This chapter surveys a range of extant textual records (wooden tablets, jar labels, and ostraca) from the Great Oasis related to the management of water wells and of crop distribution. It looks first at the longstanding practice of documenting the condition of the wells in the oasis, before focusing on late antique evidence from both the Dakhla and Kargha oases concerned with the disbursement of these goods and on the individuals responsible for generating the records, primarily literate administrators and members of the military.

In the scholarly literature on the oases, we find a variety of assertions about the cities of the Kharga and Dakhla oases: that one was the capital at a particular period, that one did or did not have civic status at some date. On close examination, most of these statements turn out to be based on slender or no evidence, and in many cases we find that we know much less than has been supposed about the administrative organization of the Great Oasis. In what follows, we look more closely at the available evidence for both Kharga and Dakhla, tracing the history of Hibis – often supposed to be the capital of the whole oasis – and then of the two major towns of the Dakhla Oasis, Mothis (modern-day Mut) and Trimithis. We will try as well to see what we can of their interrelationship and of the overall administrative structure.

Excavations at Amheida between 2004 and 2006 revealed a large, late antique domicile, dubbed the “House of Serenos,” filled with an astonishing array of decorated plaster – a rare find in terms of quantity as well as the subject matter of the paintings in the house’s main reception room. Showcasing lively figural scenes drawn from Greco-Roman mythology in an era when one might expect instead Christian iconography, the visual program of this house reveals much about the sophisticated visual and literary culture at play in a city that could otherwise be considered a backwater given its distance from the major metropolitan centers of the Nile. This chapter surveys therefore the extraordinary corpus of late antique wall painting from Amheida’s House of Serenos alongside other examples of decorated plaster from the Great Oasis in order to interrogate the role played by artistic practice and visual culture in general in articulating the social, political, and religious dynamics of late antique Egypt.

The oases of Kharga and Dakhla have been linked administratively from ancient times into the present. This chapter presents a study of the two main physical routes that connected the two oases: the Darb al-Ghubari and the Darb Ain Amur. Cairns, tracks, rock art, inscriptions, ceramics, and other small finds serve to identify the tracks and stopping points along the way. These paths, particularly the Darb Ain Amur, evolved over time, reflecting the changing environment and modes of transport that were used to make the journey from pharaonic to Roman times.

This chapter concerns the different approaches (statistic, spatial analysis) using ceramic and amphoras as markers of the “culture materielle” in the Great Oasis. Starting from the Duch (ancient Kysis) material, the studies, in collaboration with geomorphologists and young scholars involved in the Project Partner University Fund, have focused on El-Deir in Kharga and Amheida (ancient Trimithis) in Dakhla. The first results are revealing some aspects, specially for the Roman and Byzantine periods, of the economic (production, trade), social, and cultural environment of the Great Oasis and the connectivity of the oasian populations.

The comparison of two small oases of the Kharga and Dakhla depressions, in the Western Desert of Egypt, confirmed that spring-fed oases have been attractive after the onset of aridity, ca 4500 BC, but irrigated agriculture has not been proved yet before the Intermediate Period. Irrigated areas were suject to harsh constraints despite the wealth of underground water during millennia: wind-induced dune shifting and soil erosion in Amheida and El-Deir, while flash floods destroyed most of the El-Deir oasis during the Roman period. Recovery was more difficult because artesian springs, which relied on water stored during the wet phase of the Holocene, were progressively exhausted by irrigation practices and could no longer compensate for the drying up of the oasis environment. If natural factors are not the unique causes of economic decay in the oases, they may have some responsibility in the progressive abandonment of agriculture during the third and fourth centuries. Amheida disappeared to the benefit of El-Kasr fortress, while El-Deir retained some importance for caravan trade between Hibis and the Nile Valley thanks to a well secured by a newly built fortress from 288 to the sixth century AD.

This chapter presents the ceramic data collected in the field and participate to understand the role and place of the site of El-Deir in the Western Desert commercial network in Roman times. In order to have a better comprehension of the economic importance of the north of the Kharga Oasis during Roman times, ceramic material from the exploration of three sites has been studied: the Naqb Abu Sighawal track, connecting El-Deir to Girga in the Nile Valley; the Roman fortress and its vicinity; the agricultural plots of El-Deir. This study shows El-Deir as a reception and redistribution center between the Kharga Oasis and the Nile Valley and the Mediterranean space to a lesser extent, from the Late Period but especially from the Ptolemaic period and during Early Roman times. This role as reception point influenced the agricultural landscape, which has been gradually transformed from subsistence farming to commercial agriculture, with a fortress used as checkpoint, caravanserai, and storage place.

