Pharaonic expeditions traveling more than a day’s journey outside the Nile flood plain often required way stations, wells, anchorages, and seasonal camps: e. g., Marsa Matruh, Wadi el-Hudi, Wadi Hammamat, Wadi Gasus, Gebel Zeit, Wadi Maghara, Serabit el-Khadim, and Timna (Meyer 1999: 869; Sayed 1999: 866; Shaw 1999: 871; White 1999: 470). During the Old Kingdom turquoise and copper mining expeditions departed from Memphis to Maghara and Kharig in South Sinai: one route passed through Ain Sukhna and a fortified anchorage at Ras Budran (Mumford 2005; 2006). A seasonal camp at Maghara contained 125 rough stone shelters along the edge of a hill top, a stairway, a wall across the wadi bed (presumably protecting miners against flash flooding), other stone shelters at the hill base, copper smelting debris, refuse heaps, and mining galleries in the opposing cliff face (Mumford 1999b: 876).
Although Maghara continued to be visited during the Middle and New Kingdoms, Egyptian expeditions concentrated operations at Serabit el-Khadim. On the Serabit plateau top they established a camp with a rough defensive wall, simple field stone huts, and ore-washing basins (Mumford 1999a: 722-4). The expeditions also cut and embellished two shrines in a hillock, dedicating them to Hathor, Mistress of the Turquoise, and Sopdu, Lord of the East. Over time they added a series of chambers, a pylon entry, and an enclosure wall to the west. The temple received royal and private stelae, statuary, and diverse votive offerings. A few small rock-cut shrines and isolated stelae were established outside the temple. Ramesside expeditions placed small way-stations at Wadi Sannur, Gebel Abu Hassa, and Gebel Mourr, and added a small shrine to Hathor in the copper mining region around Timna in the southern Negev (Mumford 1999a: 724-5; Mumford and Parcak 2003: 85-93).
The Third Intermediate Period experienced a decline in quarrying and mining expeditions, but such activities are revitalized in the Late Period. For instance, Wadi Hammamat contained only one early Third Intermediate Period royal text, while more ventures are attested in the reigns of Shabaqa, Taharka, Psamtik I-II, Necho II, Amasis, Cambyses, Darius, Xerxes, Artaxerxes, and Nectanebo II (Meyer 1999: 870). Harrel and Brown (1999: 18-20) have surveyed a Late Period quarry and workmen’s huts at Rod el-Gamra in the Eastern Desert.
World History
