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The Eastern Mediterranean and the Arabian Peninsula with major trade routes of Greco-Roman times. The arrows indicate the places dealt with in the text (Ain eshShallāla in Wadi Ramm on the Arabian Peninsula, el-Kanayis in Wadi Abad, and a stretch of Wadi Ḥammāmāt). (Dentzer 1999, fig. 1, with alterations by the author).
Source publication
What happens when people of different provenance, profession, and individual interests are en route and share the same (sacred) places for short moments in time? How inclusive or exclusive are their activities and behaviour? What elements of their identities do they emphasise to show an affiliation or distinction? The paper reviews some Late Hellen...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... to scarceness of any kind of resource. I apply the criteria to the archaeological remains at a set of places in the Arabian Desert to explore the ways of grouping under the conditions of short-term stays, non-synchronicity of presence and long-term use of the places. Referring to sites in Wadi Ramm (Jordan), Wadi Abad and Wadi Ḥammāmāt (Egypt) ( fig. 1), I examine if and what group identities or affiliations play a role and how they are communicated. I argue that the scarcer stop-overs are, the more does their reliability for religious requirements take precedence over grouping tendencies. In other words, the receptiveness of religiously used sites along routes and the different ...
Context 2
... Empire. 17 At ̔ Ain esh-Shallāla on the western slope of Jebel Ramm, where various springs rise from the rocks north of the present-day village, various traces of religious activity are concentrated. An open-air sanctuary developed at a larger spring, while at the foot of the cliff a temple building was constructed in the first century bce ( fig. 2-10). Building structures in the valley attest to local inhabitants and passers-by in antiquity making use of the water of a string of sources along the ridge collected in large reservoirs, even though the environment seems to Mediterranean eyes not suitable for a settlement of nomadic people. 18 For the argument of the formation of ...
Context 3
... also be retrieved, but are unpublished. 39 Ḥismāic and Minaic, as well as later Arab inscriptions, mostly containing names or genealogies, were engraved after the abandonment of the temple. 40 The statue of a female sitting goddess, found during the excavation in the 1930s, can be regarded as Allāt represented in a Greco-Roman type of Tyche ( fig. 10). 41 In combination with the inscription we can regard her as the owner of the temple. Probably a standing stone monument was situated at the northern wall of the corridor of the temple, representing the aniconic depiction of this deity ( fig. 8, northern colonnade). 42 Hence, visually the temple houses more options than the spring ...
Context 4
... high density of ancient religious activity 'on the move' is preserved in the Arabian Desert of Egypt (figs. fig. 11). The amassment as well as the chronological and spatial range of the engravings at the sites offer the basis for exploring whether groups among their users are established in terms of a spatial segregation or compilation of remains. 49 ...
Context 5
... is one of the few in the Eastern Desert that comprises not only a place of rock-inscriptions, but has also an architectural part: situated on the southern slope of Wadi Abad (shortly before the branching of Wadi Barramiya and Wadi Mia), a temple to Amun was built by Pharaoh Seti I (thirteenth century bce) for Amun-Re against the jutting rock ( figs. 12. 13). At that time, profitable mines fostered the construction of a water reservoir and a temple at a site that was already considered a good place to rest, as demonstrated by many pre-dynastic rock engravings ( fig. 13). Later Hierogplyphic panels can be seen not only east of the tem- ...
Context 6
... and Wadi Mia), a temple to Amun was built by Pharaoh Seti I (thirteenth century bce) for Amun-Re against the jutting rock ( figs. 12. 13). At that time, profitable mines fostered the construction of a water reservoir and a temple at a site that was already considered a good place to rest, as demonstrated by many pre-dynastic rock engravings ( fig. 13). Later Hierogplyphic panels can be seen not only east of the tem- ...
Context 7
... related to each other through location. Other inscribers used the pronaos and the high reliefs there to leave their texts (I.Kanais 13. 61), but in contrast to the above mentioned ones, they are not visible (or readable) as an entity. 56 Groups as such appear at el-Kanayis also due to the military character of the exploitation of the desert (I .Kanais 10. 44, fig. 14). Soldiers formed units moving around together. Some graffiti represent collaborative dedications with names of different individuals, where the cohesion is not clear, as for example I.Kanais 48, 49 and 58. Others seem to repeat their 'entries' on the rock-face close to their fellows' names, as in the case of four graffiti east of the ...
