Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T09:46:46.779Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Cereal cultivation and nomad-sedentary interactions at the Late Bronze Age settlement of Zawiyet Umm el-Rakham

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 December 2017

Nicky Nielsen
Nicky Nielsen*
Affiliation:
University of Manchester, 1.202B Stopford Building, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PT, UK (Email: nicky.nielsen@manchester.ac.uk)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Research on Late Bronze Age relations between Egyptians and local nomadic or semi-nomadic Libyans has hitherto focused almost exclusively on Egyptian textual and iconographic sources. Recent archaeological evidence for grain production and agrarian practice at the Egyptian fortress of Zawiyet Umm el-Rakham allows us to address this imbalance, in combination with ethnographic data and cross-cultural parallels drawn from nomad-sedentary interactions in the Near East. Results suggest that Egyptian subsistence in this relatively isolated outpost of the New Kingdom Empire was probably dependent upon Libyan manpower and their knowledge of local environmental conditions and effective farming methods.

Keywords

EgyptLibyaBronze Agenomadismsedentismcultivation
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 91 , Issue 360 , December 2017 , pp. 1561 - 1573
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abou-Zeid, A.M. 1959. The sedentarization of nomads in the Western Desert of Egypt. International Social Science Journal 11: 550–53.Google Scholar
Applebaum, S. 1979. Jews and Greeks in ancient Cyrene. Leiden: E.J. Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Awad, M. 1954. The assimilation of nomads in Egypt. Geographical Review 44: 240–52. https://doi.org/10.2307/212358 Google Scholar
Bates, O. 1914. The eastern Libyans. London: MacMillan & Co. Google Scholar
Behnke, R.H. 1980. The herders of Cyrenaica. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Bruyère, B. 1937–1939. Rapport sur les fouilles de Deir el Medineh, 1933–34, 1934–35. Cairo: Imprimerie de l'Institut Francais d'Archeologie Orientale.Google Scholar
Carter, T.H. 1963. Reconnaissance in Cyrenaica. Expedition 5 (4): 18–27.Google Scholar
Cole, D.P. & Altorki, S.. 1998. Bedouin, settlers and holiday-makers: Egypt's changing northwest coast. Cairo: American University of Cairo Press.Google Scholar
Cribb, R. 1991. Nomads in archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511552205 Google Scholar
Davies, N. de G. 1905. The rock tombs of El-Amarna: part III—the tombs of Huya and Ahmes. London: Egypt Exploration Society.Google Scholar
Enmarch, R. 2008. A world upturned: commentary on and analysis of the dialogue of Ipuwer and the Lord of All. London: Oxford University Press . Google Scholar
Finkelstein, I. 1995. Living on the fringe: the archaeology and history of the Negev, Sinai and neighbouring regions in the Bronze and Iron Ages. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic.Google Scholar
García, J.C.M. 2014. Invaders or just herders? Libyans in Egypt in the third and second millennia BCE. World Archaeology 46: 610–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2014.931820 Google Scholar
Gasperini, V. 2017. Goods from the wine-dark sea: typology of imports excavated at Zawiyet Umm el-Rakham, in Franzmeier, H. (ed.) Mit archäologischen Schichten Geschichte schreiben. Festschrift für Edgar B. Pusch zum 70. Geburtstag: 119–36. Hildesheim: Gerstenberg.Google Scholar
Habachi, L. 1963. King Benhepetre Mentuhotep: his monuments, place in history, deification and unusual representations in the form of gods. MDAIK 19: 16–52.Google Scholar
Habachi, L. 1980. The military posts of Ramesses II on the coastal road and the western part of the Delta. Bulletin de l'Institut français d'archéologie orientale 80: 13–30.Google Scholar
Haiman, M. 1992. Sedentism and pastoralism in the Negev highlands in the Early Bronze Age: results of the Western Negev highlands emergency survey, in Bar-Yosef, O. & Khazanov, A.M. (ed.) Pastoralism in the Levant: archaeological materials in anthropological perspective: 93–104. Madison (WI): Prehistory.Google Scholar
Helck, W. 1970. Die Prophezeieung des Nfr. tj. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz.Google Scholar
Hölscher, W. 1955. Libyer und Ägypter: Beiträge zur Ethnologie und Geschichte libyscher Völkerschaften nach den altägyptischen Quellen. Glückstadt: J.J. Augustin, Gluckstadt.Google Scholar
Hounsell, D.D.U. 2002. The occupation of Marmarica in the Late Bronze Age: an archaeological and ethnographical study. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Liverpool.Google Scholar
Hulin, L. 2001. Marmaric wares: New Kingdom and later examples. LibStud 32: 67–78. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0263718900005756 Google Scholar
Hulin, L. 2011. Pragmatic technology: issues in the interpretation of Libyan material culture, in Duistermaat, K. & Regulski, I. (ed.) Intercultural contacts in the ancient Mediterranean: Proceedings of the International Conference at the Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo, 25th–29th October 2008: 101–14. Leuven: Peeters.Google Scholar
