Remerciez-le!

Remerciez @Admin pour avoir partagé cet document gratuitement, de la manière la plus simple, en partageant sur les réseaux sociaux.

12 Abgadiyat 2017 Egypt as crossroad between Africa and Asia in the Old Bronze

12 Abgadiyat 2017 Egypt as crossroad between Africa and Asia in the Old Bronze Age مصر كنقطة التقاء بين إفريقيا وآسيا في العصر البرونزي القديم Alessandro Roccati* ملخص يقدم هذا املقال رؤية متعمقة لعالقات مرص بالعالم اخلاريج خالل عرصي ادلولة القديمة والوسطى؛ حيث يمكن تصنيف هذا املقال ضمن املقاالت العلمية املرجعية اليت تعتمد ىلع جتميع معلومات مستقاة من مصادر نصية نُرشت من قبل يف مقاالت متخصصة، وقمت بمحاولة بناء تصوري اعتمادًا ىلع هذه املصادر لطرح رؤية جديدة حول عالقات مرص باملناطق املحيطة بها سواء يف آسيا أو إفريقيا خالل فرتة عرص ادلراسة. Egypt as Crossroads between Africa and Asia in the Old Bronze Age 13 Issue No. 12 More than one century ago, in 1892, an Italian Egyptologist, Ernesto Schiaparelli visiting Aswan, participated in the discovery of some inscriptions engraved on the facade of the tomb of Harkhuf, high on the cliff of the Necropolis named Qubbet el-Hawa. Actually his discovery was double, for he soon realized the importance of the hieroglyphic inscriptions which showed the first available reports of several trips to Africa.1 Prince Harkhuf lived in the second half of Sixth Dynasty, around 2250 BCE, and he spent some long period of his life travelling southwards along different routes, with hundreds of donkeys to carry the goods the Pharaoh had sent him for. The route must have been well known to an Egyptian, at least since the exploitation of quarries during the 4th Dynasty at Toshkeh and beyond Dakhla.2 The geography of these expeditions is now somewhat better known thanks to various discoveries, which shed light on very early civilizations of Africa despite the lack of certitude about the localization of a number of relevant place names.3 However, Egypt can no longer be considered an isolated and self-sufficient power, as the ancient Egyptians could cover rather long distances and many well- to-do foreigners came to settle in their country. The excavations carried out by Charles Bonnet, resuming those of George Reisner in the modern site of Kerma, have revealed an important capital city, upstream the Third Cataract, which was influential since the 4th millennium BCE, and after the Egyptian conquest around 1500 BCE took the name of Pnubs (the jujube tree), perhaps a translation of the term Yam used in Harkhuf’s inscriptions.4 Some graffiti recently recovered far away in the Arabian and Libyan deserts bear additional evidence of the passage of Egyptian expeditions like those related by Harkhuf in his tomb. A hieratic graffito was discovered on the way through Khashm el-Bab, near Bir Ungat, quoting a prince Sabeni, a well-known acquaintance in Aswan: may be the one who had a larger tomb than that of Harkhuf in the same Necropolis of Qubbet el-Hawa, and who also travelled southwards.5 This graffito is located on a track where also one of Harkhuf’s itineraries may be supposed, namely in the ancient land of Irtjet. When Harkhuf came back from Yam/Kerma, with his carriages laden with precious goods, the King of Yam granted him troops to escort him in the dangerous hills of Irtjet. Those desert roads were unsafe in Antiquity as is confirmed by another passage in Harkhuf’s wanderings, where he stated to have accompanied in his turn the King of Yam who went to smite the Tjemeh, and that his help ensured the success. The land of Tjemeh is likely to lie in the area of Jebel Uweinat,6 which was rich in water springs, and where again a hieroglyphic graffito shows Pharaoh Mentuhotep II, the unifier of Egypt ca. 2000 BCE, receiving the homage of the envoys of Yam and Tekhbeten, another hitherto unrecorded country. The same people of Tjemeh are mentioned in the famous biography of Weni at Abydos, and again in the tale of Sinuhe. In this novel, King Amenemhet I, founder of Twelfth Dynasty, is said to have sent the hereditary prince Sesostris to smite the Tjemeh and to foray their cattle.7 Amenemhet I became king after having been a vizier under the last kings of Eleventh Dynasty, and he probably wanted to pursue the policy of his great predecessor Mentuhotep II and of the Memphite kings during the Old Kingdom, since Sahurê. His action was completed by Sesostris once he became King, according to a huge stela erected in his 18th regnal year, which stood in the fortress of Buhen and is Alessandro Roccati 14 Abgadiyat 2017 now the pride of the Egyptian Museum at Florence.8 On this stela Sesostris I is shown subduing the Southern countries. On another hand, the coeval long inscription