Context 8
... his father's name (I. Kanais 20), the other, in a third act, explains that he came to this place, too (I .Kanais 4, fig. 14). The authors want to be seen with their predecessors and attempt to establish links by text-location and content. 57 A virtual networking takes ...
Context 9
... is also a criterion to which one can subscribe. At el-Kanayis some Cyreneans express their 'belonging together' through the location of their inscriptions in relation to architectural structures: five of them who deliberately included their provenance in their dedicational graffiti cluster in two compartments of the temple (fig. 15). 58 Three others are found on the columns in the hypostyle hall (I. Kanais 15. 16. 17); one more is engraved in the pronaos (I.Kanais 14 close to Pharao and his cartouche). While this grouping-strategy of compatriots is true for the Cyreneans, three graffiti left by Cretans do not show such patterns (I.Kanais 1. 5. 13 east and west of, ...
Context 10
... or Iudaean people are attested in two inscriptions ( fig. 16) that are both situated west of the temple on a comfortably accessible rock wall, where many people came and left inscriptions (seventeen graffiti, e. g., I.Kanais 39 close to 42). 59 This location renders Bernand's opinion arguable that they 's'isolant des autres' (having in mind the monotheistic Judeans that do not want to ...
Context 11
... being halfway between the Nile and the Red Sea, whereas to mining workers or military personnel it was a point close to their living quarters, an hour's walk away. Moreover, as the habitations at the niche-shrine on the northern slope show, there had apparently been guards at the quarries along this stretch of the wadi for at least a few years ( fig. ...
Context 12
... II, 360- 343 bce) showing an ithyphallic Min in front of a chapel with a statue of Osiris. Another panel shows Pharao Amyrtaios (twenty-third dynasty) offering in front of a triad of gods (Isis-Hathor, Min-Amon and Harpokrates), with additional other chapels and more roughly incised animals, images of gods or humans, symbols, and objects ( fig. 18). 67 Apart from this rock-face, 3 (2017) Loose Bonds and Porous Boundaries among Mobile People inscriptions and images from earlier periods are numerous, especially on the southern stretch of the ...
Context 13
... in terms of marking similar experiences or being in comparable situations is not communicated. However, many passers-by still wish to add their mark close to the earlier signs and engravings: some are looking for a close connection to the Pharaonic engravings. Two wrote their graffito above and in front of the phallus of Min (I.KoKo 93. 94, fig. 19), while one person writes so that it looks as if coming out of the mouth of Isis (I.KoKo 78). Two more (I.KoKo 76. 77) are set in front of Isis, followed by a Demotic one, to name only the most prominent ones ( fig. 20). 69 Two other graffiti play with the snake ornament of the crowning of the shrine with the divine triad, through ...
Context 14
... that it looks as if coming out of the mouth of Isis (I.KoKo 78). Two more (I.KoKo 76. 77) are set in front of Isis, followed by a Demotic one, to name only the most prominent ones ( fig. 20). 69 Two other graffiti play with the snake ornament of the crowning of the shrine with the divine triad, through putting their letters in the interstices (I .KoKo 42. 74, fig. 21). They form a group which is made visible by choosing this particular location. The upper one comprises four individuals, a group in itself. Another group of four is attested at the rock-face (I. KoKo 43. 107). There, a group of three fellows set their names one below the other (I.KoKo 96, fig. 22), and a Demotic one is (later?) ...
Context 15
... andBernand 1972b, 86- (2017) Loose Bonds and Porous Boundaries among Mobile People (2017) Loose Bonds and Porous Boundaries among Mobile People Fig. 4. Wadi Ramm, Ain esh-Shallāla. The abri with location of reliefs and inscriptions. Numbers along the cliff correspond to the inscriptions' numbers in Savignac 1933 andSavignac 1934. ( Savignac 1934, fig. 1 with author's ...
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