Academic literature on the topic 'Wadi Hammamat'

The wealth of inscriptions at the Wadi Hammamat greywacke quarries (Egyptian Eastern Desert) have made it a key place to pursue enquiries about the social organization of expeditions to procure resources. Analysis of this textual material alone has, however, given us only a partial view of the social milieu that maintained quarrying from the fourth millennium bc to the fifth century ad. This article presents a fresh perspective on Egyptian quarrying that aims to balance the more accepted (and persistent) perceptions of overriding state control of these activities with viewpoints gained from recent archaeological survey of the Wadi Hammamat quarries. Practically and theoretically, a holistic approach is taken that contextualizes the textual sources and other elements of the archaeological record within the quarry landscape as a series of material complexes. Cross-cultural and comparative approaches to interpreting the data have enabled both reappraisal and augmentation of the ways in which we understand the social interplay between local and regional kin-groups within notions of state control of these activities. The article argues for the essential roles played by kinship ties and linkages to place, through the continual inscribing of names, as parts of the underlying human narrative that maintained quarrying here for generations.

<p>Wadi El Reddah representing a semi-closed basin, extends in the N-S direction. It has only one outlet at the northern tip while the wadi collects floodwater from internal tributaries along wall rocks. The present study discusses the relationship between geology and geochemistry data to detect anomalous radioactive locations. The geochemical maps show the mineralization areas with abnormal rare metal contents. This led to two uranium occurrences (GXXIII and GXXIV) at Gabal Gattar in the perthitic leucogranite. At Wadi El Reddah, high contents of pathfinder elements (REE, Y, Zn, Nb and As) were discovered at the southern and eastern boundaries. This may be attributed to the presence of alkali feldspar granite at Gabal Gattar at the upstream of Wadi El Reddah and also to the sharp contact between Gabal Gattar and Hammamat Sedimentary rocks. A strong positive correlation coefficient between Fe₂O^t and or Al₂O₃ with Zr, Hf, Nb, Ta, REE, U, Rb, and Th reflects their association with thematization processes.</p>

The Turin papyrus map is over 3000 years old. More than 100 years of study mainly by egyptologists and by some geologists demonstrate that it shows workings in a known ancient mining and quarrying district of Upper Egypt (the Wadi Hammamat). It seems to have been made in connection with the transportation (and damage?) of a statue from the quarries. The map is significant because of its antiquity and because it shows substantial geological information which underlies the mining and quarrying knowledge which it contains.

Prehistoric rock drawings of large boats in wadis of the central Eastern Desert, Egypt, divided their investigators into two main groups with quite different views about their origins and cultural affiliation. One of the groups (P. Červiček et al.) insisted on ‘religious’ (cultic, magic, etc.) nature of these petroglyphs attributing them to local traditions but actually tearing away from the reality, primarily on the ground that boats could have never come to be in the desert many tens of kilometers from both the Nile and the Red Sea. Another one, following ideas of W. M. Flinders Petrie, interpreted these boat images as ships of a ‘Dynastic Race’ of oversea invaders who conquered Egypt and consolidated her under their power. This hypothesis, once disapproved by most of archaeologists and Egyptologists, has recently acquired many new adherents; it assumes, in particular, the most real rivers to have flown at the time of the earliest boat petroglyphs (5th to 4th Millennia B.C.) along Wadi Hammamat and Wadi Barramiya, where short routes pass from the Red Sea coast to the Nile. Even rejecting Petrie’s ‘diffusionistic’ version on the whole, one cannot ignore the palaeogeographical fact that the climate of Predynastic Egypt was moist, characterized by monsoon rains which, in combination with geomorphology of the Eastern Desert, could only have favoured here in the period under consideration the formation of regular tributaries of the Nile.

The greywacke quarries in Wadi Hammamat are one of the best known examples of this kind of activity due to the number of inscriptions preserved at the site. Although a number of approaches to these inscriptions have been made, it is quite usual to find general studies about epigraphic features or the activities of one important functionary. The aim of this paper is to focus on the royal activities in the quarries at the end of the Middle Kingdom, more precisely in the reign of Amenemhat III, analyzing for that purpose both epigraphic and comparative archaeological data, in order to build a comprehensive image of the Egyptian works at this quarrying site.

