































































































Abstract






1 Introduction

































1 2

3






1 2

3






1 2
































1

2















1 2









1


2







































1

2

3

















7 Roman





















































millennium []rdquo
























Minimum

storage capacity

attested (litres)

Main supply station

Mut

el-Kharab

Balat Ayn Asil

Average daily

marching

rate

Distance to

previous main

supply station


ge 156 2010

ge 3030 ge 1200 ge 600


19 km

99 km

177 km

241 km

329 km

49 km129 km207 km271 km359 km

-c 27 km

26 km21 km29 km

-c 80 km

78 km64 km88 km

12345




ge 800 ge 800

[ge 800]220 [+ x]


75 km

147 km


105 km 177 km


-24 km


-72 km


1234


19001420


90 km

123 km

120 km153 km

-11 km

-33 km

12


Distance to Dakhla

366


















Trough structure






















9 Conclusions






Acknowledgements












References



































































































































































1 2

3






1 2

3






1 2
































1

2















1 2









1


2







































1

2

3

















7 Roman





















































millennium []rdquo
























Minimum

storage capacity

attested (litres)

Main supply station

Mut

el-Kharab

Balat Ayn Asil

Average daily

marching

rate

Distance to

previous main

supply station


ge 156 2010

ge 3030 ge 1200 ge 600


19 km

99 km

177 km

241 km

329 km

49 km129 km207 km271 km359 km

-c 27 km

26 km21 km29 km

-c 80 km

78 km64 km88 km

12345




ge 800 ge 800

[ge 800]220 [+ x]


75 km

147 km


105 km 177 km


-24 km


-72 km


1234


19001420


90 km

123 km

120 km153 km

-11 km

-33 km

12


Distance to Dakhla

366


















Trough structure






















9 Conclusions






Acknowledgements












References







































































































































1 2

3






1 2
































1

2















1 2









1


2







































1

2

3

















7 Roman





















































millennium []rdquo
























Minimum

storage capacity

attested (litres)

Main supply station

Mut

el-Kharab

Balat Ayn Asil

Average daily

marching

rate

Distance to

previous main

supply station


ge 156 2010

ge 3030 ge 1200 ge 600


19 km

99 km

177 km

241 km

329 km

49 km129 km207 km271 km359 km

-c 27 km

26 km21 km29 km

-c 80 km

78 km64 km88 km

12345




ge 800 ge 800

[ge 800]220 [+ x]


75 km

147 km


105 km 177 km


-24 km


-72 km


1234


19001420


90 km

123 km

120 km153 km

-11 km

-33 km

12


Distance to Dakhla

366


















Trough structure






















9 Conclusions






Acknowledgements












References








































































































































1 2
































1

2















1 2









1


2







































1

2

3

















7 Roman





















































millennium []rdquo
























Minimum

storage capacity

attested (litres)

Main supply station

Mut

el-Kharab

Balat Ayn Asil

Average daily

marching

rate

Distance to

previous main

supply station


ge 156 2010

ge 3030 ge 1200 ge 600


19 km

99 km

177 km

241 km

329 km

49 km129 km207 km271 km359 km

-c 27 km

26 km21 km29 km

-c 80 km

78 km64 km88 km

12345




ge 800 ge 800

[ge 800]220 [+ x]


75 km

147 km


105 km 177 km


-24 km


-72 km


1234


19001420


90 km

123 km

120 km153 km

-11 km

-33 km

12


Distance to Dakhla

366


















Trough structure






















9 Conclusions






Acknowledgements












References




































































































































































1

2















1 2









1


2







































1

2

3

















7 Roman





















































millennium []rdquo
























Minimum

storage capacity

attested (litres)

Main supply station

Mut

el-Kharab

Balat Ayn Asil

Average daily

marching

rate

Distance to

previous main

supply station


ge 156 2010

ge 3030 ge 1200 ge 600


19 km

99 km

177 km

241 km

329 km

49 km129 km207 km271 km359 km

-c 27 km

26 km21 km29 km

-c 80 km

78 km64 km88 km

12345




ge 800 ge 800

[ge 800]220 [+ x]


75 km

147 km


105 km 177 km


-24 km


-72 km


1234


19001420


90 km

123 km

120 km153 km

-11 km

-33 km

12


Distance to Dakhla

366


















Trough structure






















9 Conclusions






Acknowledgements












References



















































































































































1 2









1


2







































1

2

3

















7 Roman





















































millennium []rdquo
























Minimum

storage capacity

attested (litres)

Main supply station

Mut

el-Kharab

Balat Ayn Asil

Average daily

marching

rate

Distance to

previous main

supply station


ge 156 2010

ge 3030 ge 1200 ge 600


19 km

99 km

177 km

241 km

329 km

49 km129 km207 km271 km359 km

-c 27 km

26 km21 km29 km

-c 80 km

78 km64 km88 km

12345




ge 800 ge 800

[ge 800]220 [+ x]


