Elusive "Libyans": Identities, Lifestyles and Mobile Populations in NE Africa (late 4th-early 2nd millennium BCE) - Brill
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Journal of Egyptian History 11 (2018) 147–184
brill.com/jeh
Elusive “Libyans”: Identities, Lifestyles and
Mobile Populations in NE Africa (late 4th–early
2nd millennium BCE)
Juan Carlos Moreno García
CNRS—France
jcmorenogarcia@hotmail.com
Abstract
The term “Libyan” encompasses, in fact, a variety of peoples and lifestyles living not
only in the regions west of the Nile Valley, but also inside Egypt itself, particularly
in Middle Egypt and the Western Delta. This situation is reminiscent of the use of
other “ethnic” labels, such as “Nubian,” heavily connoted with notions such as ethnic
homogeneity, separation of populations across borders, and opposed lifestyles. In
fact, economic complementarity and collaboration explain why Nubians and Libyans
crossed the borders of Egypt and settled in the land of the pharaohs, to the point that
their presence was especially relevant in some periods and regions during the late 3rd
and early 2nd millennium BCE. Pastoralism was just but one of their economic pil-
lars, as trading activities, gathering, supply of desert goods (including resins, minerals,
and vegetal oils) and hunting also played an important role, at least for some groups
or specialized segments of a particular social group. While Egyptian sources empha-
size conflict and marked identities, particularly when considering “rights of use” over
a given area, collaboration was also crucial and beneficial for both parts. Finally, the
increasing evidence about trade routes used by Libyans points to alternative networks
of circulation of goods that help explain episodes of warfare between Egypt and Libyan
populations for their control.
Keywords
border – interaction – Libyans – Nubians – oases – pastoralism – trade – Western
Desert
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1 Pots, Resins, Minerals and Cattle: “Libyans” and Desert Lifestyles
The study of Libyan populations has known a relative but unbalanced renewal
since the late 20th century. The seminal studies led by O’Connor and other
scholars have contributed to a better comprehension of Libyan populations
from diverse perspectives: a critical reassessment of the very concept of
“Libyan”; a reconsideration of borders more as modern constructs and ancient
political and ideological divisions than practical, real, socio-economic ones;
a study of Libyans not as mere pastoralists and marauders, eager to infiltrate
Egypt at the slightest occasion according to pharaonic stereotypes, but as eco-
nomic and political actors with their own interests and aims (from specific
forms of occupation and use of space to the development of socio-economic
activities not necessarily depending solely on herding); and, finally, an empha-
sis on collaboration and on the complementarity of their activities with those
carried out mainly by Egyptian sedentary populations, such as the supply of
livestock and desert goods to communities settled in the Nile Valley.1 However,
the reconstruction of Libyan society, culture, and values still depends largely
on Egyptian sources, as Bronze Age Libyan archaeology still remains in its
infancy and archaeological evidence from this period is very scarce.2 This
means that information derived from sources and materials produced by
Libyan populations is truly scarce, while modern historical research has prob-
ably overemphasized terminology and “essentialist” approaches, that is to say,
an abusive use of concepts such as “Libyan” or Tehenu/Tjehemu as ethnic
markers, ascribed to peoples supposedly living exclusively out of the western
margins of the Nile Valley. Or by considering Libyan lifestyles as diametrically
opposed to those of Egyptians, an aspect in which “exotic” depictions of the
western neighbors of ancient Egyptians, both in pharaonic texts and scenes,
have played a major role in forging a “Libyanness” that served as the negative
of what “Egyptianness” should be, even if in reality such distinctions were
much less marked.3 Thus, representations of Libyans wearing Egyptian-style
1 C f., for example, the excellent studies by O’Connor, “The nature of Tjemhu (Libyan) society”;
Richardson, “Libya domestica”; Snape, “The emergence of Libya”; Hope, “Egypt and ‘Libya’ to
the end of the Old Kingdom”; Ritner, “Egypt and the vanishing Libyan”; or Morkot, “Before
Greeks and Romans” just to mention a few. Cf. also Moreno García, “Invaders or just herders?”
and “Ḥwt jḥ(w)t.”
2 Moussa, “Berber, Phoenicio-Punic, and Greek North Africa”; Morkot, “Before Greeks and
Romans.”
3 A useful comparison is provided by Weschenfelder, “The integration of the Eastern Desert”
about the term “Beja” and the diverse populations and lifestyles it encompassed. Cf. also
Moreno García, “Ḥwt jḥ(w)t,” n. 70 n. 3, with bibliography.
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kilts reveal that they exhibited a more flexible visual identity than that usu-
ally expressed in Egyptian monuments.4 Just to mention a famous parallel,
the Nubian prince Heqanefer, who lived during the reigns of Amenhotep III,
Akhenaten, and Tutankhamun, was represented as a “typical” Nubian in the
tomb of the viceroy Amenhotep Huy, but depicted as an Egyptian in his own
tomb at Toshka.5 This very example also reveals the complexity in the construc-
tion of identities by using or manipulating elements from different cultures
according to the needs, contexts and expectations of their protagonists at a
given place and time. At the same time, these approaches have usually ignored
crucial aspects of Libyan populations, for instance the fact that they may have
occupied vast spaces that included different ecosystems, such as the oases, the
deserts, even areas of Middle Egypt, the Western Delta, and the desert areas of
northern Nubia, each one of them promoting specialized lifestyles and mate-
rial cultures that, at first glance, may be interpreted superficially as belonging
to different ethnic groups.6 A consequence of this is that we know virtually
nothing about the alleged cultural, linguistic or economic homogeneity of the
peoples crossing these vast areas between the late 4th and the early 2nd mil-
lennium BCE that could justify their being labelled as “Libyans.” In the case,
of course, that such homogeneity actually existed and it is not just a modern
reductive fiction imposed indiscriminately to a complex variety of ethnic and
socio-economic conditions prevailing west of the Nile Valley and in the Valley
itself. Finally, even in the event of the persistence of old dichotomies opposing
nomadic and sedentary peoples, agriculturalists and pastoralists, “civilized” and
“barbarians,” so frequent in older discussions about pastoralism in the ancient
Near East, it cannot be concealed that “Libyans” developed many diverse activ-
ities, complementarity (and not opposed) to those of the peoples settled in
the floodplain of the Nile, ranging from trade to pastoralism and small metal-
lurgy, the best documented for the moment. Another aspect to consider is that
a single social group may well have practiced specialized activities, some of
them engaged in seasonal pastoralism, others in farming, and others, finally, in
4 Hulin, “Marsa Matruh revisited,” 4; Hubschmann, “Searching for the ‘archaeologically invis-
ible’ Libyans in Dakhleh Oasis.”
