When you live in a sheltered little world like southern middle Tennessee, it's really easy to picture the area in and around the ancient Egyptian empire as one huge desert with only the occasional settlement dotting the hot, sandy landscape. It makes sense that with water being the source of life, you would find more Egyptian life close to the Nile River and for the most part, this is true. However, as time goes on and Egyptologists search the desert for clues to ancient history, we are slowly but surely learning that the desolate desert wasn't as desolate as once believed.
For the past few years, a team of archaeologists from Yale University has been working with hometown folks in Egypt to investigate what they are calling the Theban Desert Road. This is the area in Egypt to the far west of the Nile River, originally not believed to be a main thoroughfare for the ancient Egyptians.
Guess what, not true! John Coleman Darrell, leader of the Yale team, has released photos (including the one above) of an area believed to be the hub of a huge trading/caravan route through the desert. The find dates back to the Second Intermediate Period, around 1600ish B.C.
What is in the pic is the remains of a huge bakery. They have found clay molds used to form specially shaped bread as well as large ovens capable of baking multiple batches or extremely large loaves. This definitely lends credence to the belief that the area was bustling. Why in the world would you have such a magnificent bake shop in the middle of the desert if no one was there to eat the bread?
According to Dr. Zahi Hawass, aka the god of Egyptology, most of the stuff they have discovered was found in a large garbage dump on the outskirts of the area. I always tell my students, if you want to make an archaeologist hump your leg like a puppy, let him find an undiscovered garbage dump! The evidence tells the Egyptologists that in addition to the area being a Mecca for travelers and home to a fairly large number of people, it might have also been a training ground for segments of the Egyptian military.
With bread being the basic staple for people of the time period, you know that bakery was bustling. I have this mental picture of an Egyptian Buddy from Cake Boss barking orders to everybody in the bakery.
Coming from a military background, I picture fast lazy people passing out stale muffins. But different times mean different people, so maybe they weren't fat.
ReplyDeleteWith my little Southern girl background, I simply can't fathom running around in the desert at all! I need my air conditioning.
ReplyDeleteI'd be willing to bet that the ancient military folk weren't fat though. They would have been constantly training because Egypt had a crack military force that had to be ready to deal with enemy attacks as well as natural disasters (and believe me there were plenty of each!)