Daring the Western Desert: Ancient Travelers and Their Rock Inscriptions

Since 2001 the North Kharga Oasis-Darb Ain Amur Survey team has been exploring the sandy routes connecting Kharga oasis to Dakhla and beyond. In the course of this survey we have discovered and recorded numerous lonely rock sites which were used in antiquity as camping spots and stopovers for travelers. The rich epigraphic material from these sites provides us with valuable information about the uses of these desert routes, traveling practices, as well as the identity and background of the ancient travelers who chose to carve their marks on these rocks. In this lecture I will discuss some of these Egyptian rock graffiti, focusing on their connection to ancient Egypt's historical narrative and their appropriation of Egyptian formal writing conventions.

Speaker: Dr. Nikolaos Lazaridis, CSU Sacramento.