5 Compare Davies and Gardiner, The Tomb of Huy, pl. xxvii, and Simpson, Heka-nefer. For a
more subtle analysis of the depictions of elite Nubians in the tomb of Huy, who “dwelled in
the interstices of two cultural traditions, being neither fully Egyptian nor Nubian,” cf. Van
Pelt, “Revising Egypto-Nubian relations,” 534–39. Cf. also Vittmann, “A question of names,”
140–42.
6 As in the case of the Nubio-Libyan A-Group culture: Gatto, “The Nubian A-Group.” Darnell
estimates that the A-Group was in fact a Libyo-Nubian culture that dominated during the
Predynastic Period the circulation between Kurkur and the desert extending at the west of
Thebes: Darnell and Darnell, “The archaeology of Kurkur oasis.”
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seasonal mining, gathering, or small-scale trade.7 Nevertheless, for the sake of
brevity and in the absence of a better suited term, I will use the term “Libyans”
to refer to the peoples living west of the Egyptian Nile Valley.
When considering the very precedents of Libyan society and economy in
late Prehistory, it is quite possible that more benign climatic conditions pro-
duced a steppe-like landscape in most areas west of the Nile Valley that turned
into desert in later periods. The oases of the Western Desert, together with
small palaeo-lakes8, could certainly induce mobile lifestyles based in pasto-
ralism, the exploitation of natural resources (fishing, hunting, gathering, etc.),
and small-scale trading. So, the range of movement of the populations liv-
ing according to these lifestyles could have been rather large across the area
encompassing the western borders of the Nile Valley, the oases (and beyond),
areas of NW Nubia, and the Mediterranean coast. In some cases, archaeology
reveals seasonal movements of people across the desert and the Nile in order
to exploit the resources available at different places.9 In other instances, the
geographical distribution of particular sets of pottery may point to cultural
differences corresponding, perhaps, to different populations and lifestyles.
Thus, the distribution of late Neolithic caliciform beakers and Clayton rings
suggests, in the first case, that they were used by a pastoral population living
along the riversides of the Nile and that practiced elaborated elite drinking
practices, involving probably the consumption of sorghum and drinking beer.10
As for the second, their use has remained an enigma until recently, but ethno-
graphic parallels from pyrolysis traditions in the Sahara reveal that they may
have served to produce wood and vegetal oil (tar, soot, including aromatic and
medicinal oil) by carbonizing resin-rich trees and bushes, especially acacia
and other plants.11 The distribution of Clayton rings reveals a huge concentra-
tion in the Libyan Desert Plateau, as well as their presence in areas inhabited
by A-Group peoples.12 In this case, it seems that Clayton rings were closely
associated with nomadic peoples that exploited the natural resources of the
desert and, as Pachur states,
7 Roe, “Naming the waters”; Rieger, “The various ways of being mobile.”
8 Bolten and Bubenzer, “Watershed analysis in the Western Desert of Egypt.”
9 Gatto, “Beyond the shale”; Hope and Pettman, “Egyptian connections with Dakhleh oasis”;
Riemer, Lange, and Kindermann, “When the desert dried up”; Hassan, Tassie, and van
Wetering, “The exogenous/impressed decorated ceramics.”
10 Haaland, “Changing food ways as indicators, 330–34.
11 Pachur, “Pharaonic pyrolysis-activity in the Libyan Desert.”
12 Kuper, “‘Looking behind the scenes’,” 25; Pachur, “Pharaonic pyrolysis-activity in the Liby-
an Desert,” 16.
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the Libyan Desert could not have been a hyper-arid area around 3 ka BCE,
but was instead used by ethnicities with a broad spectrum of activities:
farming along an oasis strip, production of ceramics, trading with the
Nile Valley and production of wood oil by pyrolysis.13
According to him, the use of Clayton rings suggests a herb-rich Saharan savan-
nah ecotope with a mix of trees and grass areas in which cattle were kept and
drives of wild animals were possible at larger intervals, pointing to an anthropo-
genic occupation with pastoral economy from 4.7–2.9 ka cal BCE including the
use of A-Group ceramic and pyrolysis technology.14 It should be noticed that
one of the plants used in the production of tar is Ricinus communis (ricin),15 a
plant that played an important role in the oasian economy in pharaonic times.16
Furthermore, another indicator for extensive anthropogenic utilization of the
Libyan Desert is the abundance of tethering stones, used to tie the legs of large
mammals of the savannah—elephant, rhinoceros, giraffe, wild cattle (Bubalus
antiquus), ostriches—as well as domesticated cattle to heavy stones by rope.17
Such stones are associated with anthropogenic stone settings including layouts
of huts, young mammal pens, and food storages facilities, as well as stone lines
for hunting and grazing techniques that formed quite often circular camps.
More than 780 of these circular camps have been identified throughout the
Libyan Desert. These are indicators for a seasonal settlement of a nomadic
ethnicity and/or the short-path transhumance of members of the sedentary
farmer families at the Kharga-Dakhla-Farafra oases.18
The ambiguities about the use of marked ethnic labels emerge with the
cultural affiliation of the populations who used Clayton rings, as these items
appear in some cases associated with A-Group peoples (in northern Sudan and
southern Egypt) as well as with Egyptian pottery and artefacts,19 and in other
cases with Sheikh Muftah peoples (in the oases of the Western Desert).20 Gatto
estimates that A-Group related evidence is quite common in the Libyan Desert,
being found in the plateau behind Armant, in the Nabta-Kiseiba region, in Bir
13 Pachur, “Pharaonic pyrolysis-activity in the Libyan Desert,” 21.
14 Pachur, “Pharaonic pyrolysis-activity in the Libyan Desert,” 24.
15 Pachur, “Pharaonic pyrolysis-activity in the Libyan Desert,” 27.
16 Moreno García, “Leather processing, castor oil, and desert/Nubian trade.”
17 Gallinaro and Di Lernia, “Trapping or tethering stones (TS).”
18 Pachur, “Pharaonic pyrolysis-activity in the Libyan Desert,” 21–25.
19 Gatto, “The Nubian A-Group: A reassessment.”; Riemer, “Lessons in landscape learning,”
80–84.
20 Gatto, “The Nubian A-Group: A reassessment,” 64; Riemer, Lange, and Kindermann,
“When the desert dried up,” 174–80.