Johnson, A.C. 1959. Roman Egypt: to the reign of Diocletian. Paterson (NJ): Pageant.Google Scholar
Kitchen, K.A. 1990. The arrival of the Libyans in Late New Kingdom Egypt, in Leahy, A. (ed.) Libya and Egypt: 1300–750 BC: 15–27. London: University of London, Centre of Near and Middle Eastern Studies.Google Scholar
Kitchen, K.A. 1993. Ramesside inscriptions, translated & annotated: translations, volume I. Ramesses I, Sethos I and contemporaries. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Kitchen, K.A. 1996. Ramesside inscriptions, translated & annotated: translations, volume II. Ramesses II, royal inscriptions. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Kitchen, K.A. 2003. Ramesside inscriptions, translated & annotated: translations, volume IV. Merenptah and the late Nineteenth Dynasty. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Leclant, J. 1954. Fouilles et travaux en Égypte 1952–1953. Orientalia 23: 64–79.Google Scholar
Leclant, J. 1955. Fouilles et travaux en Égypte 1953–1954. Orientalia 24: 296–317.Google Scholar
Leclant, J. 1956. Fouilles et travaux en Égypte 1954–1955. Orientalia 25: 251–68.Google Scholar
Lönnqvist, M. 2010. How to control nomads? A case study associated with Jebel Bishri in central Syria: West Semitic nomads in relation to the urban world, in Kogan, L., Koslova, N., Loesov, S. & Tischenko, S. (ed.) City administration in the ancient Near East. Proceedings of the 53e Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale volume 2: 115–39. Winona Lake (IN): Eisenbrauns.Google Scholar
Lyon, G.F. 1821. A narrative of travels in northern Africa in the years 1818–1819 and 1820. London: John Murray.Google Scholar
Nielsen, N. 2016a. A corpus of Nineteenth Dynasty Egyptian pottery from Zawiyet Umm el-Rakham. Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections 9: 59–71.Google Scholar
Nielsen, N. 2016b. Subsistence strategies and craft production at the Ramesside fort of Zawiyet Umm el-Rakham. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Liverpool.Google Scholar
O'Connor, D. 1990. The nature of Tjemhu (Libyan) society in the later New Kingdom, in Leahy, A. (ed.) Libya and Egypt: 1300–750 BC: 29–114. London: University of London, Centre of Near and Middle Eastern Studies.Google Scholar
Oriental Institute Epigraphic Survey. 1986. Reliefs and inscriptions at Karnak, volume IV: the battle reliefs of King Sety I. Chicago (IL): University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Osing, J. 1980. Libyen, Libyer, in Helck, W. & Westendorf, W. (ed.) Lexicon der Ägyptologie, V.III: 1015–33. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.Google Scholar
Padgham, K. 2014. The scale and nature of the Late Bronze Age economies of Egypt and Cyprus. Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Posener, G. 1940. Princes et pays d'Asie et de la Nubia, textes hieratiques sur des figurines d'envoutement du Moyen Empire. Bruxelles: Fondation égyptologique Reine Élisabeth.Google Scholar
Rhodes, E.J. 2011. Optically stimulated luminescence dating of sediments over the past 200 000 years. Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences 39: 461–88. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-earth-040610-133425 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rieger, A., Vetter, T. & Möller, H.. 2012. The desert dwellers of Marmarica, Western Desert: second millennium BCE to first millennium CE, in Barnard, H. & Duistermaat, K. (ed.) The history of the peoples of the Eastern Desert: 157–73. Los Angeles (CA): University of California.Google Scholar
Ritner, R. 2009. Egypt and the vanishing Libyan: institutional responses to a nomadic people, in Szuchman, J. (ed.) Nomads, tribes and the state in the ancient Near East: cross-disciplinary perspectives: 43–56. Chicago (IL): Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Rosen, S.A. 2009. History does not repeat itself: cyclicity and particularism in nomad-sedentary relations in the Negev in the long term, in Szuchman, J. (ed.) Nomads, tribes and the state in the ancient Near East: cross-disciplinary perspectives: 57–86. Chicago (IL): Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Rowe, A. 1953. A contribution to the archaeology of the Western Desert 1. Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 36: 128–45. https://doi.org/10.7227/BJRL.36.1.7 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rowe, A. 1954. A contribution to the archaeology of the Western Desert 2. Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 36: 484–500. https://doi.org/10.7227/BJRL.36.2.10 Google Scholar
Rowton, M.B. 1973. Autonomy in a nomadic environment. Journal of Near Eastern Studies 32: 201–15. https://doi.org/10.1086/372237 Google Scholar
Sagrillo, T. 2012. Šîšaq's army: 2 chronicles 12: 2–3 from an Egyptological perspective, in Galil, G., Levinson-Gilbo'a, A., Maeir, A.M. & Kahn, D. (ed.) The ancient Near East in the 12th–10th centuries BCE: culture and history. Proceedings of the international conference held at the University of Haifa, 2–5 May, 2010: 425–50. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag.Google Scholar
