Kharga routes

Mødedato: Onsdag d. 3/5 2023 kl 19.00
Lokale: KUA 22.0.11

Kharga routes, v. Professor Salima Ikram, American University in Cairo

Since 2001, the North Kharga Oasis Survey (NKOS) has been systematically exploring the northern portion of the Kharga Oasis in Egypt’s Western Desert. NKOS has worked on identifying and locating new archaeological sites, assessing the extent of the visible sites, as well as recording evidence for desert travel along the paths connection the various sites.

By combining all this information, it clearly appears that Kharga was an important desert crossroad where the north-south caravan route (known as the Darb el-Arbain) met an east-west route, that connected to the neighbouring Dakhla Oasis, and ultimately to the Gifl el-Kebir area, as well as to Lower Egypt via the other Western Desert oases. Then importance of this east-west axis has hitherto been underestimated.