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Sahara, in the oases of Kurkur and Dunqul, in the Laqiya region, and possibly
in Kharga. The A-Group presence in the Egyptian Western Desert was probably
related to trading, while that in the Laqiya region to herding.21 Such different
uses of a desert environment are interesting, particularly because they show
the importance not only of herding and, eventually, gathering, but also of trade
activities primarily linking the Second Cataract region with the oases and
Upper Egypt.22 As for the Seikh Muftah culture in Dakhla, it was specialized
in pastoral nomadic subsistence strategies including domesticated animals
(cattle and goats), pottery but no permanent settlements, and some evidence
of hunting (gazelle, hare, hartebeest). Their specialized seasonal hunting camp
(gazelle, wildfowl) at El-Kharafish, about 30 kms north of Dakhla oasis con-
firms the diverse economic basis of this culture,23 including the use of donkeys
as pack animals.24 The sites of Mut el-Kharab and ‛Ain al-Gazzareen, in the
oasis of Dakhla, have revealed a combination of Egyptian and Seikh Muftah
pottery that suggests a close collaboration between both groups from the 4th
Dynasty until the late 3rd millennium BCE.25 Perforated discs, usually associ-
ated with Clayton rings, were still present at Ayn Asil, in the oasis of Dakhla, at
the end of the Old Kingdom or the beginning of the First Intermediate Period.
Having in mind that ‛Ain al-Gazzareen was a processing center probably spe-
cialized in the supply of caravans (Sheik Muftah wares have appeared together
with Egyptian ones at Djedefre’s Water-Mountain), perhaps Seikh Muftah
people provided game as well as their services as guides and bodyguards to
Egyptian traders, soldiers and messengers. In Ramesside times, for instance,
TꜢktꜢnꜢ-Libyans living in Dakhla served as hunters and probably informers.26
This means that goods and artefacts circulated through the desert routes
during the early 3rd millennium BCE, that different peoples were involved in
such exchanges, and that Clayton rings cannot be attributed exclusively to one
of them, thus suggesting that these objects were not an ethnic marker but a
tool associated to a desert lifestyle (they are absent in the Nile Valley, in the
Delta, and in the coastal areas, but present in Ashqelon, in Israel). Their users
21 Cf. also Hafsaas-Tsakos, “Hierarchy and heterarchy.”
22 Hope and Pettman, “Egyptian connections with Dakhleh oasis.” The recent discovery
of a possible A-Group grave north of the Third Cataract extends the border of A-group
southwards, to the gold mining area around the village of Abu Sari: Tahir and Said, “Some
archaeological remarks on Wadi el Tagar,” 17 fig. 10, 23.
23 Riemer, El-Kharafish; Kuper and Riemer, “Herders before pastoralism”; Jeuthe “Balat/
Dakhla Oasis.”
24 Kuper and Riemer, “Herders before pastoralism,” 48–50.
25 Pettmann and Beauchamp, “Examining the Old Kingdom‒Sheikh Muftah connection.”
26 Iacoviello, “Some remarks on the Tjemhu Libyans,” 23.
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produced and—in all probability—supplied Egyptians with specific goods in
exchange for other commodities. In other words, it seems that peoples that
could be labelled, a priori, as “Libyans,” living in the oases, in the Western
Desert, and in the Mediterranean coast, displayed in fact different lifestyles,
depending on the importance put on a particular resource of the desert
or on a particular combination of such resources in their economy. On the
other hand, Nubians and “Libyans” shared some territories and routes (such
as the Libyan Plateau and, perhaps, the area around the oases of Kurkur and
Dunqul), and in some cases, rock art shows scenes of men with several feath-
ers on their heads, wearing a skirt and catching ostriches,27 but any ethnic
identification derived from depictions of men with feathers should be treated
with caution.28 Recent discoveries of “water marks” in several rock art sites in
the Eastern Sahara suggest that a group of people followed a route that con-
nected the lower Wadi Howar (Gala el-Sheikh), Laqiya (NW Sudan), and the
region west of the oasis of Dakhla, perhaps the original version of the Darb
el-Arba’in route; however, the “ethnic” affiliation of this group is also ambigu-
ous.29 The interplay of relations between all these actors (“Libyans,” Nubians,
Egyptians) was highly diverse, ranging from collaboration and partnership to
overt conflict and, probably, in some cases each part sought to bypass the oth-
ers by opening and/or controlling desert routes, thus avoiding trading rivals,
road taxation, banditry, etc. An excellent example is provided by the inscrip-
tion of Herkhuf, which mentions the conflict opposing Nubians from Iam to
Tjemehu-“Libyans.” The different routes he followed in his expeditions seemed
to avoid potential hostile encounters with some of these actors (like “the ruler
who had united Irtjet, Setjau, and Wawat”) while seeking the support of others,
specially the chiefs of Iam.30 However, people from Nubia and Tjemehu-land
were part of the military contingents led by Weni against the southern Levant.
Furthermore, the recent discovery of an administrative complex from the
reign of Djedkare-Isesi at Edfu reveals that the royal administration organized
mining expeditions into the Eastern Desert from this locality, including pros-
pectors (smntj.w) and Nubians (judging from the abundant Nubian pottery
recovered); there are also important traces of metallurgical activities, copper
objects, and Red Sea shells.31 The overwhelming weight of Nubia and Nubians
in the execration texts of the late 3rd millennium reveals that Nubians were
27 Hendrickx, “The dog, the Lycaon pictus and order over chaos”; Iacoviello, “Some remarks
on the Tjemhu Libyans,” 25.
28 Le Quellec, “Arts rupestres sahariens,” 84.
29 Kröpelin and Kuper, “More corridors to Africa”; Berger, “Rock art west of Dakhla.”
30 Urk. I, 126–27; Strudwick, Texts from the Pyramid Age, 330–31.
31 https://telledfu.uchicago.edu/news/press-release-jan-2018-submitted-dec-2017.
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regarded with anxiety while “Libyans,” on the contrary, were absent from these
sources (they were subsequently included, in the early 2nd millennium BCE).
In the light of these considerations, there is an element that provides impor-
tant clues as far as the identification as “Libyans” of the indigenous people who
lived in the oases. It is the importance of “Tjehenu oil/resin” in Egyptian rituals
and funerary beliefs, to the point that it was one of the seven sacred oils rou-
tinely mentioned in pharaonic inscriptions (tp(y) ḥꜢ.t Ꜥḏ Ṯḥnw, ḥꜢt.t Ṯḥnw “best
quality vegetal tar of Tjehenu, resin of Tjehenu”).32 In some developed lists, as
it happens in the tomb of Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep, the term tp(y) ḥꜢ.t
Ṯḥnw designates, in fact, several types of oils made of wood.33 Three consider-
ations may be inferred from this. On the one hand, the name of these resins
suggests a close link with Tjehenu-“Libya(ns).” In fact, several lists in tombs of
the Thinite Period and from the 3rd to the middle of the 5th Dynasty record
many different kinds of oils, some of them from “the South” (Upper Egypt ad
Nubia), others from Lower Egypt (they consist of tar/wooden oil) and others
from Tjehenu. According to the seminal study by Bardinet, it is possible that
these Libyan oils were extracted from trees growing in Cyrenaica.34 However it
is also possible that Libyans also extracted such substances from the vegetation
that grew in the desert and that they found in the course of their movements.
