Land of Yam Found!

[Beagle]

http://www.independent.com.mt/news.asp?newsitemid=62457

Explorers just returning from the Sahara desert have claimed they found a remarkable relic from Pharaonic times.

Mark Borda and Mahmoud Marai, from Malta and Egypt respectively, were surveying a field of boulders on the flanks of a hill deep in the Libyan desert some 700 kilometres west of the Nile Valley when engravings on a large rock consisting of hieroglyphic writing, Pharaonic cartouche, an image of the king and other Pharaonic iconography came into view.

Mr Borda would not reveal the precise location in order to protect the site.

He explained the far-reaching implications of the find for Egyptology. “Although very active in the Eastern Desert, as attested to by the innumerable inscriptions they left behind, there is very little evidence for the presence of the ancient Egyptians in the much larger and harsher Western Desert.

“The consensus among Egyptologists is that the Egyptians did not penetrate this desert any further than the area around Djedefre’s Water Mountain. This is a sandstone hill about 80 kilometres south west of the Dakhla Oasis that contains hieroglyphic inscriptions. Its discovery in 2003 by the German explorer Carlo Bergmann caused a sensation as it extended the activities of the Pharaonic administrations an unprecedented 80 kilometres further out into the unknown and waterless Western Desert. The find we just made is some 650 kilometres further on!! Egyptologists will be dumbstruck by this news.”

But that is not all. As soon as he emerged from the desert Mr Borda flew to London to discuss the find with Maltese Egyptologist Aloisia De Trafford from the Institute of Archaeology (University College London).

She immediately facilitated a preliminary decipherment of the text via Joe Clayton, an ancient languages specialist who lectures on hieroglyphic writing at Birkbeck College at the same university.

Mr Borda continues, “Within a matter of days the short text was yielding astonishing revelations. In the annals of Egyptian history there are references to far off lands that the pharaohs had traded with but none of these have ever been positively located.

“It turns out that the script we found states the name of the region where it was carved, which is none other than the fabled land of Yam, one of the most famous and mysterious nations that the Egyptians had traded with in Old Kingdom times; a source of precious tropical woods and ivory.

“Its location has been debated by Egyptologists for over 150 years but it was never imagined it could be 700 kilometres west of the Nile in the middle of the Sahara desert.”

Speculation about the extent to which the Egyptians penetrated the Western Desert gained momentum in the 1990s when it was determined that caches of pottery discovered all along the Abu Ballas Trail by Bergmann, where determined to be of XVIIIth Dynasty manufacture.

During this period it was also realised that the central stone in the famous Tutankamun pectoral was made of Libyan Desert Glass, which is only found just north of the Gilf, 700 kilometres west of the Nile. Egyptologists however, concluded that the Egyptian pottery on the Abu Ballas Trail was probably transported there by desert dwellers who were trading with the Egyptians, and that Tutankamun’s natural glass also got to the Nile via such desert peoples.

Last year Mr Borda was the main sponsor and also a participant in Carlo Bergmann’s expedition to the Gilf Kebir, the aim of which was to find evidence that the ancient Egyptians had crossed the Western Desert and reached the Gilf.

Mr Marai who specialises in providing desert transport for adventurers and explorers supplied the vehicle back up. The expedition involved walking the entire distance on foot with camels carrying essential supplies and surveying the ground along the way.

After the 2006 expedition Mr Borda resolved to do this year’s expedition with vehicles that would allow a much greater area to be covered.

The search would focus on hieroglyphic writing which, if found on immovable surfaces such as boulders, hillsides and so on, would be positive proof for Egyptologists that the pharaohs has organised long range trading, diplomatic and prospecting missions very deep into the desert.

He thus contracted Mr Marai to provide the transport and together they searched two routes between the oasis of Abu Munqar and Jebel Uweinat, a total distance of about 1,400 kilometres.

Numerous boulders, rocky ridges and hillsides the length and breadth of these routes were inspected before they eventually made the discovery.

A trip is being planned in February to show the site to Egyptologists and journalists.

