Title: Der Abu Ballas-Weg
Description: The thesis presents the finds and features of a Pharaonic caravan route, only discovered in 1999, which leads from the Dakhla Oasis in Egypt deep into the Libyan Desert, and therefore brings this area into the focus of Egyptological research for the first time. Based on archaeological investigations carried out within the scope of the Collaborative Research Centre 389 ACACIA at Cologne, the finds and features are thoroughly analyzed (part I of the thesis), followed by studies on the practical use of the trail (part II), and on the possible purpose and historical significance of the caravan route (part III). As the main result it turned out that the so-called Abu Ballas Trail was an extremely difficult Pharaonic caravan route through the Libyan Desert that was used over many centuries, and repeatedly took a greater significance under very specific geopolitical circumstances. It appears to have served, at least temporarily from the late third millennium BC onwards, as a trade route in order to import luxury items ? such as incense, ivory, skins of exotic animals, valuable oils, and others ? from sub-Saharan regions first to Dakhla and then further on to the Egyptian Nile Valley, probably in cooperation with "Libyan" nomadic groups. The route therefore represents the earliest evidence of trans-Saharan trade currently known. Its existence proves that the known world of the ancient Egyptians did not end beyond the oases of the Western Desert.
Subjects: Caravans, History, Excavations (Archaeology), Antiquities, Deserts
Places: Libyan Desert, Africa