In this case, they would be specialists in obtaining rare aromatic resins and oils
coveted enough as to figure in the list of offerings in the private tombs of the
3rd millennium BCE (an arid region north of Farafra oasis was called Sḫt-jmꜢw
in New Kingdom times, which points to the existence or the memory of jmꜢ-
trees there.) On the second hand, the list of wooden and resinous oils from “the
South” enumerates substances different from those labelled as “Tjehenu.” This
fact corroborates the specificity of the Tjehenu oils in a context in which Nubia
and Upper Egypt were also suppliers of specialized oils. Finally, the inscrip-
tion of Sabni mentions that he set forth to Wawat, in Nubia, with a caravan of
100 donkeys loaded with merhet oil, honey, linen, faïence vessels, and tjehenu
oil.35 This passage shows that “Tjehenu oil” was apparently not produced in
Nubia and thus supports the view that the production of “Tjehenu oil,” coupled
with the geographical distribution of Clayton rings (used, precisely, to produce
wood oil), points more to a Western Desert population than to a Nubian one.
The same could be said about some categories of faïence, exported to Nubia
but produced in Tjehenu, as liturgical texts refer to ṯḥn.t n.t Ṯḥnw “faïence
32 Koura, Die “7–Heiligen Öle,” 193–95.
33 Moussa and Altenmüller, Das Grab des Nianchchnum und Chnumhotep, 106–07.
34 Bardinet, Relations économiques et pressions militaires, 165–211.
35 Urk. I, 136; Strudwick, Texts from the Pyramid Age, 336.
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from Tjehenu.”36 Another item appears in some texts since the very late 3rd
millennium BCE. A passage in the execration texts of the Middle Kingdom
mentions Ṯmḥ.w nb.w n.w ḫꜢs.wt nb.w Jmnt.t n.w tꜢ Ṯmḥ n.w H[b]ks n.w Hbḳs
“all the Tjemehu of all the Western foreign/desert countries, of the land of
Tjemeh, of He[…]kes and of Hebeqes,” while the Coffin Texts mentions the
land of Hebekes as the source of shr.t, a kind of resin or semi-precious stone.37
The biographical inscription of the mining prospector and searcher of pre-
cious stones Khety, who lived at the end of the 11th Dynasty, refers to shr.t tp.t
ḏw.w “seheret which is upon the mountains.”38 It is probably not by chance
that, contrary to the execration texts of the Old Kingdom, those of the Middle
Kingdom included a “Libyan section,”39 precisely in a time in which a resin or
semi-precious stone was actively sought in Libya.
The nature of such trade in plants and other commodities from the desert
into the Nile, quite probably small-scale, is described for instance in one of
the most famous narrative tales from ancient Egypt, the Oasian or Eloquent
Peasant. Its protagonist, who lived in Wadi Natron, travelled from this area
to Heracleopolis, in the Fayum area, with a small caravan of donkeys loaded
with desert goods. His goal was “to bring food from there for my children” in
exchange for
rushes, rdmt-grass, natron, salt, sticks of […], staves from the oasis of
Farafra, leopard skins, wolf skins, nsꜢ-plants, Ꜥnw-stones, tnm-plants, ḫprwr-
plants, sꜢhwt, sꜢskwt, mı̓swt-plants, snt-stones, ꜤbꜢw-stones, ı̓bsꜢ-plants,
ı̓nbı̓-plants, pigeons, nꜤrw-birds, wgs-birds, wbn-plants, tbsw-plants, gngnt,
earth-hair, and ı̓nnst, in sum, all the good products of Salt-Field.
Another aspect to consider is that some desert areas bordering Western Lower
Egypt (Wadi Natrun, el-Barnugi) produced high quality natron suitable for glass-
making, to the point that it was celebrated in Greco-Roman texts.40 Perhaps
not by chance this area emerged after the end of the Old Kingdom as a wealthy
region (judging from the quality of the mastabas and their equipment, espe-
cially at Kom el-Hisn and el-Barnugi), well connected to the Levant, while in
Ramesside times, officials in control of natron were able to deliver astonishing
amounts of gold as taxes to the pharaonic treasury. Natron was used in the
36 C T VI, 213.
37 C T VI, 213.
38 Landgráfová, It is My Good Name, 58.
39 Posener, Cinq figurines d’envoûtement, 52–54.
40 Jackson, Paynter, Nenna, and Degryse, “Glassmaking using natron from el-Barnugi.”
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production of vitreous materials in Egypt from an early date. The glazes of two
steatite beads from Egypt dating to the Badarian Period (early 4th millennium
BCE) have very low potash contents, suggesting that natron and not vegetal
ash was the source of the soda used. The alum deposits of the Western Desert
oases provided cobalt used in the production of the cobalt-blue glass of New
Kingdom Egypt, characterized by low potash, commonly less than 1%, but typi-
cal of plant ash levels of magnesia.41
Thus, plants, minerals, hides, and animals circulated from the desert to the
Nile Valley, at least in some cases through small caravans and without any institu-
tional involvement in their organization. These kind of caravans were depicted
in some Middle Kingdom tombs from Beni Hasan. In one case, their protago-
nists were Asiatics, bringing galena to the owner of the tomb, Khnumhotep II.42
But in other cases, the caravans represent Libyans arriving with their flocks.43
Cattle and livestock represented another major economic activity of “Libyan”
populations, but the specific needs of these animals, especially cattle (regular
access to abundant water and pasture land), point to an economic regime less
dependent on desert resources, involving (seasonal?) movement through the
oases (such as Farafra, literally “Cattle land” in Egyptian sources), the Western
Delta, and the Nile Valley, a movement monitored by specific officials and by
towers under the control of Egyptian officials. This may explain the presence
of check-points and of officials involved in patrolling activities both at Kom el-
Hisn and in the Fayum area (Heracleopolis), thus recalling the two main routes
followed by Libyan invaders in the New Kingdom, one through the Delta and
another one through the oases and, possibly, the Fayum and/or the southern-
most area of the Western Delta.44 This may also explain why the province of
Heracleopolis was strongly fortified during the New Kingdom and the early
years of the Third Intermediate Period, with the presence of a sbty “fortress”
and nḫtw “stronghold” there.45
Under these conditions, access to pasture land and rival strategies over the
control of resources in some areas of the Nile Valley might have led to con-
flicts opposing Egyptian authorities to “Libyans,” going back to the very late
4th millennium BCE. Representations of Tjehenu prisoners in Early Dynastic
art as well as the Libyan campaigns of pharaohs Snofru and Sahure reveal that
41 Shortland, Schachner, Freestone, and Tite, “Natron as a flux in the early vitreous materials
industry”; Ikram, Tallet, and Warner, “A mineral for all seasons: alum in the Great Oasis.”
