Egypt - From Koptos to Myos Hormos

Between 1994 and 1997 a French archaeological team funded by the Ministery of Foreign Affairs and the IFAO (Cairo) have studied the road-stations (Latin: praesidia) along the road from Qift (ancient Coptos) on the Nile to Qusayr on the Red Sea. Two stations especially have been studied, Al-Zarqa (ancient Maximianon) and Al-Muwayh (ancient Krokodilo), both of which had well preserved garbage-dumps containing Greek texts written on ostraca.

On this road are also the grauwacke quarries of Wadi Hammamat and the gold mines at Wadi Umm Fawakhir, both of which were exploited already in Pharaonic times. The quarries were reactivated during Roman rule in Egypt, from 30 B.C. and at the same time the road became commercially important by carrying the imports from India, southern Arabia and Africa which came to Myos Hormos. The praesidia were built and wells sunk to facilitate travelling.

Since the end of the wars between Egypt and Israel in the 60’ies, archaeological work in the Eastern Desert has again become possible and several groups are active in the area: apart from the present project, British, American, Dutch, and French archaeologists are excavating or carrying out surveys at Mons Porphyrites, Mons Claudianus, Abu Sha’ar, Berenice, and on the road from Coptos to Berenice.

One of the most important results of the present project has been to furnish irrefutable proof that ancient Myos Hormos was situated at Qusayr al-Qadim, but several other stations on the road have also yielded their ancient names.

The praesidium of Al-Zerqa (Maximianon) presumably got its ancient name from the founder. Al-Muwayh (Krokodilo) on the other hand most likely was called thus because of the high rock behind the camp, which looks like a crocodile when seen from a certain angle. This station was probably built in the early years of the second century of our era and does not seem to have been occupied for very long. The name of Wadi Hammamat and Umm Fawakhir (both Persou in antiquity) was already known but is now better understood.

The god Min, identified by the Greeks and Romans as Pan, was the tutelary deity of all activities in the desert, and one finds so-called proskynemata, i.e. inscriptions testifying to an act of adoration to Pan. But in the second century A.D., the period of our ostraca, Min was being replaced by the tutelary deities of the Roman stations, the Tychai (Tyche = Fortuna, in the singular), Athena in Persou (Bir Fawakhir), Sarapis in Maximianon or Isis.

The ostraca found, especially those of Krokodilo, mention attacks by barbarians, presumably nomads in the desert, but mostly life in the desert seems to have been peaceful. Many of the texts are concerned with the growing and selling of vegetables, a necessary supplement to the dreary rations. A certain traffic in prostitutes is also attested. This is set in relation to the Coptos-tariff.

The bones found among the garbage have been analysed and show that meat was most commonly preserved pork. Preserved mutton and goat were rarer. Donkeys and camels were eaten occasionally, but presumably only when they had served their term as draught-animals.