Pretty nifty discovery. I wish they would put some dates in this story. The Sahara had to be less arid at this time I think.

[Minimalist]

In a purely military/reconnaisance sense one would assume that the Egyptians would have been primarily concerned with watching the obvious invasion routes. In desert terms, that would have meant somewhere that had sufficient watering spots within a reasonable march of each other. No army at the time could have carried enough water to cross the Sahara using the kinds of transport available.

However, it certainly makes sense that small scouting parties would have been sent out on expeditions to see exactly what sort of other watering holes would have been out there. Military commanders of "quiet" districts would have had little else to do except send out patrols to watch out for trouble.

Your last point seems logical. The Sahara is still drying out so it is only reasonable to assume that it was "wetter" 5,000 years ago.





Okay...maybe not that wet.

[Ishtar]

Would the Sahara drying out be part of this worldwide drought? This article is about how it affected the Harappans, but it's scope goes wider:

http://www.archaeologyonline.net/artifa ... -myth.html

On the basis of extensive explorations carried out in Northern Mesopotamia, a joint French-American team led by H. Weiss of Yale University has determined that most of the old world civilization were severely affected by a prolonged drought that began about 2200 B.C. and persisted for about 300 years. The most drastically hit region seems to have been the Akkadian civilization neighbouring India. The drought may have been triggered by massive volcanic eruptions. According to the findings of this historic study concluded only recently:

"At approximately 2,200 B.C., occupations of Tell Leilan and Tell Brak (in Northern Mesopotamia) were suddenly abandoned...a marked increase in aridity and wind circulation, subsequent to a volcanic eruption, induced considerable degradation in land use conditions.... this abrupt climatic change caused abandonement of Tell Leilan, regional desertion, and collapse of the Akkadian empire based in southern Mesopotamia. Synchronous collapse in adjacent regions suggests the impact of abrupt climatic change was excessive."

An end uncannily like that of the Harappans. The authors of this momentous study note that the collapse of the Akkdians more or less coincided with similar climate change, land degradation and collapse noted in the Aegean, Palestine, Egypt, and India. The date of 1900 BCE given by S.R. Rao for the collapse of the Harappans should be seen as approximate. More accurate methods are now available that show this date to have been sometime before 2000 BCE, and they are well within the calibration error of radiocation and other scientific dating techniques.

The basic point is: as a result of several independent explorations conducted over a vast belt from southern Europe to India, it is now clear that civilizations over a large part of the ancient world were brought to a calamitous end by an abrupt climate change on a global scale. To attribute a global calamity of such colossal magnitude to nomadic 'Aryan' tribes is simplistic in the extreme.

[Beagle]

Here's what I'm mulling over Min:

It turns out that the script we found states the name of the region where it was carved, which is none other than the fabled land of Yam, one of the most famous and mysterious nations that the Egyptians had traded with in Old Kingdom times; a source of precious tropical woods and ivory.

These heiroglyphs apparently mark the land of a trading partner, at a time when it offered wood and ivory.

This seems like a disconnect of some kind. That's why I wish they were offerring some datology. This would seem to be around 6-8,000 BC.

[kbs2244]

Could “Yam” have been the same kind of place as Timbuktu?
A kind of meeting place in the middle of nowhere.
A place where both sides had decided they had gone as far from home as they cared to?

[Beagle]

This is what we know about Yam. We have known the location of Timbuktu, but it seems that Yam played a bigger role. And, it seems, pygmies lived there.
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/yam.htm

Obviously, the Sahara was less arid than I thought in historical times.

[Minimalist]

I had the same thought as kb. Who is to say that the Yamites (for want of a better word) did not fill the same niche as the Phoenicians? Import from the rain forest area to the south and export to the drier areas farther north. Lots of civilizations got quite rich performing that role....i.e., Petra and even Jerusalem under the Assyrians.

I don't think anyone has ever suggested that the Sahara was wet enough to have been a rain forest. But it sure as hell could have supported a race of middle-men.