42 Kanawati and Evans, Beni Hassan. Volume I: The Tomb of Khnumhotep II, pl. 42–48.
43 Newberry, Beni Hasan I, pl. 13, 45, 47.
44 Moreno García, “Ḥwt jḥ(w)t,” 75, 96.
45 Jansen-Winkeln, “Die Libyer in Herakleopolis Magna”; Pérez-Die, “The Third Intermedi-
ate Period Necropolis at Herakleopolis Magna,” 320–21; Antoine, “The geographical and
administrative landscape,” 9 n. 108 (with bibliography).
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the capture of prisoners and cattle usually followed such hostile encounters.
While Egyptology has usually interpreted these conflicts according to phara-
onic ideological values and justifications (protecting the borders of Egypt
against hostile populations), other possibilities seem more pertinent. The huge
amounts of cattle and livestock captured, even if rather bombastic, point nev-
ertheless to pastoral populations that crossed the Western Delta, the Fayum
area, and Middle Egypt in search of pasture and water. It is quite possible that
these areas were part of a set of routes traditionally used by mobile popu-
lations in their seasonal movements from the desert to the Nile Valley,46 as
well as by armies during their campaigns, as it happened in the Piye stela.47
Conflicts arose about the use of space, especially when pharaohs created spe-
cialized plantations (vineyards) and their own cattle-raising centers in these
areas. However, such border regions were never fortified during the 3rd millen-
nium BCE; Libyans were absent in the execration texts of this period, officials
involved in surveying and in control of pasture areas were appointed in the
Fayum area (Deshasha) and Kom el-Hisn and, in the case of this locality, it
seems that it operated as a kind of checkpoint for peoples aiming to get access
to the pasture land of the Western Delta. The Western Delta, the Fayum, and
Middle Egypt appear thus as a Pastoral Crescent, frequented by peoples from
the Western Desert and, in general, underpopulated when compared to other
areas of Egypt. As specialists in cattle raising, it is probably not by chance that
the inscription of Imeny of Beni Hasan records the creation of vast cattle rais-
ing areas in his province while, at the same time, a depiction of a caravan of
Libyan herders appears in his tomb.48
In all, peoples characterized as “Libyans” were involved in two major eco-
nomic specializations, one more centered in the exploitation of the desert
resources and the other on cattle raising, one more typical of the oases and
surrounding areas, the other one more centered, apparently, on the northern
oases and the Western Delta, and Middle Egypt. Moreover, the term “Libyan”
appears rather inaccurate and restrictive as it conveys the notion of homoge-
neity while, in fact, it is quite possible that different peoples sharing similar
lifestyles and cultural aspects crossed the vast spaces of the Eastern Sahara.
The case of “Libyans” would thus provide useful parallels to that of prehis-
toric “Nubians”: the range of their activities was in no way limited to Nubia,
not to speak of the oases of the Western Desert, as they also penetrated into
southern Egypt and mingled with local populations. So, a more productive per-
spective of research should perhaps focus less on “peoples,” with alleged fixed
46 Moreno García, “Ḥwt jḥ(w)t.”
47 Manassa, The Great Karnak Inscription of Merneptah, 13–16.
48 Urk. VII, 14–16.
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“ethnic” attributes, than on lifestyles, at least until the late 4th millennium BCE:
farmers, herders, traders, etc., specialized in the exploitation and transfor-
mation of the resources of particular ecosystems in the Nile Valley and the
surrounding areas. Their relations oscillated between economic complemen-
tarity, rivalry for the use of territories, and coexistence. It is quite possible that
the consolidation of the pharaonic monarchy at the end of the 4th millen-
nium BCE, accompanied by the implementation of a tax system (specialized
agricultural domains, taxation of agricultural and mobile wealth—herds and
gold—, control and mobilization of workforce), resulted in two distinctive
consequences. On the one hand, it exacerbated conflict and resistance but,
on the other hand, the demand of the state opened fresh opportunities for
increasing specialization, such as pastoralism, seasonal mining, and itiner-
ant trade. This could explain why peoples from the Western Desert crossed
the Delta into southern Palestine and the Jordan Valley beginning in Naqada I
times (first half of the 4th millennium BCE), judging by the occasional finds of
“Libyan” vases in Tall Hujayrat al-Ghuzlan (SW Jordan) and of Clayton Rings
at Ashqelon-Afridar. Even Egyptian herders settled among sedentary agricul-
tural populations in the southern Levant at the end of the 4th millennium
BCE, while Levantine populations frequented the area of Tell Ibrahim Awad
(eastern Delta), Buto (Western Delta) and Maadi (close to Memphis) since the
Predynastic.49 So, when a much later text, the Triumph Hymn of Merenptah,
described the Libyan mobile modus vivendi and settlements, it probably evoked
an old lifestyle further stimulated by the increasing importance of pharaonic
settlements in Lower Egypt in Ramesside times and the pressure they put on
local resources and demand:50
bnd n Rbw ḳn=sn Ꜥnḫ sḫr nfr n ḳdd m-ẖnw tꜢ sḫ.t nḥm pꜢy=sn nm.t m wꜤ hrw
Ṯḥnw rḥw m rnp.t wꜤ(.t) ḫꜢꜤ Swtḫ ḥꜢ =f r pꜢy=sn wr ḫf nꜢy=sn wḥy.w ẖr
s.t-rꜢ=f bn kꜢ.t n fꜢ(ı̓).t ḫnı̓ m nꜢy hrw.w
I’ll be to Libya! They have ceased living (in) the good fashion of peram-
bulating in the open areas, their movement having been curtailed in one
day. Tjehenu has been consumed by fire in one year. Seth turned his back
on their chief, their settlements having been plundered at his utterance.
There is no transport work of luxury goods nowadays.51
49 Moreno García, “Ḥwt jḥ(w)t,” 76–77.
50 As for pressure on the resources of Lower Egypt, Ramesside ostracon Gardiner 86 is a
good example of the intensive use of this area by farmers, herders, fishermen and gather-
ers (KRI III, 138–40).
