Vortrag von Herrn Dr. Damien Agut-Labordère
Das Institut für Ägyptologie und Koptologie lädt ein zu einem Vortrag von
19.04.2022 um 14:00 Uhr
Herrn Dr. Damien Agut-Labordère
(CNRS, ArScAn, Nanterre)
Visiting Fellow am Center for Advanced Studies der LMU (CASLMU)
am
19. April 2022, 14:00 Uhr
zum Thema
Ayn Manawir, an Egyptian village in the Achaemenid Persian period
(Kharga oasis, 5th-4th century BC): a state of research
Veranstaltungsort:
Katharina-von-Bora-Str. 10, 2. Stock
großer Hörsaal (242)
The Dush oasis forms the southern part of the great oasis of Kharga. In this hyper-arid region, almost all water resources are derived from fossil groundwater. In the relatively distant past, this groundwater was able to be spontaneously discharged by means of natural artesian wells. Despite this, the archaeological survey of the region undertaken under the direction of the late Michel Wuttmann (IFAO) did not reveal any durable human settlement until the end of the 6th century BC. The few very rare traces dating back to the Saite period (664-525 B.C.) are limited to temporary occupations related to expeditions, hunting operations or caravan transits. It was not until the so-called « Persian » period of Egyptian history (526-332 BC) that an Oasis village was established and flourished on the northern slope of the Ayn Manâwir hill (a few kilometers from Tell Douch) grouped around a mud brick temple. The exemplary excavation of this site, between 1994 and 2011, made it possible to uncover an agricultural village and its terroir. In addition to the very large number of archaeological material, several hundred documents recorded in demotic writing have also been discovered.
These texts written on ostraca constitute a mine of information concerning Egyptian peasant life. Michel Chauveau (EPHE) has managed to read nearly 460 of these ostraca from Ayn Manâwir (O.Man.) and, with the author’s help, has set up an online database on the Achemenet.com website where these texts have been available since autumn 2014.
The purpose of this conference is to draw up a state of research on this archaeological site. After a brief introduction presenting the history of the IFAO’s excavation and its main protagonists, I will discuss the different elements that make up the village and its surroundings: the irrigation system (the so-called “qanats”), the temple, and the settlement areas. I will conclude by presenting some demotic ostraca related to the sale and rental of « day of water », i.e. irrigation time.