of Weni, carved on two limestone slabs now on display in Cairo Egyptian Museum, relates several mighty military campaigns against peoples living to the north, in the area of the Near East, where archaeology is disclosing an unexpected literate culture for those old times.9 Here again, the precise knowledge of the extent of the outreach of the Egyptian power is largely open to debate, unless the place names can be compared with the information of external sources, what was indisputable almost only for Byblos, due to the lack of cross data in the growing number of available materials. One example is provided by the enormous archives found in 1977 at Tell Mardikh, ancient Ebla, contemporary with pharaoh Pepi I: over ten-thousand clay tablets, concerning a commercial network with important partners, among which Egypt must remain a keen conjecture of the Assyriologist Maria Giovanna Biga.10 Additional data has recently arrived from Japan, where an outstanding hieroglyphic inscription belonging to the tomb of Iny, illicitly dismantled in the necropolis of Memphis, has been rediscovered by another Italian scholar, Michele Marcolin. The text is not very long, but exceedingly rich in information, and among more topographical terms that were still unrecorded or not well localized, it provides a unique quotation of a town, which was to become a trade node some centuries later in the activity of the Assyrian merchants, whose archives were discovered at Kültepe, ancient Kanesh. Therein a commercial center for silver is quoted, Burrus-handa, that corresponds (with the omission of ‘handa’) to the place where Iny went to purchase silver for his Pharaoh four times.11 That means that the Egyptians around mid-third millennium BCE used to travel as far as central Anatolia, and this result eventually enlarges the area where most unidentified localities have to be sited. It is not surprising therefore that the Annals of Amenemhet II found at Memphis speak of military expeditions towards the southern coast of Anatolia, mentioning the town of Ura, which was linked to the copper trade from Cyprus.12 Unfortunately, neither towns (Burrus-handa nor Ura) have been located, in order to check any complementary evidence. All in all, it is however a confirmation of what was already stated in the literary level: ‘None indeed sail north to Byblos today. What shall we do for pine trees for our mummies? Free men are buried with their produce, nobles are embalmed with their bitumen as far as Kftȝw (Kaphtor/Crete) ...’.13 It is also interesting to observe the ways the distinguished officials of Pharaoh were rewarded after their painstaking achievements. Unlike Weni, who undertook an honorable political career, as he became the head of Upper Egypt, others received special food products as privileges. When Harkhuf returned from his last trip to Nubia during the reign of Mernerê, some ships were sent from the capital city to meet him, laden with ‘date wine, cake, bread, and beer’. In turn, Iny received higher appointments by Pepi II (Unique Friend, Lector Priest, and God’s Chancellor), besides being a guest at the King’s table ‘because the Pharaoh wished to see him eating more than any other peer of his’. Among the many gifts of value that Sinuhe, at the end of his life, was granted by Sesostris I, were meals from the Palace even three or four times a day, regardless of what was brought to him by the King’s children. Unfortunately, in the known Egypt as Crossroads between Africa and Asia in the Old Bronze Age 15 Issue No. 12 Egyptian data of the period, nothing is mentioned about envoys from foreign countries, who certainly arrived in Egypt and were even mentioned in the Ebla tablets. Otherwise, no Egyptian official is referred to in the same sources, although there are several accounts for goods exchange. On another hand, it is probably no hazard if jubilee vessels of Pepi I, sent as gifts to foreign rulers, have been found in Byblos, Crete, Ebla and Kerma, confirming thereby the wide economic–political horizon of Egypt under that great sovereign. We can conclude that the Egyptians already had a deep knowledge of the surrounding countries long before they conquered some of them in the New Kingdom.14 Owing to the millenary span of time covered by the data, the political–cultural scenery must have differed accordingly, despite some featuring trends due to the geographical setting. In general, the descriptions shortly reported in the concise private accounts refer to interesting goods and to the pharaohs’ satisfaction. The tale of Sinuhe is more abundant in details about the country uploads/Geographie/ abgadiyat-12-2017-roccati-12-17.pdf