51 K RI IV, 15:9–12.
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As Darnell has stressed, the structure of the passage suggests that the
burning up of Tjehenu is a summary of the deprivation of their freedom of
movement, and the cessation of trade is the summation of their rejection by
Seth and the resulting destruction of their settlements.52
In this vein, the usual imagery associated with Libyan populations also
needs to be qualified. The earliest depiction of Libya, in the so-called “Libyan
Palette,” shows a landscape and settlement organization hardly assimilable to
what one could expect about Libya: a woody environment, plenty of herds and
flocks, with fortified settlements that, even if they represent more concepts
(“city,” “settlement”) than actual types of settlement, convey nevertheless the
idea that Libyans (or some sectors of Libyan society) lived in sedentary set-
tlements and enclosures and not only (or necessarily) in mobile camps and
seasonal huts, that is to say, in more precarious dwellings, such as Asiatic wnt.53
As for conflicts, they were not caused exclusively by Libyans. On the one hand,
the bearded hunters wearing feathers in their hairstyle in the “Hunters Palette”
may have been “Libyans” providing support in hunting expeditions into the
desert, as they appear in some scenes from the Middle Kingdom. On the other
hand, Early Dynastic and Old Kingdom pharaohs founded specialized agricul-
tural domains in the Western Delta and led campaigns against Libyans as well
as against peoples designated as “northerners.” Thus, peoples living in the Delta
resisted the pharaonic authority. Later on, pharaoh Snofru followed a policy
aiming to reorganize the administrative structure of the Delta, not only by the
creation of production centers of the crown there but also through military
campaigns against Libyan peoples, a policy continued by one of his successors,
Sahure, followed by the capture of cattle and prisoners.54
2 Mingled Communities?
Ramesses III stated that “Libyans” had conquered the towns in the area of the
southernmost Western Delta, between Memphis and Qerben, then reached
the Great River and its banks before damaging the towns of the nome of Xois
for several years.55 Papyrus Turin 2071, from the reign of Ramesses IX,56 refers
several times to the descent of desert people (ḫꜢs.tjw) from the town (dmj) of
Smn (about 14.5 km south of Armant); in one instance the intruders are defined
52 Darnell, Klotz, and Manassa, “Gods on the Road,” 16–17 n. 79.
53 Moreno García, “Ḥwt jḥ(w)t,” 87–91; Gundacker, “The significance of foreign toponyms,”
361–72.
54 Moreno García, “Ḥwt jḥ(w)t.”
55 Cf. pHarris I 76.11–77.2: Grandet, Le papyrus Harris I, 337.
56 KRI VI, 637–39.
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as Meshewesh57 and in another quotation “foreigners descended into the West
(bank/side?).”58 A passage from the Great Karnak inscription of Merenptah lists
several peoples presented as intruders and defined as mḥ.tyw “northerners.”59
Finally, the late Ramesside general Payankh shows in his letters that his rela-
tions with Meshwesh were good, that he even ordered that bread rations were
properly distributed to them, and that Libyans (not necessarily hostile) were
present in Upper Egypt at the end of the Ramesside Period.60 Several conclu-
sions might be inferred from these statements. Putting aside the unilateral
depiction of Libyans as hostile marauders, as eager-to-invade-Egypt popula-
tions, the references just quoted show situations very similar to those already
in place in the 3rd millennium BCE. First, that “Libyans” settled in towns and
frequented areas inside Egypt in which water, pasture, and a woody environ-
ment made it possible for them to keep herds of cattle and domestic animals.
Secondly, “Libyans” settled in towns even in southernmost Egypt. Finally,
“Libyans” and other peoples were collectively designated as “northerners.”
To begin with, a district within the Delta itself was referred to as ḫꜢs.t Ṯmḥw
“the land of Ṯmḥw,” an area on the western border of Lower Egypt but not nec-
essarily outside the Delta.61 In fact, the importance of borders in official sources
and royal ideology, including the separation of populations, hardly conceals
the fact that borders were actually porous areas, that peoples crossed them
according to their seasonal activities and that Egyptian authorities, in practi-
cal terms, were more eager to control (and tax?) movements of peoples and
wealth than to oppose them. A famous statement in the inscription of Kamose,
for instance, suggests that cattle from the Theban kingdom (its northern bor-
der was then set at Cusae, in Middle Egypt) grazed in the Delta.62 A Ramesside
scribe informed his superior that a Bedouin tribe from Edom was authorized to
cross an Egyptian fortress and reach some pools in the Wadi Tumilat to sustain
themselves as well as their flocks.63 The area of Tell el-Dabʿa has provided simi-
lar evidence about this kind of contact. On the one hand, a Heracleopolitan
king of the First Intermediate Period founded in this area a production and
check center of the crown, at a crossroads that bears his name, Ḥwt-rꜢ-wꜢ.tj-
57 KRI VI, 638:4.
58 KRI VI, 638:2.
59 KRI IV, 2:14.
60 P. BM EA 75019+10302 = Demarée, The Late Ramesside Bankes Papyri, 14–19; P. Bibl. Nat.
196 I = Černy, Late Ramesside Letters, 35.2–8 = Wente, Letters from Ancient Egypt, 184 § 305.
61 Moreno García, “Ḥwt jḥ(w)t,” 75.
62 Redford, “Textual sources for the Hyksos Period,” 13; Helck, Historische-biographische
Texte, 85.
63 Papyrus Anastasi VI; Caminos, Late-Egyptian Miscellanies, 293.
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Htjj “The ḥwt at the crossroad of Khety”),64 located in an important strategic
area leading to the south-western Levant. The discovery of late 12th Dynasty
remains of tents in zone A/II in nearby Tell el-Dabʿa, replaced in the next phase
by brick buildings and some tombs, attests to the presence of mobile peoples
in this area,65 a situation that continued in later times, when cattle and horse
raising became important activities in the Eastern Delta. As for Wadi Tumilat,
a traditional entrance point into Egypt for Levantine populations, it remained
an area with pasture land, where horses were raised and which has provided
early New Kingdom evidence of Egyptian huts in a wetland and grazing envi-
ronment.66 Asiatics crossed into the Nile Valley through this area, settled there,
and built enclosures known as a “Hyksos camp” at Tell el-Yahudiya during the
Middle Bronze Age.67 Later on, the toponym “Lakes of Pithom” was referred to
in Egyptian sources with the Semitic loanword brkw.t “pool, pond” in syllabic
writing and not with its Egyptian name.68 Bietak has suggested that this word
had become something of a toponym in a region inhabited long enough by a
Semitic speaking population to supplant the original Egyptian name with an
idiomatic expression of their own. Furthermore, another Semitic expression
(sgr) designated an enclosure or a kind of fortification in the same region.69
However, Asiatics were not the only settlers in this area. Egyptian sources men-
tion regions in the Eastern Delta and the adjacent deserts inhabited during
the early 2nd millennium BCE by peoples referred to as sḫ.tjw and jmn.w, who
worked as auxiliaries in the pharaonic mining expeditions to the Sinai as well
as in the construction of the pyramids at Lisht. Senwosret I introduced the
office of jmj-r sḫ.tjw “overseer of the marshland dwellers,” perhaps to control
autonomous, mobile local populations not thoroughly placed under the king’s
rule. This reminds of the titles of Kaaper, an official who lived during the early
5th Dynasty who was mnjw sꜢb(w)t “herder of dappled cows,” zš mr(w) sꜢb(w)t
“scribe of pasture areas of the dappled cows” and scribe of the army in several
localities spreading from the Eastern Delta to the central Sinai.70 In the same
vein, the title jmj-r TꜢ-Mḥw “overseer of Lower Egypt” was used by expedition
64 Goedicke, “The building inscription.”
65 Forstner-Müller, “Vorbericht der Grabung.”
66 Rzepka, et al., “New Kingdom and the Third Intermediate Period,” 156–58, 173–74. Cf. also
Bietak, “Nomads or mnmn.t–shepherds.”