Samuel, D. 1999. Bread making and social interactions at the Amarna workmen's village, Egypt. World Archaeology 31: 121–44. https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.1999.9980435 Google Scholar
Samuel, D. 2000. Brewing and baking, in Nicholson, P.T. & Shaw, I. (ed.) Ancient Egyptian materials and technology: 537–76. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sethe, K. 1929. Ägyptische Texte zum Gebrauch im akademischen Unterricht: Texte der mittleren Reiches. Hildesheim: Georg Olms.Google Scholar
Sethe, K. 1933. Urkunden des Alten Reichs. Leipzig: Hinrichs.Google Scholar
Sethe, K. 1961. Urkunden der 18. Dynastie: Vierter Band. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag.Google Scholar
Simpson, F. 2002. Evidence for a Late Bronze Age Libyan presence in the Egyptian fortress at Zawiyet Umm el-Rakham. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Liverpool.Google Scholar
Snape, S. 1998. Walls, wells and wandering merchants: Egyptian control of Marmarica in the Late Bronze Age, in Eyre, C.J. (ed.) Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress of Egyptologists, Cambridge, 3–9 September 1995: 1081–84. Leuven: Peeters.Google Scholar
Snape, S. 2003. The emergence of Libya on the horizon of Egypt, in O'Connor, D.B. & Quirke, S. (ed.) Mysterious lands: 93–106. London: UCL Press.Google Scholar
Snape, S. 2004. The excavations of the Liverpool University mission to Zawiyet Umm el-Rakham 1994–2001. Annales du Service des antiquités de l'Egypte 78: 149–60.Google Scholar
Snape, S. 2010. Vor der Kaserne: external supply and self-sufficiency at Zawiyet Umm el-Rakham, in Bietak, M., Czerny, E. & Forstner-Müller, I. (ed.) Cities and urbanism in ancient Egypt: papers from a workshop in November 2006 at the Austrian Academy of Sciences: 271–88. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press.Google Scholar
Snape, S. 2013. A stroll along the Corniche: coastal routes between the Nile Delta and Cyrenaica in the Late Bronze Age, in Förster, F. & Riemer, H. (ed.) Desert road archaeology in ancient Egypt and beyond: 439–54. Cologne: Heinrich-Barth-Institut.Google Scholar
Snape, S. & Godenho, G.. In press. Zawiyet Umm el-Rakham II: the monuments of Nebre. Bolton: Rutherford.Google Scholar
Snape, S. & Wilson, P.. 2007. Zawiyet Umm el-Rakham I: the temple and chapels. Bolton: Rutherford.Google Scholar
Spalinger, A.J. 1979. Some notes on the Libyans of the Old Kingdom and the later historical reflexes. Journal of the Society of the Study of Egyptian Antiquities 9: 125–60.Google Scholar
Spencer, N. 2014. Amara West: considerations on urban life in colonial Kush, in Welsby, D. & Anderson, J.R. (ed.) Proceedings of the 12th International Conference for Nubian Studies, 1–6 August 2012, London (British Museum Publications on Egypt and Sudan 1): 457–85. Leuven: Peeters.Google Scholar
Spencer, N. 2015. Creating a neighbourhood within a changing town: household and other agencies at Amara West, Nubia, in Müller, M. (ed.) Household studies in complex societies: (micro) archaeological and textual approaches: 169–210. Chicago (IL): Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Strassler, R.B. (ed.). 2009. The landmark Herodotus: The Histories. New York: Anchor.Google Scholar
Szuchman, J. 2009. Integrating approaches to nomads, tribes and the state in the ancient Near East, in Szuchman, J. (ed.) Nomads, tribes and the state in the ancient Near East: cross-disciplinary perspectives: 1–14. Chicago (IL): Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Vetter, T., Rieger, A. & Nicolay, A.. 2009. Ancient rainwater harvesting systems in the north-eastern Marmarica (northwestern Egypt). Libyan Studies 40: 9–23. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0263718900004489 Google Scholar
Vetter, T., Rieger, A. & Nicolay, A.. 2014. Disconnected runoff contributing areas: evidence provided by ancient watershed management systems in arid north-eastern Marmarica (NW-Egypt). Geomorphology 212: 41–57. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2013.10.002 Google Scholar
Vetter, T., Rieger, A. & Möller, H.. 2013. Water, routes and rangelands: ancient traffic and grazing infrastructure in eastern Marmarica (northwestern Egypt), in Förster, F. & Riemer, H. (ed.) Desert road archaeology in ancient Egypt and beyond: 455–84. Cologne: Heinrich-Barth-Institut.Google Scholar
White, D. 1999. Water, wood, dung and eggs: reciprocity in trade along the Late Bronze Age Marmarican coast, in Betancourt, P., Karageorghis, V., Laffineur, R. & Niemeier, W. (ed.) Meletemata: studies in Aegean archaeology presented to Malcolm H. Wiener as he enters his 65th year: 931–36. Liège: University of Liège.Google Scholar
White, D. 2002. Marsa Matruh II: the excavation. Philadelphia (PA): Institute for Aegean Prehistory.Google Scholar
Zorn, J.R. 1994. Estimating the population size of ancient settlements: methods, problems, solutions, and a case study. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 295: 31–48. https://doi.org/10.2307/1357103 Google Scholar