Three sites of Kharga Oasis (Dush, Labakha, and El-Deir), which were explored between 1981 and 2010, are considered in this chapter. They were occupied from the end of the fourth century BC till the early fifth century AD. About a thousand buried individuals were examined. The studies concerned sex ratio, age at death, causes of death, and pathology of mummies. More men than women were discovered, and the number of children found was particularly high in the Christian cemetery at El-Deir. Regarding age at death, the main feature is the proportion of women between 12 and 40 (as at many cemeteries). The pathological study, mainly based on X-rays, revealed problems with bones (fractures, arthritis, scoliosis…), problems with teeth (worn teeth, decay cases), and many cases of bilharzia. Presence of GAL (growth arrest lines) was observed on many mummies or skeletons,indicating periods when food was inadequate. Exploring cemeteries revealed the activities of their inhabitants: they were mainly farmers and craftsmen involved in potting, weaving, wickerwork, stone-cutting, and woodwork. There were obviously “rich” and “poor” tombs, but differences in quality could be due to an impoverishment of populations between Ptolemaic and Roman times.

This chapter offers a cultural survey of the Great Oasis and inquires about the existence of Greek literary culture in various localities. The schools that have come to light in Amheida and Kellis are of great importance because they are extremely rare in the Greek and Roman worlds. In Amheida a school that covered primary and grammatical learning was annexed to the house of a notable, Serenos. It was identified because of benches and literary texts written on the walls: Homer, Plutarch, and eight epigrams in elegiac couplets and hexameters. In addition a verse from Euripides’ tragedy Hypsipyle was scribbled on a wall of the house. Some Greek inscriptions with poetic words also exist in Amheida and a large broken piece with a poetic encomium. Other Greek texts emerge from places such as Ain Birbiyh, Kysis, and Karga: metrical and mythological inscriptions of high-level and subliterary texts written on ostraca that testify to the existence of elementary education. The evidence considered shows that people in the Great Oasis were interested in Greek culture and education. Some were able to reach an elementary education and the elites aspired to know prose and poetry of high level.

This chapter presents the landscape of ancient Trimithis, a polis in the fourth century AD, and a synthesis of its urban layout. The settlement extends over an irregular area in which moving sand dunes determined living spaces and the availability of water. Archaeological evidence attests the presence of a settlement at least from the Old Kingdom below the central hill on which the temple of Thoth stood from the New Kingdom to the Roman period. Our knowledge of the settlement life, history, and layout is still incomplete,but the fourth-century AD phase allows some comparisons with other cities of the Empire. The study of the buildings visible on the surface, of the excavated areas, and of the street layout suggests an imperial regular pattern of streets, with impressive public buildings like the thermae. The layout and architecture of Trimithis as they appear today resemble in several aspects the later Islamic medieval settlements of the oasis: vernacular architecture, compact organization of space, high density of buildings, labyrinthine layout, shaded or semi-shaded streets and alleys, sometimes closed with doors, and a certain disposition to close spaces to avoid exposure to sun and winds.

This chapter aims to contribute to the study of the network of commerce between the Great Oasis,the Nile Valley, and the Mediterranean basin during the Roman and Late Roman periods. In particular, it describes the fragments of Egyptian and imported amphoras that have been identified during the course of the analysis of the ceramics from the survey (2012 and 2013) and excavations (2004-13) conducted at Trimithis/Amheida (Dakhla Oasis) by the team sponsored first by Columbia University and then by New York University. The study of these transport containers, which are quite rare in the oases, sheds new light on possible patterns of use and consumption in the different areas of Trimithis, as well as how the polis fits into this range of contacts which interested the oasis during the first to fourth century AD.

In the scholarly literature on the oases, we find a variety of assertions about the cities of the Kharga and Dakhla oases: that one was the capital at a particular period, that one did or did not have civic status at some date. On close examination, most of these statements turn out to be based on slender or no evidence, and in many cases we find that we know much less than has been supposed about the administrative organization of the Great Oasis. In what follows, we look more closely at the available evidence for both Kharga and Dakhla, tracing the history of Hibis – often supposed to be the capital of the whole oasis – and then of the two major towns of the Dakhla Oasis, Mothis (modern-day Mut) and Trimithis. We will try as well to see what we can of their interrelationship and of the overall administrative structure.

The comparison of two small oases of the Kharga and Dakhla depressions, in the Western Desert of Egypt, confirmed that spring-fed oases have been attractive after the onset of aridity, ca 4500 BC, but irrigated agriculture has not been proved yet before the Intermediate Period. Irrigated areas were suject to harsh constraints despite the wealth of underground water during millennia: wind-induced dune shifting and soil erosion in Amheida and El-Deir, while flash floods destroyed most of the El-Deir oasis during the Roman period. Recovery was more difficult because artesian springs, which relied on water stored during the wet phase of the Holocene, were progressively exhausted by irrigation practices and could no longer compensate for the drying up of the oasis environment. If natural factors are not the unique causes of economic decay in the oases, they may have some responsibility in the progressive abandonment of agriculture during the third and fourth centuries. Amheida disappeared to the benefit of El-Kasr fortress, while El-Deir retained some importance for caravan trade between Hibis and the Nile Valley thanks to a well secured by a newly built fortress from 288 to the sixth century AD.