67 Petrie, Hyksos and Israelite Cities, pl. ii–iv; Holladay, Tell el-Maskhuta.
68 Hoch, Semitic Words, 106–107 n° 131.
69 Papyrus Anastasi V, 19:7; Bietak, “On the historicity of the Exodus,” 21; Hoch, Semitic Words,
270–71 n° 385; Morris, The Architecture of Imperialism, 422, 823.
70 P M III2, 501; Moreno García, “La gestion des aires marginales,” 56 (with bibliography);
Grajetzki, “Setting a state anew,” 222. As for jmn.w and the land of Jmnw, cf. Di. Arnold,
Pyramid Complex of Senwosret III, pl. 24–26; Do. Arnold, “Image and identity,” 200–06.
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leaders (especially to the Sinai) in Middle Kingdom times. It seems that sḫ.tjw
were of particular relevance for the expeditions sent to the Sinai, perhaps as
such missions crossed areas in the Eastern Delta inhabited by autonomous
populations. The existence of such populations in the northern Delta is even
attested in Greco-Roman times, as in the case of the boukoloi, who were fisher-
men, herders, farmers, even pirates living in a swampy environment.71
Close contacts between the settlers of the Nile Valley and “marginal” neigh-
boring peoples may explain the importance of Libyans in Middle Egypt at least
in some periods of the Egyptian history. A passage from the great inscription
of Merneptah describing his Libyan wars states that a wave of Libyan invad-
ers entered Egypt from ḏw.w n wḥꜢ.t šꜤd.w n w n TꜢ-jḥ.w “the mountains of
the oasis and the escarpments/dunes of the district of Farafra.”72 Cattle rais-
ing, as well as pastoral seasonal movements between the oases and the Nile
Valley, led by Libyan herders, might well have been the precedents of such
invasion. Not by chance Farafra oasis was known as the “Land of the cow” in
Egyptian sources and already in the 5th Dynasty an official called Nakhtzas
was appointed jmj-r TꜢ-jḥw “overseer of Farafra oasis” as well as Ꜥḏ-mr ṯnw
“administrator of the bordering area.”73 This means that some kind of super-
vision over these oases existed at an early date. Goods from Farafra arrived
into the Nile Valley through local peddlers, like Khunanup, the famous Oasian
or Eloquent Peasant. In fact, contacts between the oases and Middle Egypt
were quite fluid since the beginnings of Egyptian history. Pottery reveals that
contacts between Bahariya and Middle Egypt were common during the First
Intermediate Period,74 while local leaders in the area of Dakhla used the title
of ḥꜢtj-Ꜥ and their symbols of authority showed influence from the area of
Asyut75 (Libyan leaders were usually designated as ḥꜢtj-Ꜥ in pharaonic sources
from the middle of the 3rd millennium BCE and beyond76). In fact, inscriptions
from the time of Montuhotep II emphasize that Lower Nubia and the oases
became tax-payers again during his reign, but troublemakers remained in the
71 Moreno García, “Ḥwt jḥ(w)t,” 86 n. 103.
72 K RI IV, 4:11; Manassa, The Great Karnak Inscription of Merneptah, 27.
73 Moreno García, “Ḥwt jḥ(w)t,” 97.
74 Marchand, “La céramique de la fin de l’Ancien Empire.”
75 Baud, Colin, and Tallet, “Les gouverneurs de l’oasis de Dakhla,” 5–6, 11–12.
76 Cf. the ḥꜢty-Ꜥ Ṯḥnw ḤḏwꜢwš in the chapel of Mentuhotep II at Gebelein (Marochetti,
Chapel of Nebhepetra Mentuhotep, 57–61, pl. 53) and the ḥꜢty.w-Ꜥ m Ṯḥnw Tmḥ.w nb.w ḥḳꜢ.
w=sn mentioned in some Middle Kingdom execration texts (Sethe, Achtung Feindlicher
Fürsten, 59, pl. 22; Koenig, “Les textes d’envoûtement de Mirgissa” 113–14, pl. 118–19).
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oases, and early 12th Dynasty policemen were still sent there to arrest fugitives
in the Western Desert.77
The very late 3rd millennium and the early 2nd millennium BCE provide
more evidence about contacts between Libyans and Egyptians in Middle
Egypt, and it was then that Libyans and pastoralism left their mark in the
management of herds and in the organization of landscape. The tombs of
Imeny and Khnumhotep I at Beni Hassan include scenes depicting Libyans
driving and presenting cattle.78 In another scene, at Bersheh, rows of young
people draw a colossal statue; according to their cloths and ornaments (feath-
ers in their hairstyle, cross-bands), some of them are Libyan.79 In other scenes,
Libyan hunters stay behind their Egyptian master when he is hunting,80 while
Nubians appear hunting in the late First Intermediate Period at Asyut.81 These
examples hint at the fluidity of contacts between Egyptians and their west-
ern neighbors, probably settled in Middle Egypt in a period in which cattle
raising and the movement of herds became particularly important in Middle
Egypt and when other peoples, such as Nubians and Asiatics, also frequented
this area.82 Their knowledge of the desert and of the routes linking the Valley
to the oases and the Mediterranean coast reveals that, as it happened with the
sḫ.tjw just evoked, these peoples were also indispensable partners as herders,
small-scale traders, warriors, guides, hunters, and providers of specific miner-
als, and that Libyans were part of them. According to texts such as The Oasian,
the Coffin Texts, or the Ramesside Miscellanies, Libyans and people from the
Western Desert supplied a kind of green mineral called shyt/shrt, perhaps
to be identified as jasper or serpentine or some kind of resin.83 Once again,
these activities and the small caravans of Libyans represented in the tombs
of Beni Hasan, represent a good parallel to those mentioned, for instance,
in The Oasian or in the Semna papyri of the Middle Kingdom, not to men-
tion the small groups of Pan-Grave Medjay who crossed Egypt during the first
half of the 2nd millennium BCE, were buried in modest necropoleis scattered
along the Nile Valley, and left ceramic remains extending from Elephantine
77 Darnell, “The Girga road,” 223 and “A bureaucratic challenge?,” 797–99.
78 Newberry, Beni Hasan, I, pl. xiii [bottom] and xlvii, respectively.
79 Newberry, El Berseh, pl. xii and xv.
80 Blackman, Meir I, pl. vi, vii, xxiii.
81 Tomb of Iti-ibi-iqer (N13.1): El-Khadragy, “Some significant features,” 110–12, 125 fig. 5.
82 Kay, son of Nehri I, the local leader of Bersheh, stated that “people of the ( foreign) lands
of Medja and Wawat, Nubians and Asiatics, and Upper and Lower Egyptians were united
against me” (Anthes, Hatnub, 36 n° 16; a similar statement on 57), while pharaoh Amen-
emhet I was helped by Khnumhotep I, the leader of neighboring Beni Hassan, in his fight
against a rival was apparently supported by Nubians and Asiatics.
