- Herausgeber/in:
- Editor:
- Frank Förster & Heiko Riemer
- Erscheinungsjahr:
- Publication year:
- 2013
- Reihe & Band:
- Series & Number:
- Africa Praehistorica 27
- DOI:
- DOI:
- 10.18716/hbi/ap27
- PDF:
- PDF:
- Open access
- Buch:
- Book:
- 78 €
- 78 €
Über diese Publikation:
Nach ägyptischen Maßstäben gab es westlich der Oasen kein Wasser, und die Welt endete. Diese Aussage von Ralph Bagnold im Geographical Journal von 1937 richtete sich offenbar sowohl an die alten als auch an die modernen Ägypter, und sie spiegelt die Haltung der meisten Ausländer angesichts der ägyptischen Annäherungen an die Wüste genau wider. Wenn das "Ende der Welt" bedeutet, dass es "keinen Weg über diesen Punkt hinaus gibt", so wird diese Ansicht nun durch den vorliegenden Band in gewisser Weise widerlegt. Er stellt zum ersten Mal ein Netz antiker Routen zusammen, die das "Nirgendwo" der Wüsten in und um Ägypten erschließen. Diese Routen stimmen jedoch kaum mit allen existierenden modernen Karten überein, einschließlich der neueren Ausgaben von Michelin und Bartholomew, die insbesondere für die Libysche Wüste weitgehend nicht existierende Fantasiestraßen zeigen, abgesehen von den wenigen asphaltierten Autobahnen. So kann man sich leicht vorstellen, wie die ursprünglich breiten Verkehrswege nach und nach auf Pfade reduziert wurden, die von Ochsen, den wahrscheinlichsten frühen Lasttieren, angelegt wurden. Um etwa 3000 v. Chr. wurden die Ochsen durch Esel ersetzt, die besser geeignet waren, die wachsenden Entfernungen zwischen den noch bewohnbaren Orten zu überwinden. Als im letzten Jahrtausend v. Chr. das Kamel den Esel ablöste, mussten sich die Routen aufgrund der natürlichen Bedürfnisse des Tieres teilweise ändern, aber sie verbanden weiterhin das Niltal mit den weit entfernten Inseln im Ozean der Trockenheit und den dahinter liegenden Küsten.
About this publication:
By Egyptian standards there was no water west of the oases, and the world ended. This statement by Ralph Bagnold in the Geographical Journal of 1937 was apparently aimed at the ancient as well as at the modern Egyptians, and it accurately reflects the attitude of most foreigners in the face of Egyptian approaches to the desert. If the "world' s end" means "no way beyond this point", this view is now disproved to some extent by the present volume. It compiles, for the first time, a network of ancient routes that open up the 'nowhere' of the deserts in and around Egypt. These routes however show little concordance with all existing modern maps, including recent editions of Michelin' s and Bartholomew's, which, in particular for the Libyan Desert, widely present non-existing fantasy roads, except for the few tarmac highways. Accordingly, it is easy to imagine how the initially broad lines of communication were successively reduced to trails created by oxen, which were the most probable early beasts of burden. By about 3000 BC, these oxen were replaced by donkeys, which were better adapted to master the growing distances between the places that still remained inhabitable. When the camel took over from the donkey during the last millennium BC, the routes partly had to change due to the natural requirements of the animal, but they continued to connect the Nile Valley to far distant islands in the ocean of dryness and the shores beyond.
Inhalt:
- Prologue — Rudolph Kuper
- Foreword — Steven E. Sidebotham
- Editors' preface
- Introduction
- Ancient desert roads: Towards establishing a new field of archaeological research — Heiko Riemer & Frank Förster
- Methods, approaches, and historical perspectives
- Top down: New satellite data and ground-truth data as base for a reconstruction of ancient caravan routes. Examples from the Western Desert of Egypt — Olaf Bubenzer & Andreas Bolten
- Lessons in landscape learning: The dawn of long-distance travel and navigation in Egypt's Western Desert from prehistoric to Old Kingdom times — Heiko Riemer
- Desert travel and transport in ancient Egypt. An overview based on epigraphic, pictorial and archaeological evidence — Heidi Kopp
- The realm of 'two deserts': Siwah Oasis between east and west — Klaus Peter Kuhlmann
- Footprints in the sand: Recent long-distance camel trade in the Libyan Desert (northeast Chad/southeast Libya) — Meike Meerpohl
- Donkeys to El-Fasher or how the present informs the past — Frank Förster, Heiko Riemer & Moez Mahir
- Roads and regions I: Egypt's Western Desert, and Bayuda
- The Girga Road: Abu Ziyar, Tundaba, and the integration of the southern oases into the Pharaonic state — John Coleman Darnell
- Evidence of desert routes across northern Kharga (Egypt' s Western Desert) — Corinna Rossi & Salima Ikram
- Broadening horizons: Distant places and travels in Dakhla and the Western Desert at the end of the 3rd millennium — Laure Pantalacci
- Beyond Dakhla: The Abu Ballas Trail in the Libyan Desert (SW Egypt) — Frank Förster
- The Pharaonic pottery of the Abu Ballas Trail: 'Filling stations' along a desert highway in southwestern Egypt — Stan Hendrickx, Frank Förster & Merel Eyckerman
- Prehistoric trails in the environs of Karkur Talh, Jebel Uweinat — Andras Zboray
