The Archaeological Survey of the Desert Road between Berenike and the Nile Valley: Expeditions by the University of Michigan and the University of Delaware to the Eastern Desert of Egypt, 1987-2015.

• Author: Darnell, John Coleman

The Archaeological Survey of the Desert Road between Berenike and the Nile Valley: Expeditions by the University of Michigan and the University of Delaware to the Eastern Desert of Egypt, 1987-2015. Edited by STEVEN E. SIDEBOTHAM and JENNIFER E. GATES-FOSTER. American Schools of Oriental Research, Archaeological Reports, vol. 26. Boston: AMERICAN SCHOOLS OF ORIENTAL RESEARCH, 2019. Pp. xxiii + 480, illus. $84.95. [Distributed by ISD, Bristol, CT]

The last three decades have witnessed the development of the field of desert road archaeology (Riemer and Forster, eds., 2013; Darnell 2021), and the volume under review offers an additional collection of pieces helping to fill in the puzzle of Egyptian interactions with the eastern Sahara. The desert roads and associated sites in the concessions of the University of Michigan and the University of Delaware expeditions presented here cluster chronologically in the Ptolemaic and Roman eras. Over the roughly one millennium of activity in the Eastern Desert recorded in the two surveys, the region was home to nomadic groups (neutrally termed the Eastern Desert Dwellers in chapter 6 by Hans Barnard), gold mining settlements, and Roman fortresses, and even saw the transportation of war elephants. The Red Sea ports were bases for far-flung maritime trade routes, extending as far as India, and perhaps beyond.

The introductory chapter, by the editors Sidebotham and Gates-Foster, sets the tone of this volume and its use of wide-ranging source material. To juxtapose a description of banditry in a second-century CE novel by Xenophon of Ephesus (p. 6) with archaeological evidence of Eastern Desert fortresses confirms the importance of bringing all potential sources and bits of evidence to bear for reconstructing activities in often inhospitable environments.

A correction may be offered to the section of the introductory chapter discussing "Modes of Transport and Logistics of Travel." On p. 7, Sidebotham and Gates-Foster state: "In many cases the graffiti left by travelers along the desert routes reflect their apprehension about the wilderness in which they found themselves." The sources cited for this claim are inscriptions dedicated to Pan "the Giver of Good Roads." However, these inscriptions do not indicate so much fear or apprehension, but rather proper respect for the deity of the area--as the volume's editors themselves note, these graffiti cluster at sites that can be designated as Paneia. An assumption of fear as a motive for votive graffiti flirts with the misconception that pharaonic Egyptians and their Graeco-Roman counterparts had a natural fear of the desert, for which no textual...