Wadi Hammamat

Wadi Hammamat (Arabic:وادي الحمامات,romanized: Wādī al-Ḥammāmāt,lit. 'Valley of Many Baths',Coptic:ⲣⲱϩⲉⲛⲧⲟⲩ,romanized: rōhentou,lit. 'India way; gateway to India'^[1]) is adry river bed inEgypt'sEastern Desert, about halfway betweenAl-Qusayr andQena. It was a majormining region andtrade route east from theNile Valley in ancient times, and three thousand years of rock carvings and graffiti make it a major scientific and tourist site today.

Trade route

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Hammamat became the major route fromThebes to theRed Sea and then to theSilk Road that led to Asia, or to Arabia and the horn of Africa. This 200 km journey was the most direct route from the Nile to theRed Sea, as the Nile bends toward the coast at the western end of thewadi.

The Hammamat route ran fromQift (or Coptos), located just north ofLuxor, toAl-Qusayr on the coast of the Red Sea. Qift was an important center for administration, religion, and commerce. The cities at both ends of the route were established by theFirst Dynasty, although evidence ofpredynastic occupation also has been found along the route.^[2]

Quarries

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InAncient Egypt, Hammamat was a major quarrying area for theNile Valley. Quarrying expeditions to theEastern Desert are recorded from the second millennia BCE, where the wadi has exposedPrecambrian rocks of theArabian-Nubian Shield. These includeBasalts,schists,bekhen-stone (an especially prized green metagraywackesandstone used for bowls,palettes, statues, and sarcophagi)^[3] and gold-containingquartz.^[4] TheNarmer Palette, 3100 BC, is one of a number of early and predynastic artifacts that were carved from the distinctive stone of the Wadi Hammamat.

PharaohSeti I is recorded as having the first well dug to provide water in the wadi, andSenusret I sent mining expeditions there.

The site is described in the earliest-known ancientgeological map, theTurin Papyrus Map.^[5]

Carvings

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Today Hammamat is famous mostly for its ancient Egyptiangraffiti, as well as that, in ancient times, it was aquarry that lay on theSilk Road to Asia, and is a common destination for modern tourists. The wadi contains many carvings and inscriptions dating from before the earliest Egyptian Dynasties to the modern era, including the only paintedpetroglyph known from the Eastern Desert and drawings of Egyptianreed boats dated to4000 BCE.^[6]

Common era

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Occupying groups from theRoman-Byzantine Periods to theLate Ptolemaic Period operated gold mines near the well Bir Umm el-Fawakhir. Yet, theNew Kingdom of Egypt gold mines at Wadi el-Sid were on a larger scale.^[5]^{: 129, 136–141}

A modern asphalt road, theWadi Hammamat road now runs for 194 km through the wadi, making it a vital transport route, and enabling tourists to travel easily between the sites of nearby Luxor and Thebes.^[7]

Modern European description

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The first European descriptions of the Wadi Hammamat were from the Scottish travelerJames Bruce in 1769, and the RussianEgyptologist Vladimir Golenishchev led the first modern study of the inscriptions in 1884–1885.

Popular culture

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In 1993,The Pogues wrote a song about it, entitledGirl From The Wadi Hammamat in their albumWaiting for Herb.

References

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^Meeks, Cf. D.Coptos et le chemin de Pount. p. 303.
^The Archaeology of the Eastern Desert, Appendix F: Desert Rock Areas and Sites. Andie Byrnes, University College London, June 2007. Retrieved September 2007.
^Survey of ancient Egyptian stone quarries (rock varieties and images, locations, and ages). James A. Harrell, Professor of Geology, Department of Environmental Sciences,University of Toledo. Retrieved September 2007.
^Dollinger, André,Mining, An introduction to the history and culture of Pharaonic Egypt. 2000. Retrieved September 2007.
^^a ^bKlemm, Rosemarie; Klemm, Dietrich (2013).Gold and Gold Mining in Ancient Egypt and Nubia. Heidelberg: Springer. pp. 132–136.ISBN 9783642225079.
^Desert Boats Home Page Wadi Hammamat: Gallery and description of several dynastic and predynastic sites in the Wadi, by Francis Lankester. Retrieved June 2013.
^"12 Top-Rated Things to Do in the Red Sea Region – #12: Discover the Eastern Desert's Rock Inscriptions at Barrameya and Wadi Hammamat".PlanetWare. Retrieved21 February 2023.