Mersa Gawasis (

Ancient Egyptian Ancient Egypt () was a cradle of civilization concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in Northeast Africa. It emerged from prehistoric Egypt around 3150BC (according to conventional Egyptian chronology), when Upper and Lower E ...

''Saww'') is a small

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

ian

harbour A harbor (American English), or harbour (Commonwealth English; see American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, spelling differences), is a sheltered body of water where ships, boats, and barges can be Mooring, moored. The t ...

on the

Red Sea The Red Sea is a sea inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. Its connection to the ocean is in the south, through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden. To its north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and th ...

and a former Egyptian port city. The harbour lies at the mouth of Wadi Gawasis, 2 km south of the mouth of Wadi Gasus. 25 km north is the city of Safaga and 50 km south al-Qusair
mersa gawasis coordinates
The place was apparently used as a port in the reigns of

Senusret I Senusret I (Egyptian language, Middle Egyptian: wikt:z-n-wsrt, z-n-wsrt; /suʀ nij ˈwas.ɾiʔ/) also anglicized as Sesostris I and Senwosret I, was the second pharaoh of the Twelfth dynasty of Egypt, Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt. He ruled from 1971 ...

to Amenemhat IV of the

12th Dynasty The Twelfth Dynasty of ancient Egypt (Dynasty XII) is a series of rulers reigning from 1991–1802 BC (190 years), at what is often considered to be the apex of the Middle Kingdom (Dynasties XI–XIV). The dynasty periodically expanded its terr ...

, and served as a loading point for expeditions to Punt. The harbour was also a starting point for journeys to the mines of Sinai.Sayed: ''Wadi Gasus'' in: Bard, ''Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt'', 1999, S. 868.

Etymology

''Mersa'' means ''port'', and ''Gawasis'' is a medieval term for ''scout boat''.Sayed: ''Wadi Gasus'' in: Bard, ''Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt'', 1999, S. 866.

History of investigation

When a

stele A stele ( ) or stela ( )The plural in English is sometimes stelai ( ) based on direct transliteration of the Greek, sometimes stelae or stelæ ( ) based on the inflection of Greek nouns in Latin, and sometimes anglicized to steles ( ) or stela ...

from the 12th Dynasty was found in , in which a nearby port called ''Saww'' was mentioned, the University of Alexandria began an excavation headed by Abdel Monem A.H. Sayed near the

Graeco-Roman The Greco-Roman world , also Greco-Roman civilization, Greco-Roman culture or Greco-Latin culture (spelled Græco-Roman or Graeco-Roman in British English), as understood by modern scholars and writers, includes the geographical regions and co ...

'' hydreuma'' (watering station) where the stele was found. As no other pharaonic monuments were found, it was concluded that the stele had been transported in Roman times from Saww to the watering station. The search was continued further east at the mouth of Mersa Gasus, where still no pharaonic remains were found. Just two kilometers further south of Mersa Gawasis, a small stele was discovered with fragmentary inscriptions of the

cartouche upalt=A stone face carved with coloured hieroglyphics. Two cartouches - ovoid shapes with hieroglyphics inside - are visible at the bottom., Birth and throne cartouches of Pharaoh KV17.html" ;"title="Seti I, from KV17">Seti I, from KV17 at the ...

of Senusret I and the geographical name ''Bia-n-punt''. 250 meters west of the harbor, on the north side of Wadi Gawasis, was found a small shrine with the name and titles of Ankhu, valet of Senusret I. The shrine consisted of a limestone anchor as a base, from which the upper holes were cut out. In the inscriptions appeared again the name Saww (as ''Sww''), which is confirmed as the location of the harbor at Mersa Gawasis. Two hundred meters to the west of the shrine, another small stele was discovered with a limestone anchor as a base. It contained an order from Senusret I to the vizier Intefiqer for a ship to travel to Bia-Punt. Subsequent excavations in 1977 recovered some pottery shards with hieratic inscriptions listing the content, origin and destination of the vessels. Among them appeared a temple of Senusret II, the name ''Punt'' and the name of an official from the time of

Senusret III Khakaure Senusret III (also written as Senwosret III or the hellenised form, Sesostris III) was a pharaoh of Ancient Egypt, Egypt. He ruled from 1878 BC to 1839 BC during a time of great power and prosperity, and was the fifth king of the Twelfth ...

. The finds revealed that ''Saww'' could now be clearly identified with Mersa Gawasis and that in the Middle Kingdom the ships sailed from here to Punt and back. It was found that the ships - as on the outward journey - were disassembled on return and transported to the Nile Valley in pieces. The approximately anchors were made in Mersa Gawasis and on return were left in place and reused, for example as a shrine or stela base.

2005 discoveries

In a 2005 expedition to Mersa/Wadi Gawasis, archaeologist Kathryn Bard found remains of Egyptian seagoing vessels and hieroglyphic texts on stelae about royal expeditions to Punt, including cedar planks from Queen Hatshepsut's expedition in the 15th century BCE, demonstrating that Mersa/Wadi Gawasis was the port in Egypt from which trade was carried out with Punt, some 1200 km south on the Red Sea.

Bibliography

* Kathryn A. Bard: ''Harbor of the Pharaohs to the land of Punt'', 2007, . * Abdel Monem A.H. Sayed: ''Wadi Gasus'' in: Kathryn A. Bard, ''Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt'', 1999, S. 866–868. *

External links

"The Wadi Gawasis/Wadi Gasus, Egypt: A Preliminary Assessment"
- Istituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli
"Mersa Gawasis (Red Sea - Egypt): UNO/IsIAO and BU 2003-2004 Field Season under direction of Rodolfo Fattovich and Kathryn Bard"

* [https://archive.today/20120705043427/http://www.archaeogate.org/egittologia/article/441/1/joint-archaeological-expedition-at-mersawadi-gawasis-re.html "Joint Archaeological Expedition at Mersa/Wadi Gawasis (Red Sea, Egypt) of the University of Naples "l'Orientale" (Naples, Italy), Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente (Rome, Italy), and Boston University (Boston, USA) - 2005-2006 Field Season"]
"Mersa/Wadi Gawasis 2006-2007 Report"
Rodolfo Fattovich and Kathryn A. Bard editors

Kathryn A. Bard and Rodolfo Fattovich et al.

by Rodolfo Fattovich, Andrea Manzo - University of Naples "l'Orientale," Naples, Italy, and Chiara Zazzaro - University of Exeter, Exeter, UK

Notes

{{Egypt topics Ancient Egypt Red Sea Governorate