This new volume in the Oasis Papers series marks the 40th anniversary of archaeological fieldwork in the Dakhleh Oasis in Egypt’s Western Desert under the leadership of Anthony J. Mills and presents a synthesis of the current state of our knowledge of the oasis and its interconnections with surrounding regions, especially the Nile Valley. The papers are by distinguished authorities in the field and postgraduate students who specialise in different aspects of Dakhleh and presents an almost complete survey of the archaeology of Dakhleh including much unpublished, original material. It will be one of the few to document a specific part of modern Egypt in such detail and thus should have a broad and lasting appeal. The content of some of the papers is unlikely to be published in any other form elsewhere. Dakhleh is possibly the most intensively examined wider geographic region within Egypt.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preliminary Matter
GENERAL
1. The Bones of the Ancestors: 40 Years of bioarchaeology in Dakhleh Oasis Tosha
Dupras et al
2. The North Kharga Oasis Darb ‘Ain Amur Survey: Past Research and Future Questions
Salima Ikram
3. Ancient Egyptian Religion in Dakhleh Oasis: a perspective after 40 years of DOP
Olaf E. Kaper
4. Images of Seth in Dakhleh Rock Art
Pawel L. Polkowski
5. The Dakhleh Oasis – A Micro-Cosmos reflecting Environmental and Social Changes
Ursula Thanheiser
PREHISTORY
6. Happy Cattle Herders? The case of the Sheikh Muftah community at Balat, Dakhleh Oasis
Clara Jeuthe and Veerle Linseele
7. Pleistocene Geoarchaeological Surveys, Kharga Oasis Prehistory Project (KOPP), 2001–2011 plus others, Western Desert of Egypt
Maxine R. Kleindienst
8. The Holocene Prehistory of Dakhleh and Kharga Oases: the Masara and Bashendi Cultural Units
Mary M. A. McDonald
9. The Sheikh Muftah Cultural Unit: an Overview of Oasis/Desert Habitation during the 4th and 3rd Millennia
Sarah Ricketts and Ashten R. Warfe
DYNASTIC
10. The Second Intermediate Period in the Western Desert
John C. Darnell and Colleen Manassa-Darnell
11. Mapping the Evidence for Early Dynastic Period Activity in the Dakhleh Region
Caleb R. Hamilton
12. The Cemetery of ‘Ain Tirghi: Middle Kingdom to Late Period Burials
Colin A. Hope
13. Dakhleh Oasis in the Late Period
Caroline Hubschmann
14. Desert Deviations: interaction between ancient Egyptian scripts in rock graffiti from North Kharga
Nicolas Lazaridi
15. Egypt’s Western Oases during the New Kingdom
Richard Long
16. The Third Intermediate Period in the Egyptian Oases
Richard Long
17. Forty Years Later: An Overview of the IFAO Excavations at Balat-‘Ain Aseel
Laure Pantalacci
18. ‘Ain al-Gazzareen: an Overview of Old Kingdom Dakhleh’s Western Administrative Centre
Amy J. Pettman
19. An Overview of Old Kingdom Egyptian Interest and Activity in the Western Desert
Amy J. Pettman
PTOLEMAIC AND ROMAN
20. The Bir el-Shaghala Necropolis: an Architectural Overview
Sobhi Ashour and Magdi Ibrahim
21. The Sixth Tomb at Bir al-Shaghala Mut
Maher Bashendi
22. ‘Ain al-Sabil, Dakhleh Oasis
Kamal Bayoumy and Mahmoud Massoud
23. Roman Interaction in the Dakhleh Oasis: An Appraisal of the Ceramic Evidence
Ben Bassett
24. Christianity in Dakhleh Oasis: an archaeological overview
Gillian E. Bowen
25. The Church at Dayr al-Malak
Gillian E. Bowen and Colin A. Hope
26. Changes in Funerary Structures at Kharga from ‘traditional’ to ‘Christian’ tombs
Françoise Dunand
27. The Coptic and Syriac, Christian and Manichaean Texts Recovered from Ismant el-Kharab: An Update on New Discoveries and Significant Research since First Publication
Iain Gardner
28. Ptolemaic Dakhleh: An overview of the current state of research
James C.R. Gill
29. A note on the distribution of sites in Dakhleh during the Roman and Late Roman Period
Colin A. Hope
30. Contribution of the Textiles to the Study of the site of Al-Deir, Kharga Oasis
Fleur Letellier-Willemin
31. Household Furnishing Textiles (soft furnishings) from Kellis
Rosanne Livingstone
32. Rock-Cut Tombs in Eastern Dakhleh Sabri
Youssef Abd El-Rahman
33. Past, Present, and Future of the Kellis Cartonnage: aspects of cultural heritage preservation
Carlo Rindi
34. Trauma in Dakhleh oasis
Peter Sheldrick
35. P. Deir 1: a view of al-Deir temple’s accountancy
Gäelle Tallet
36. Seth in Hieratic and Demotic sources from Dakhleh Oasis
Gunter Vittmann
37. Dining with the Gods in the Painted Residence at Kellis?
Helen Whitehouse
ISLAMIC
38. Islamic Period Sites in Dakhleh Oasis
Colin A. Hope
39. Observations on some Ceramics from the 2013 field season at Qasr al-Dakhleh
Paul Kucera
40. The Qasr Dakhleh Project: An Overview
Fred Leemhuis
41. The mystery of Halima Uthman: a glimpse into her daily life
Anetta Lyzwa-Piber
42. Torpedoes from el-Qasaba: Ottoman storage jars along the Darb el-Tawil caravan route in Dakhleh Oasis (Egypt)
Heiko Riemer