- Donkeys and water: Demotic ostraca in Cologne as evidence for desert travel between Oxyrhynchos and the Bahariya Oasis in the 2nd century BC — Heinz-Josef Thissen
- Ancient desert and quarry roads on the west bank of the Nile in the First Cataract region — Per Storemyr, Elizabeth Bloxam, Tom Heldal & Adel Kelany
- Tracks in the Bayuda desert. The project 'Wadi Abu Dom Itinerary' (W.A.D.I.) — Angelika Lohwasser
- Roads and regions II: Cyrenaica, Marmarica, Sinai, and Arabian Peninsula
- A stroll along the corniche? Coastal routes between the Nile Delta and Cyrenaica in the Late Bronze Age — Steven Snape
- Water, routes and rangelands: Ancient traffic and grazing infrastructure in the eastern Marmarica (northwestern Egypt) — Thomas Vetter, Anna-Katharina Rieger & Heike Möller
- "A highway out of Egypt" : The main road from Egypt to Canaan — James K. Hoffmeier & Stephen O. Moshier
- A road to the Arabian Peninsula in the reign of Ramesses III — Claire Somaglino & Pierre Tallet
- Roads and regions III: Egypt's Eastern Desert
- "We went forth to the desert land . . . ": Retracing the routes between the Nile Valley and the Hatnub travertine quarries' — Ian Shaw
- The ancient harbor at Mersa/Wadi Gawasis and how to get there: New evidence of Pharaonic seafaring expeditions in the Red Sea — Kathryn A. Bard, Rodolfo Fattovich & Andrea Manzo
- Communication, travel, and transportation in Egypt's Eastern Desert during Roman times (1st to 3rd century AD) — Adam Bülow-Jacobsen
- Road index
- Contributors
Contents:
- Prologue — Rudolph Kuper
- Foreword — Steven E. Sidebotham
- Editors' preface
- Introduction
- Ancient desert roads: Towards establishing a new field of archaeological research — Heiko Riemer & Frank Förster
- Methods, approaches, and historical perspectives
- Top down: New satellite data and ground-truth data as base for a reconstruction of ancient caravan routes. Examples from the Western Desert of Egypt — Olaf Bubenzer & Andreas Bolten
- Lessons in landscape learning: The dawn of long-distance travel and navigation in Egypt's Western Desert from prehistoric to Old Kingdom times — Heiko Riemer
- Desert travel and transport in ancient Egypt. An overview based on epigraphic, pictorial and archaeological evidence — Heidi Kopp
- The realm of 'two deserts': Siwah Oasis between east and west — Klaus Peter Kuhlmann
- Footprints in the sand: Recent long-distance camel trade in the Libyan Desert (northeast Chad/southeast Libya) — Meike Meerpohl
- Donkeys to El-Fasher or how the present informs the past — Frank Förster, Heiko Riemer & Moez Mahir
- Roads and regions I: Egypt's Western Desert, and Bayuda
- The Girga Road: Abu Ziyar, Tundaba, and the integration of the southern oases into the Pharaonic state — John Coleman Darnell
- Evidence of desert routes across northern Kharga (Egypt' s Western Desert) — Corinna Rossi & Salima Ikram
- Broadening horizons: Distant places and travels in Dakhla and the Western Desert at the end of the 3rd millennium — Laure Pantalacci
- Beyond Dakhla: The Abu Ballas Trail in the Libyan Desert (SW Egypt) — Frank Förster
- The Pharaonic pottery of the Abu Ballas Trail: 'Filling stations' along a desert highway in southwestern Egypt — Stan Hendrickx, Frank Förster & Merel Eyckerman
- Prehistoric trails in the environs of Karkur Talh, Jebel Uweinat — Andras Zboray
- Donkeys and water: Demotic ostraca in Cologne as evidence for desert travel between Oxyrhynchos and the Bahariya Oasis in the 2nd century BC — Heinz-Josef Thissen
- Ancient desert and quarry roads on the west bank of the Nile in the First Cataract region — Per Storemyr, Elizabeth Bloxam, Tom Heldal & Adel Kelany
- Tracks in the Bayuda desert. The project 'Wadi Abu Dom Itinerary' (W.A.D.I.) — Angelika Lohwasser
- Roads and regions II: Cyrenaica, Marmarica, Sinai, and Arabian Peninsula
- A stroll along the corniche? Coastal routes between the Nile Delta and Cyrenaica in the Late Bronze Age — Steven Snape
- Water, routes and rangelands: Ancient traffic and grazing infrastructure in the eastern Marmarica (northwestern Egypt) — Thomas Vetter, Anna-Katharina Rieger & Heike Möller
- "A highway out of Egypt" : The main road from Egypt to Canaan — James K. Hoffmeier & Stephen O. Moshier
- A road to the Arabian Peninsula in the reign of Ramesses III — Claire Somaglino & Pierre Tallet
- Roads and regions III: Egypt's Eastern Desert
- "We went forth to the desert land . . . ": Retracing the routes between the Nile Valley and the Hatnub travertine quarries' — Ian Shaw
- The ancient harbor at Mersa/Wadi Gawasis and how to get there: New evidence of Pharaonic seafaring expeditions in the Red Sea — Kathryn A. Bard, Rodolfo Fattovich & Andrea Manzo
- Communication, travel, and transportation in Egypt's Eastern Desert during Roman times (1st to 3rd century AD) — Adam Bülow-Jacobsen
- Road index
- Contributors
Rezensionen:
Barbara E. Barich (2014) Desert road archaeology in ancient Egypt and beyond, Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa, 49:4, 535-537, DOI: 10.1080/0067270X.2014.977537
Reviews:
Barbara E. Barich (2014) Desert road archaeology in ancient Egypt and beyond, Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa, 49:4, 535-537, DOI: 10.1080/0067270X.2014.977537