Wadi Hammamat
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The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.
Wadi Hammamat
a river bed that ran dry in antiquity; right tributary of the Nile, the shortest route between the region of Thebes and the Red Sea. The region around the Wadi Hammamat was inhabited in the time of the Badarian, Amratian, and Gerzean cultures (fifth to fourth millennium B.C.), when the river was still flowing there. During the golden age of ancient Egypt, caravans were sent through the Wadi Hammamat with gold, copper, tin, and stone mined in the region. Numerous ancient Egyptian inscriptions have been preserved on the cliffs.
REFERENCES
Childe, V. Gordon. Drevneishii vostok v svete novykh raskopok. Moscow, 1956. (Translated from English.)Golenishchev, V. “Epigraficheskie rezul’taty poezdki v Uadi-Khammamat.” In the collection Zapiski Vostochnogo otdeleniia Russkogo arkheologicheskogo obshchestva, vol. 2, issues 1-2. St. Petersburg, 1887.
L. A. FADEEV
The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.