Scattered through the vast expanse of stone and sand that makes up Egypt’s Western Desert are several oases. These islands of green in the midst of the Sahara owe their existence to springs and wells drawing on ancient aquifers. In antiquity, as today, they supported agricultural communities, going back to Neolithic times but expanding greatly in the millennium from the Saite pharaohs to the Roman emperors. New technologies of irrigation and transportation made the oases integral parts of an imperial economy. Amheida, ancient Trimithis, was one of those oasis communities. Located in the western part of the Dakhla Oasis, it was an important regional center, reaching a peak in the Roman period before being abandoned. Over the past decade, excavations at this well-preserved site have revealed its urban layout and brought to light houses, streets, a bath, a school, and a church. The only standing brick pyramid of the Roman period in Egypt has been restored. Wall-paintings, temple reliefs, pottery, and texts all contribute to give a lively sense of its political, religious, economic, and cultural life. This book presents these aspects of the city’s existence and its close ties to the Nile valley, by way of long desert roads, in an accessible and richly illustrated fashion.

An Oasis City (ISAW Monographs, 6)

History

Bagnall, Roger S.

Davoli, Paola

Cribiore, Raffaella

McFadden, Susanna

Aravecchia, Nicola

Kaper, Olaf E.

Ancient Civilizations

NYU Press

More than one third of the world's population lives in houses made of unfired earth bricks or stamped earth, materials also known as mud brick, adobe , terre crue , pisé , or rammed earth. Houses in the middle east have been made out this material for at least 10,000 years, but in many places this form of architecture is slowly being superceded by more recent building techniques using reinforced concrete and concrete blocks. This study contains a description of the remaining mud brick architecture in several villages in the Dakhleh Oasis in Egypt. It includes a brief history of mud brick, a discussion of the distinct local building techniques of the Oasis, and three architectural case studies of traditional mud brick houses in the Oasis, and it has many plans and photographs of local houses. The study was carried out as preparation for the design and construction of an archaeological working and training centre in the Dakhleh Oasis, which has been made according to the local traditions in mud brick vernacular. It is based on a field trip carried out in 1997 by Wolf Schijns (architect), Margriet Schijns (architect), Olaf E Kaper (Egyptologist) and Joris D Kila (art historian).

Vernacular Mudbrick Architecture in the Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt, and the 0Design of the Dakhleh Oasis Training and Conservation Centre (Dakhleh Oasis Project Monograph)

Kila, Joris

Schijns, Wolf

Oxbow Books

The god Tutu is known to have existed before the Ptolemaic period in Egypt and is recorded in Greek, Demotic and Roman documents, and featured on a range of monuments and stelae. This book presents a detailed study of Tutu exploring his origins and the development and spread of his cult. Represented as a striding sphinx with a crown of ostrich feathers and a pair of ram's horns, he appears on a number of stelae, as relief decoration and as statues. Here, Kaper devotes chapters to investigating the names and titles of Tutu, exploring his iconography, and presents a definition of his characteristics, his role and place among the pantheon of gods. Kaper traces the development of the cult of Tutu, demonstrating that it was prevalent for more than 800 years and, in the Ptolemaic period, increasingly linked with the god Amun-Re. A catalogue of 185 representations of Tutu is given at the end.

The Egyptian God Tutu: A Study of the Sphinx-God and Master of Demons with a Corpus of Monuments (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta)

Peeters Press

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Books by Kaper, Olaf E.