Al-Bahariya

The oasis of Al-Bahariya (Arab: الواحةالبحرية meaning the oasis of north) is one of the five large Oasis of the deserted Westerner in Egypt (altitude 129m to 365 km in the west of Cairo); it is surrounded by black hills made up of Quartzite and Dolomite ferruginous. Al-Bawiti is the largest village in the oasis of Bahariya with approximately: 30000 inhabitants.

There are also the ruins of a temple built by Alexandre Large the with Qasr el-Méguisbeh, in the North-East of the oasis, when the conqueror passed by Bahariya on his return of the oracle of Ammon-Zeus to Siwa.

Inhabited since the Paleolithic , this oasis produced in particular wine, appreciated by the Egyptians as of the Moyen Empire.

Vestiges of the area:

four ancient villages (whose El Qars and El Bawiti ),
ruin of a temple of,
vault of the Pharaon Apriès (),
four vaults decorated with the time of Amasis with Ayn Al-Muftillah ,
tombs of hellenistic time,
remains of a small Roman triumphal arch.

History of the excavations

Since many years, Frederic Hake, within the framework of a mission of the French Institute of oriental archeology, carries out excavations on several sectors. The first is at Qaret el-Toub; it is of the interest to have had a durable frequentation (at least of until the time Arab at the 10th century), diversified (cemeteries, military habitat, sector of irrigation and farm), and to be established in a zone of the oasis where the archaeological vestiges are strongly concentrated.

The excavations of the necropolis gréco-Roman started in 1996. There are roughly thirty four excavated tombs.

In edge of the village of Bawiti, an immense necropolis of almost: 10000 burials where rest more than two hundred Momie S covered with gold drill plates, was updated in 1999. So this necropolis was named the “valley of the mummies”.

In April 2001, an Egyptian archaeological mission put at the day the mummy of Naassa, the woman of the governor of the oases under, Khensou Iouf Ânkh, whose tomb had been discovered in May 2000.

An intact mummy dating from the time saïte from, was discovered on May 20th, 2002. According to the Egyptian archaeological team having discovered it in a tomb, the sarcophagus remained closed since the moment of the burial, cut in calcareous stone, would belong to a “important personality”, probably a family member of the governor of the oasis. Still wrapped its strips of flax, the mummy contains crowned amulets and a beetle of heart.

In 2007 a égypto-Czech research team discovered the remainders of a city of the Ancient Empire.

Stage city

In antiquity, Bahariya was only one stage for the caravans which wanted to gain, either Siwa more in the west, or with the south, Al-Farafra then the group of the southernmost oases, AD-Dakhla and Al-Kharga (25°28' 31" NR; 30°35' 23" E).

Nowadays, it is a stage of the Rallye of the Pharaons.

Photographs

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