83 Caminos, Late-Egyptian Miscellanies, pl. 89; Grandet, Le Papyrus Harris I, 157 n. 625.
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to the Mediterranean. In all, Middle Egypt appears as a crossroads of peoples,
caravans and traders from diverse origins, when the traffic and management
of myrrh and Levantine cattle were recorded in the inscriptions of Bersheh,
Beni Hassan, and Meir, and when textile production (weavers, textile work-
shops, etc.) was celebrated in the scenes and wood models found in the tombs
of these areas.84
Cattle raising emerges as an important economic activity in which officials
such as Imeny of Beni Hassan acted as local representatives of the king. In this
context, Libyans might have played an important role as herders and providers
of livestock. It was also in Middle Egypt, around the very end of the 3rd mil-
lennium BCE, that the term mnmn.t appeared in Egyptian sources, first at Deir
el-Gebrawy, later on in other sources from Middle Egypt. It designates cattle
on the move, in contrast to jꜢwt, which referred to penned animals.85 Mobile
herding seems thus to play an important role in the local economy. As for the
term wḥjj.t “(clan) village,” even “tribe,” depending on the context, it appeared
at the end of the 3rd millennium in neighboring Bersheh,86 further confirm-
ing the impression that mobility, transhumance, and new forms of specialized
uses of the space, focused on pastoralism, flourished in Middle Egypt at the
turn of the 3rd millennium BCE. Further evidence about the implication of
foreign peoples in the cattle economy of Middle Egypt is the mention of “cattle
of Retenu” in tombs of Meir and Bersheh,87 or the recent discovery of a late Old
Kingdom burial of a Nubian woman close to Bersheh.88 Libyans appear thus
as notable actors in the local economy of Middle Egypt and their role in cattle
raising and in the supply of desert minerals perhaps justifies the inclusion of a
Libyan section in the execration texts of the Middle Kingdom.
84 Moreno García, “Trade and power in ancient Egypt.”
85 Moreno García, “La gestion des aires marginales,” 57; Mathieu, “Chacals et milans.”
86 Willems, Dayr al-Barshā I, 47–48 [j]. Willems is rather reluctant to accept “tribe” as one of
the possible renderings of the term. However, the Asiatic section of the Middle Kingdom
execration texts makes a clear difference between the ḥḳꜢ “governor, prince” of a country
or territory and the wr n wḥjj.wt “the chief of the tribes” of other countries or territories
(Posener, Princes et pays, 88[E 50], 89 [E 51]). In some instances, only the wḥjj.wt of a ter-
ritory are mentioned, without any reference to a chief, as in Posener, Princes et pays, 93
[E 61]. This is of particular relevance in the case of the wḥjj.wt Kbn “the tribes of Byblos”
(Posener, Princes et pays, 94 [E 63]), as such wḥjj.wt are depicted as potential menaces
towards an urban center allied to Egypt and ruled by princes (this explains why it was
not considered as a danger in the execration texts). Finally, the inscription of Sobekhotep
of Elkab (Second Intermediate Period) refers to a coalition of several Nubian powers and
Punt, including Kush and the wḥjj.wt of Wawat (V.W. Davies, “Kush in Egypt”), while wḥjj.
wt are absent in the Nubian section of the execration texts.
87 Blackman, Meir III, 13, pl. 4; Newberry, El Bersheh I, pl. 18.
88 Vanthuyne, Linseele, and Vereecken, “Recent discoveries.”
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Given the fluidity of populations across the Western Desert, the poten-
tial presence of “Libyans” in southern Egypt, through the routes of the oases
and the Western Desert, should be considered as well. Whether conclu-
sive archaeological evidence is still missing in the Nile Valley, other sources
show that peoples from the desert frequented southern Egypt and settled in
this area well before the New Kingdom. The Gebelein papyri, dated from the
late 4th Dynasty, mention ḥrj.w-šꜤ “dwellers of the sand” among the inhabit-
ants of several villages around Gebelein. Furthermore, a small wooden box
from Gebelein contains a long list of people written in boustrophedon style.
Unfortunately, the text that heads the list (text A) is difficult to interpret, but it
seems to refer to a foreign unknown country, […]ḏr, while the hieratic sign of a
kneeling foreigner (Nubian?, Libyan?) bearing a feather on his head and with
his arms tied behind his back was used as a general determinative for those
people.89 Finally, a small fragment of papyrus, also from Gebelein and dated
from the 4th Dynasty,90 contains a small list of male mı̓tr, a term difficult to
translate but referring to people involved in travel and trading activities abroad
according to 3rd Dynasty seals found at Elephantine.91 In fact, the term mı̓tr is
determined either by the sign of the island (Gardiner N 18), the foreign coun-
try, or the water hieroglyph and, according to the titles borne by some mı̓tr.w,
it seems that this term was related to the notions of journey and movement,92
perhaps derived from the term mj.t “path, road.”93 In this vein, several settle-
ments mentioned in the Old Kingdom tablets of Balat are determined by
the sign of the island that, according to many toponyms attested at the end
of the Old Kingdom, convey the idea of a “long distance from the Nile Valley.”94
Two of these toponyms attested at Balat are formed with the element mi, such
as Dmı̓w and Ꜣhmı̓, while a settlement in the vicinity of Balat was called Mı̓tyw.95
Could they refer to desert routes? 4th Dynasty kings sent expeditions to the
Western Desert, far away from Dakhla, involving in some cases hundreds of
people. A Libyan hunting scene at Abu Ballas recalls similar scenes found in
bowls at Qubbet el-Hawa.96 Another scene, found at Wadi el-Hol and dat-
ing perhaps from the early 2nd millennium BCE, depicts a cow and two men
bearing feathers on their heads; one of them has a beard while the other is
89 Posener-Krieger, “Le coffret de Gebelein.”
90 Marochetti, et al., “‘Le paquet’,” 246–47 fig. 11.
91 Pätznick, Die Siegelabrollungen und Rollsiegel.
92 Diego Espinel, “El término mı̓tr.”
93 Wb. II, 41:13–15.
94 Pantalacci, “Broadening horizons,” 289.
95 Pantalacci, “Broadening horizons.”
96 Förster, “Beyond Dakhla,” 304–05.
Journal of Egyptian History 11 (2018) 147–184 Downloaded from Brill.com08/18/2021 08:53:06AM
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