Egypt
drhawass.com
Press Release, with photos.
I think that "stumbled upon" is probably a little harsh!
- More Re Kharga City Discovery
New York Times (John Noble Wilford) With map and photographs. Over the last two decades, John Coleman Darnell and his wife, Deborah, hiked and drove caravan tracks west of the Nile from the monuments of Thebes, at present-day Luxor. These and other desolate...
- Desert Settlement Provides Insights Into History Of Egypt
Yale Alumni Magazine (Heather Pringle) The newly found settlement in Kharga Oasis looks like an absolute gem. This story is much informative than yesterday's SCA press release and has some very useful details about the reasoning behind the excavation...
- Arce-dc Lecture - The Girga Road
Thanks very much to Chris Townsend for sending me details of a lecture by John Coleman Darnell at the Benjamin T. Rome Auditorium of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC.. Chris says that it was an excellent lecture...
- New Settlement At Bahariya
Al Ahram Weekly On the same page as the northern Sinai article (page down to find it) Nevine El-Aref takes a brief look at the discovery of a new settlement at Bahariya Oasis in the Western Desert.Last week the area of Garet Al-Abiyad in Bahariya Oasis...
- Mother Of Bread Molds
Archaeologists have followed desert paths filled with large quantities of broken pottery and signs that a settlement has been found in the Kharga oasis. A site know known as Umm Mawagir, in Arabic "mother of bread molds" for the large amounts of bread...
Egypt
Middle Kingdom/2nd Intermediate settlement discovered at Umm Mawagir in Kharga Oasis
drhawass.com
Press Release, with photos.
I think that "stumbled upon" is probably a little harsh!
The American-Egyptian mission from Yale University has stumbled upon what appears to be the remains of a substantial settlement. The city is a thousand years earlier than the major surviving ancient remains at the Umm Mawagir area in Kharga Oasis.
Minister of Culture, Farouk Hosny, announced that the settlement is dated to the Second Intermediate Period (ca.1650-1550 BC) and was discovered during excavation work as part of the Theban Desert Road Survey. This project serves to investigate and map the ancient desert routes in the Western desert.Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), said that the newly discovered settlement is 1km long from north to south and 250m wide from east to west. It lies along the bustling caravan routes connecting the Nile Valley of Egypt and the western oasis with points as far as Darfur in western Sudan. Hawass continued that archaeological evidence at the site indicated that its inhabitants were part of an administrative center and they were engaged in baking on a massive scale.
Dr. John Coleman Darnell, head of the Yale mission, said that during excavations remains of large administrative mudbrick structures were found. These buildings consisted of rooms and halls similar to administrative buildings previously found in several sites in the Nile Valley. These sites may have been used as a lookout post as part of the administrative center of the settlement. Part of an ancient bakery was also found with two ovens and a potter’s wheel, used to make the ceramic bread molds in which the bread was baked. The amount of remains from the debris dumps outside the bakery suggest that the settlement produced a food surplus and may have even been feeding an army.
Dr. Deborah Darnell, co-director of the mission, said that early studies on the site revealed that the settlement began during the Middle Kingdom (2134-1569 BC) and lasted to the beginning of the New Kingdom (1569-1081 BC). However the site was at its peak from the late Middle Kingdom (1786-1665 BC) to the Second Intermediate Period (1600-1569 BC).
- More Re Kharga City Discovery
New York Times (John Noble Wilford) With map and photographs. Over the last two decades, John Coleman Darnell and his wife, Deborah, hiked and drove caravan tracks west of the Nile from the monuments of Thebes, at present-day Luxor. These and other desolate...
- Desert Settlement Provides Insights Into History Of Egypt
Yale Alumni Magazine (Heather Pringle) The newly found settlement in Kharga Oasis looks like an absolute gem. This story is much informative than yesterday's SCA press release and has some very useful details about the reasoning behind the excavation...
- Arce-dc Lecture - The Girga Road
Thanks very much to Chris Townsend for sending me details of a lecture by John Coleman Darnell at the Benjamin T. Rome Auditorium of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC.. Chris says that it was an excellent lecture...
- New Settlement At Bahariya
Al Ahram Weekly On the same page as the northern Sinai article (page down to find it) Nevine El-Aref takes a brief look at the discovery of a new settlement at Bahariya Oasis in the Western Desert.Last week the area of Garet Al-Abiyad in Bahariya Oasis...
- Mother Of Bread Molds
Archaeologists have followed desert paths filled with large quantities of broken pottery and signs that a settlement has been found in the Kharga oasis. A site know known as Umm Mawagir, in Arabic "mother of bread molds" for the large amounts of bread...