The Wadi Hammamat which provides a route from the Nile to the Red Sea has been used by the inhabitants of Egypt since the earliest times. This thesis studies the Middle and new Kingdom inscription found in the wadi with special reference to those left by the expeditions sent there for bekhen-stone. In the Middle and New Kingdom inscriptions studied in this thesis the size of the expeditions and the status of the senior commanders, in one case the vizier, indicates that bekhen-stone was a prized material. The inscriptions which were selected for study on the basis of completeness, significance of contribution and interest of content, have been translated and given detailed examination in order to extract information about the organization of the expeditions and the underlying concepts in the Egyptian culture which provided the motivation of the investment of resource which they represent. The thesis provides first translations for many inscriptions and first full translations into English for others. The results of the study show that expeditions organization reflected the four key royal qualities, the traditional division of the Egypt into the Two Lands and the national unity under the king. They were powerful propaganda vehicles for royal validity. The study of the inscriptions has also revealed that the region had a symbolic identification with the Primeval Mound, Chemmis and probably Osiris-grave. The identification meant that bekhen-stone was a source of cosmicizing or demiurgic power for the kings and justified the investment which was made to obtain it. The study has identified a possible unrecognized 'marvel' text to Amenemhat III. A new solution is offered to the problem of the nine-hundred men in the Ramesses IV inscription: they cannot be dead.

Le dieu égyptien Min a toujours été considéré comme un dieu de la procréation par nombre d’égyptologues. Pourtant, l’analyse de son image et de son culte sur la période allant du début de la 8e dynastie à la fin de la 17e dynastie révèle une toute autre définition. Son iconographie témoigne d’une élaboration cryptique dans l’emploi des divers éléments qui composent son image. La présente étude réanalyse par ailleurs la parèdre coptite du dieu ainsi que la réappropriation de l’image de Min au début du Moyen Empire par la divinité thébaine Amon. Loué lors de fêtes spécifiques aux fonctions agraires et dynastiques, Min fit l’objet d’une vénération certaine au cours de cette large période, aussi bien auprès des souverains que des particuliers. Min est aussi particulièrement vénéré en contexte expéditionnaire. Qu’il s’agisse du ouadi Hammamat ou du Gebel el-Zeit en passant par Mersa Gaouasis et par Konosso, le dieu est mentionné ou figuré pour ses attributions guerrières et minérales. Enfin, au cours du Moyen Empire et de la Deuxième Période intermédiaire, Min semble particulièrement loué en Abydos. Son insertion dans la geste osirienne – avec la création de sa forme Min-Horus-nakht – témoigne du déplacement et de la portée funéraire et dynastique croissante du culte à cette époque. Par ses hymnes et les témoignages archéologiques découverts en Abydos, apparaissent en ce lieu les vestiges d’un sanctuaire propre au dieu. Au regard de l’ensemble de la documentation récolée, Min apparaît alors non pas comme un dieu de procréation, mais comme un « Suivant d’Horus », un dieu de la force aux fonctions dynastiques et régénératrices, agissant tant sur le monde naturel que dans l’inframonde
The Egyptian god Min has always been considered as a procreation god by many Egyptologists. However, the analysis of his image and his cult on the period from the beginning of the First Intermediate Period to the end of the 17th dynasty reveals a very different definition. His iconography shows a cryptic elaboration in the way of using various details composing his image. This present study reanalyzes the Coptite consort of Min as well as the reappropriation of the god’s image by the Theban deity Amun at the beginning of the Middle Kingdom. Revered during specific agrarian and dynastic religious festivals, Min was subject of a great veneration during this period, both from kings and private individuals. Min was also particularly praised in expeditionary contexts. From the wadi Hammamat to the Gebel el-Zeit via Mersa Gawasis and the peninsula of Konosso, this god was mentioned and figured for his warring and mineral abilities. Lastly, during the Middle Kingdom and the Second Intermediate Period, Min seems particularly revered in Abydos. He was inserted inside the Osirian cult with the creation of the figure of Min-Horus-nakht, the latter testifying the moving of the cult and the funerary and dynastic importance of the god in this city. With Abydenian hymns and the discovery of archeological fragments, the location of a sanctuary dedicated to the god could be brought to light. Regarding all the collected data, Min appears not as a procreation god but as a ‘Follower of Horus’, a god of strength with dynastic powers, a god of regeneration who acts over both the natural world and the underworld