Ancient Travelers' Inscriptions from Kharga Oasis, Egypt

FAIN: RQ-50869-14

California State University, Sacramento (Sacramento, CA 95819-2694)
Nikolaos Lazaridis (Project Director: January 2014 to June 2016)
Salima Ikram (Co Project Director: January 2014 to June 2016)

Work toward publication of eighty-four inscriptions that were carved between 2000 BC and 400 AD on the surface of sandstone rocks, located along routes connecting the Egyptian western desert to the Nile Valley and North Sudan. (12 months)

The project aims at publishing 84 ancient inscriptions that have been discovered in the Egyptian western desert by the North Kharga Oasis Survey team. The inscriptions under study were carved between 2000 BC and 400 AD on the surface of 15 sandstone rocks, situated along a well-trodden network of desert routes that during that period connected the Egyptian desert oases to the Nile Valley and North Sudan. By making available for the first time these previously unrecorded rock inscriptions to both scholarly and lay audiences, this project contributes greatly to the study of ancient travel practices and to the understanding of the ways in which ancient cultures experienced and utilized hostile desert environments, like that in Kharga Oasis. In addition, the recording and study of these inscriptions are very important as they salvage antiquities whose very existence has for a long time been under the threat of destruction by harsh environmental conditions and illicit human activity.

Media Coverage

Daring the desert: ancient travelers and their graffiti (Media Coverage)
Publication: Sacramento State Public Affairs
Date: 3/30/2016
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v82NPR8fsUc

Associated Products

Carved deities, protected travelers: invoking the Divine in the western desert (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Carved deities, protected travelers: invoking the Divine in the western desert
Author: Nikolaos Lazaridis
Abstract: Ancient travelers of the Darb Ayn Amur, an offshoot of the famous Darb el-Arbain which connected Kharga and Dakhla oases, were spending several days in the midst of the western desert’s hostile environment. As a result, they often felt the need to leave behind them carved marks of the Divine, invoking deities who were available and willing to protect them in those desolate parts of Egypt, away from the safety of the Nile Valley. In this paper I will examine the ways in which the Divine was invoked under such circumstances, as well as the environmental factors influencing the Egyptian travelers’ religious choices. The epigraphic materials presented in this paper have been recorded and investigated by the North Kharga Oasis-Darb Ayn Amur survey team and in this paper I will combine results from the ongoing epigraphic project “Ancient travelers’ inscriptions from Kharga Oasis, Egypt”, which has recently been funded by the National Endowment for Humanities, with current theory on the religious experience of natural landscape.
Date: 2/1/2017
Conference Name: Environment & Religion in Ancient & Coptic Egypt

Daring the desert: ancient travelers and their graffiti in Kharga Oasis, Egypt (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Daring the desert: ancient travelers and their graffiti in Kharga Oasis, Egypt
Author: Nikolaos Lazaridis
Abstract: Since 2001 the North Kharga Oasis-Darb Ain Amur Survey team has been exploring the sandy routes connecting Kharga Oasis to Dakhla Oasis and Libya. In the course of this survey we have discovered and recorded numerous lonely rock sites which were used in antiquity as camping spots and stopovers for travelers. The epigraphic material from these sites provides us with valuable information about the uses of these desert routes, traveling practices, as well as the identity and background of the ancient travelers who dared the western desert and chose to carve their marks on these rocks.
Date: 3/30/2016
Conference Name: California State University Sacramento

Ancient travelers and their graffiti in Kharga Oasis of the western Egyptian desert (in Greek) (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Ancient travelers and their graffiti in Kharga Oasis of the western Egyptian desert (in Greek)
Author: Nikolaos Lazaridis
Abstract: In this public talk we will travel to Egypt's western desert where Prehistoric and Pharaonic travelers left behind them exciting graffiti, sharing their experience with their contemporary and future travelers.
Date: 6/6/2016
Primary URL: http://www.facebook.com/archaeologicalmuseumofthessaloniki/posts/793203987448420
Conference Name: Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki

The Egyptian western desert experience: ancient travelers’ rock graffiti from Kharga Oasis (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: The Egyptian western desert experience: ancient travelers’ rock graffiti from Kharga Oasis
Abstract: As the North Kharga Oasis Survey team continues to explore the sandy routes that connected the western desert to the Nile Valley and beyond, the archaeological and epigraphic remains from the various rock sites along the desert paths offer an intriguing insight into the ancient travelers’ practices and ideas. In this paper I will concentrate on ancient rock graffiti and pictorial carvings from a number of rock sites north of Kharga Oasis. These lonely spots in the western desert were used in antiquity as camping sites and stopovers for weary travelers. The epigraphic materials from these sites, whose study is currently funded by NEH’s 2014 Scholarly Editions and Translations award, provide us with valuable information not only about the various uses of the desert routes, but also about the identity and background of the ancient travelers who chose to leave their marks on these rocks.
Author: Nikolaos Lazaridis
Date: 12/8/2015
Location: Davis CA