75 km

147 km


105 km 177 km


-24 km


-72 km


1234


19001420


90 km

123 km

120 km153 km

-11 km

-33 km

12


Distance to Dakhla

366


















Trough structure






















9 Conclusions






Acknowledgements












References













































































































































1


2







































1

2

3

















7 Roman





















































millennium []rdquo
























Minimum

storage capacity

attested (litres)

Main supply station

Mut

el-Kharab

Balat Ayn Asil

Average daily

marching

rate

Distance to

previous main

supply station


ge 156 2010

ge 3030 ge 1200 ge 600


19 km

99 km

177 km

241 km

329 km

49 km129 km207 km271 km359 km

-c 27 km

26 km21 km29 km

-c 80 km

78 km64 km88 km

12345




ge 800 ge 800

[ge 800]220 [+ x]


75 km

147 km


105 km 177 km


-24 km


-72 km


1234


19001420


90 km

123 km

120 km153 km

-11 km

-33 km

12


Distance to Dakhla

366


















Trough structure






















9 Conclusions






Acknowledgements












References











































































































































































1

2

3

















7 Roman





















































millennium []rdquo
























Minimum

storage capacity

attested (litres)

Main supply station

Mut

el-Kharab

Balat Ayn Asil

Average daily

marching

rate

Distance to

previous main

supply station


ge 156 2010

ge 3030 ge 1200 ge 600


19 km

99 km

177 km

241 km

329 km

49 km129 km207 km271 km359 km

-c 27 km

26 km21 km29 km

-c 80 km

78 km64 km88 km

12345




ge 800 ge 800

[ge 800]220 [+ x]


75 km

147 km


105 km 177 km


-24 km


-72 km


1234


19001420


90 km

123 km

120 km153 km

-11 km

-33 km

12


Distance to Dakhla

366


















Trough structure






















9 Conclusions






Acknowledgements












References





















































































































































7 Roman





















































millennium []rdquo
























Minimum

storage capacity

attested (litres)

Main supply station

Mut

el-Kharab

Balat Ayn Asil

Average daily

marching

rate

Distance to

previous main

supply station


ge 156 2010

ge 3030 ge 1200 ge 600


19 km

99 km

177 km

241 km

329 km

49 km129 km207 km271 km359 km

-c 27 km

26 km21 km29 km

-c 80 km

78 km64 km88 km

12345




ge 800 ge 800

[ge 800]220 [+ x]


75 km

147 km


105 km 177 km


-24 km


-72 km


1234


19001420


90 km

123 km

120 km153 km

-11 km

-33 km

12


Distance to Dakhla

366


















Trough structure






















9 Conclusions






Acknowledgements












References






















































































































































































millennium []rdquo
























Minimum

storage capacity

attested (litres)

Main supply station

Mut

el-Kharab

Balat Ayn Asil

Average daily

marching

rate

Distance to

previous main

supply station


ge 156 2010

ge 3030 ge 1200 ge 600


19 km

99 km

177 km

241 km

329 km

49 km129 km207 km271 km359 km

-c 27 km

26 km21 km29 km

-c 80 km

78 km64 km88 km

12345




ge 800 ge 800

[ge 800]220 [+ x]


75 km

147 km


105 km 177 km


-24 km


-72 km


1234


19001420


90 km

123 km

120 km153 km

-11 km

-33 km

12


Distance to Dakhla

366


















Trough structure






















9 Conclusions






Acknowledgements












References
























































































































































Minimum

storage capacity

attested (litres)

Main supply station

Mut

el-Kharab

Balat Ayn Asil

Average daily

marching

rate

Distance to

previous main

supply station


ge 156 2010

ge 3030 ge 1200 ge 600


19 km

99 km

177 km

241 km

329 km

49 km129 km207 km271 km359 km

-c 27 km

26 km21 km29 km

-c 80 km

78 km64 km88 km

12345




ge 800 ge 800

[ge 800]220 [+ x]


75 km

147 km


105 km 177 km


-24 km


-72 km


1234


19001420


90 km

123 km

120 km153 km

-11 km

-33 km

12


Distance to Dakhla

366


















Trough structure






















9 Conclusions






Acknowledgements












References






















































































































































Trough structure






















9 Conclusions






Acknowledgements












References

























































































































































9 Conclusions






Acknowledgements












References









































































































































Acknowledgements












References





































































































































Hendrickx, S., F. Förster & M. Eyckerman (2013), The Pharaonic pottery of the Abu Ballas Trail:...

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Transcript of Hendrickx, S., F. Förster & M. Eyckerman (2013), The Pharaonic pottery of the Abu Ballas Trail:...