[Beagle]

Good thought.

[Beagle]

Would the Sahara drying out be part of this worldwide drought? This article is about how it affected the Harappans, but it's scope goes wider:

http://www.archaeologyonline.net/artifa ... -myth.html

On the basis of extensive explorations carried out in Northern Mesopotamia, a joint French-American team led by H. Weiss of Yale University has determined that most of the old world civilization were severely affected by a prolonged drought that began about 2200 B.C. and persisted for about 300 years. The most drastically hit region seems to have been the Akkadian civilization neighbouring India. The drought may have been triggered by massive volcanic eruptions. According to the findings of this historic study concluded only recently:

"At approximately 2,200 B.C., occupations of Tell Leilan and Tell Brak (in Northern Mesopotamia) were suddenly abandoned...a marked increase in aridity and wind circulation, subsequent to a volcanic eruption, induced considerable degradation in land use conditions.... this abrupt climatic change caused abandonement of Tell Leilan, regional desertion, and collapse of the Akkadian empire based in southern Mesopotamia. Synchronous collapse in adjacent regions suggests the impact of abrupt climatic change was excessive."

An end uncannily like that of the Harappans. The authors of this momentous study note that the collapse of the Akkdians more or less coincided with similar climate change, land degradation and collapse noted in the Aegean, Palestine, Egypt, and India. The date of 1900 BCE given by S.R. Rao for the collapse of the Harappans should be seen as approximate. More accurate methods are now available that show this date to have been sometime before 2000 BCE, and they are well within the calibration error of radiocation and other scientific dating techniques.

The basic point is: as a result of several independent explorations conducted over a vast belt from southern Europe to India, it is now clear that civilizations over a large part of the ancient world were brought to a calamitous end by an abrupt climate change on a global scale. To attribute a global calamity of such colossal magnitude to nomadic 'Aryan' tribes is simplistic in the extreme.

I missed this post earlier Ishtar. I agree that it has relevance to this topic, but it's a real good one to put in the Aryan Invasion thread. Thanks.

[Ishtar]

Hi Beags

Hope you had a good Christmas!
Just to say that that post is already in the AIT thread. I copied it over from there.

[Rokcet Scientist]

Finding "the land of Yam" neatly ties in with a scenario I've started to consider in the past few years. I'm guessing "the land of Yam" was the northern part of the central – originally green! – Sahara, and the last part of that central region to remain habitably 'green'. There was a civilisation in that central, green, Sahara, preceding the Nile/Pharaonic civilisation. A big, long drought, or maybe more than one (and still going on today), dried out the central Sahara in the 5th and/or 4th millennium BC, forcing the people to move and abandon the region. Many moved to the 'nearest' water source, the Nile, where they joined the river people that already were there. Together they developed the Pharaonic civilisation, that, in the beginning, still traded with the remnants of the central Saharan civilisation: "the land of Yam".

Now to find proof to confirm that . . .

[Minimalist]

While you're at it.....look for proof that they built the pyramids and sphinx.

[Rokcet Scientist]

While you're at it.....look for proof that they built the pyramids and sphinx.

I'm not too sure about the Gizah pyramids being much older than 2,300BC, but the sphinx seems to be almost twice as old, so imo that's a very good candidate!

OTOH, I recall recently reading they (whoever 'they' were) 'identified' landscape features in the middle of the Sahara that they interpreted as the remains of pyramids. If so, those features ought to be closely examined and researched of course.

[Digit]

I have to agree with RS that the pyramids and the sphinx do not appear to be contemporary. What remains of the outer layer of the pyramids shows significantly less weathering than the Sphinx.

[Minimalist]

What remains of the outer layer of the pyramids shows significantly less weathering than the Sphinx.

Much harder stone used for the outer casing, though. Who knows? When Kufu said, on the Inventory Stele, that he restored the Pyramid (rather than built it) perhaps he had his workers clean up the outside?

Of course, the Club disputes the Inventory Stele. They have to. It messes up their whole theory.