Daring the western desert: ancient travelers and their rock inscriptions (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Daring the western desert: ancient travelers and their rock inscriptions
Abstract: Since 2001 the North Kharga Oasis-Darb Ain Amur Survey team has been exploring the sandy routes connecting Kharga oasis to Dakhla and beyond. In the course of this survey we have discovered and recorded numerous lonely rock sites that were used in antiquity as camping spots and stopovers for travelers. The epigraphic material from these sites provides us with valuable information about the uses of these desert routes, traveling practices, as well as the identity and background of the ancient travelers who chose to carve their marks on these rocks.
Author: Nikolaos Lazaridis
Date: 3/13/2016
Location: Berkeley CA
Primary URL: http:// www.facebook.com/events/964102030311609/

Caravans and travelers of the desert: ancient inscriptions from the western Egyptian desert (Conference/Institute/Seminar)
Title: Caravans and travelers of the desert: ancient inscriptions from the western Egyptian desert
Author: Nikolaos Lazaridis
Abstract: Seminar on traveling practices in Ancient Egypt.
Date Range: 12/2015
Location: Athens, Greece
Primary URL: http://www.eemaa.eu/news/1612

Carving out identities in the Egyptian desert: ancient travelers of Kharga Oasis (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Carving out identities in the Egyptian desert: ancient travelers of Kharga Oasis
Author: Nikolaos Lazaridis
Abstract: In this paper I will discuss some recent results from the North Kharga Oasis Survey team’s epigraphic work and the National Endowment for Humanities-funded project “Ancient travelers’ inscriptions from Kharga Oasis, Egypt”. I will concentrate on ancient rock graffiti and pictorial carvings from a number of sites in the desert area north of Kharga Oasis that were used in antiquity as stopovers, sheltering ancient travelers from the desert’s merciless, sandy winds. Among other things, this epigraphic material provides us with valuable information about the identity and background of the ancient travelers who chose to carve their marks on these rocks, turning them from lonely-standing blocks of sandstone into meaningful public spaces.
Date: 8/25/2015
Primary URL: http://www.ice11florence.org/
Conference Name: The XIth International Congress of Egyptologists

Traveling deities in the western desert: Kharga Oasis’s ancient travelers and their religious practices (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Traveling deities in the western desert: Kharga Oasis’s ancient travelers and their religious practices
Author: Nikolaos Lazaridis
Abstract: As the North Kharga Oasis Survey team continues to explore the sandy routes that connected the western desert to the Nile Valley and beyond, the archaeological and epigraphic remains from the various identified rock sites paint an intriguing picture of religious practices and ideas displayed by the ancient travelers who dared these routes. The accumulated epigraphic evidence, whose study is funded by the National Endowment for Humanities, includes numerous pictorial carvings and rock graffiti that were carved by literate and illiterate members of the Pharaonic and post-Pharaonic societies, and that invoked major and minor deities of the Egyptian pantheon who were chosen due to their personal connection to their individual carver, as well as to their benevolent presence in this part of the western desert. In this paper I will discuss such religious rock carvings in the light of their interplay with their rock sites’ quasi-monumental context and their intimate relationship with the identity and background of the travelers who carved them.
Date: 7/25/2015
Conference Name: The 8th Dakhleh Oasis Project Conference

Ancient travellers’ inscriptions from Kharga oasis (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Ancient travellers’ inscriptions from Kharga oasis
Author: Nikolaos Lazaridis
Abstract: In this paper I will discuss some recent results from North Kharga Oasis Survey team’s epigraphic work and the National Endowment for Humanities-funded project “Ancient travelers’ inscriptions from Kharga Oasis, Egypt”. I will concentrate on ancient rock graffiti and pictorial carvings from a number of rock sites in the sandy area north of Kharga Oasis. These lonely spots in the western desert were used in antiquity as camping sites and stopovers for ancient travelers using the routes that connected Kharga to Dakhlah Oasis, or even further westwards, to Libya. The studied epigraphic material provides us with valuable information about the uses of these desert routes, traveling practices, as well as the identity and background of the ancient travelers who chose to leave their marks on these rocks.
Date: 2/19/2015
Primary URL: http://ahma.berkeley.edu/ahma-noon-colloquium
Conference Name: Ancient History & Mediterranean Archaeology Noon Colloquium

Crossing the Egyptian desert: Epigraphic work at Kharga oasis (Article)
Title: Crossing the Egyptian desert: Epigraphic work at Kharga oasis
Author: Nikolaos Lazaridis
Abstract: The North Kharga Oasis Survey team (NKOS) has been exploring since 2001 a significant part of the well-traveled caravan route Darb el-arba‘in, which was in constant use throughout the history of Ancient Egypt. In the course of the NKOS survey, the author, as chief epigraphist, has discovered a large number of ancient inscriptions, written in all Egyptian scripts, as well as in Greek. Some of these inscriptions were inscribed on the walls of monumental buildings, such as temples or military forts, found at various locations along the caravan route functioning as permanent settlements, checkpoints, or pilgrimage sites. Other inscriptions were left behind by ancient travelers on sandstone rocks at several points along the marked desert route. This paper will focus on the study of Egyptian inscriptions discovered at the site of Amun Rock. These inscriptions contain religious dedications and private information, and attest to the regular use of this site during the Pharaonic and Greco-Roman periods. On the basis of the reading of this important epigraphic material, the paper will argue: (a) that religious protection was frequently sought out in ancient desert traveling and when so, gods were addressed in formulaic language, and (b) that groups of Egyptian travelers often included literate people who were either state or temple employees. The conclusions drawn from this study of Amun Rock will then be examined in the light of the general logistics and mentality of traveling in Ancient Egypt, as indicated in texts and practices from the Nile Valley.
Year: 2015
Access Model: Subscription
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Maarav: a Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages and Literatures
Publisher: Maarav

Amun-Ra, lord of the sky: A deity for travellers of the western desert (Article)
Title: Amun-Ra, lord of the sky: A deity for travellers of the western desert
Author: Nikolaos Lazaridis
Abstract: A study of the ways in which ancient Egyptian travelers crossing the western desert depicted and invoked the traveling version of the deity Amun-Ra.
Year: 2015
Primary URL: http://www.britishmuseum.org/pdf/Lazaridis_FINAL.pdf
Access Model: open
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan
Publisher: The British Museum

Fat Ladies, Thin Men, Pointed Headed People, and Body Parts: Humans in the Rock Art of the North Kharga Basin (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Fat Ladies, Thin Men, Pointed Headed People, and Body Parts: Humans in the Rock Art of the North Kharga Basin
Author: Salima Ikram
Abstract: In this paper I discuss the depictions of anthropomorphic figures in the graffiti from North Kharga, Egypt.
Date: 9/12/2015
Conference Name: What Ever Happened to the People? Humans and Anthropomorphs in the Rock Art of Northern Africa

Creatures, Kings and Caravans: the Results of the North Kharga Oasis Darb Ain Amur Survey (NKODAAS) (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Creatures, Kings and Caravans: the Results of the North Kharga Oasis Darb Ain Amur Survey (NKODAAS)
Author: Salima Ikram
Abstract: In this paper I discuss the latest results of our fieldwork in North Kharga, Egypt.
Date: 8/24/2015
Primary URL: http://camnes.it/xi-international-congress-of-egyptologist
Conference Name: The XIth International Congress of Egyptologists

What Are the Tracks For? Alum Exploitation in the Kharga Oasis (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: What Are the Tracks For? Alum Exploitation in the Kharga Oasis
Author: Salima Ikram
Abstract: In this paper I present recently found evidence from North Kharga on the exploitation of alum.
Date: 7/21/2015
Conference Name: the 8th Dakhleh Oasis Project Conference

Climate Change in Kharga Oasis (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Climate Change in Kharga Oasis
Author: Salima Ikram
Abstract: Using our latest finds from Kharga oasis, I will present some preliminary observations about climatic changes in the area since antiquity.
Date: 4/13/2015
Conference Name: The 2015 Annual Meeting of the American Research Center in Egypt

Tracks in the desert: discovering and recording the remains from the Darb Ain Amur (Article)
Title: Tracks in the desert: discovering and recording the remains from the Darb Ain Amur
Author: Salima Ikram
Abstract: A progress report of our fieldwork in North Kharga, Egypt.
Year: 2015
Access Model: Subscription
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: The American Research Center in Egypt Bulletin
Publisher: The American Research Center in Egypt

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