Wadi Hammamat (, meaning "valley of the baths") is a wadi in the Eastern Desert, located about 110 kilometres east of Qena in Egypt. Known since the beginnings of pharaonic civilization, Wadi Hammamat was exploited for its gold mines and, above all, for its greywacke quarries, known as "Bekhen stone", for millennia. In addition, the wadi had a strategic position because it provided access to the caravan route from Coptos to the Red Sea, the most direct route between the Nile Valley and the Red Sea, hence its ancient Egyptian name Rô-hanou ("outlet of the waters").
Description Geography Wadi Hammamat is a wadi in the Red Sea Hills, in the Eastern Desert of Egypt. It is located 80 kilometres from the Nile Valley directly east of Qift. The present name was given by European explorers during the 19th century after the name of the well located in the valley (Bir el-Hammamat). Before that, the wadi was known by local inhabitants as Wadi el-Kafr, while only the well bore the name Hammamat.
Wadi Hammamat forms a six-kilometre-long natural gorge between the mountains of Jabal el-Hammamat to the west, Jabal Rasfah to the north, Jabal Shahimiyyah to the south, and Jabal el-Sid to the east (the "mountain of silver and gold" of the ancient Egyptians). The two ends of the wadi are Bir el-Hammamat, to the west (), and Bir el-Fawakhir, to the east (). Since Wadi Hammamat lies in the western part of the Arabian Mountain Range, within the drainage basin of the Nile, it naturally slopes from east to west. Bir el-Fawakhir is located 400 metres above sea level and Bir el-Hammamat at 320 metres. Bir el-Hammamat marks the intersection of Wadi Hammamat with Wadi Um Had, while Bir el-Fawakhir marks the intersection of Wadi Hammamat with Wadi Fawakhir to the northeast and Wadi el-Sid to the southeast. Wadi Hammamat also meets other valleys along its length: Wadi Attala () and Wadi Masaq el-Baqr () to the north, and Wadi el-Chagg to the south ().
Geology
From a geological point of view, Wadi Hammamat consists of different geological formations, which account for the great variety of colours found on the rocks of the valley.
Hammamat siliciclastic rock (Late Precambrian). This formation includes three types of siliciclastic sedimentary rocks: greywacke (a variety of sandstone that is greenish-grey and occasionally dark grey or purplish-grey), slaty mudstone (shades of purple, green and grey), and green breccia (a conglomerate of pebbles and stones—mainly fragments of igneous rock—embedded in a greenish-grey matrix). These three varieties of rock are slightly metamorphosed. From a distance, they all appear dark brownish-grey. Nubian Sandstone (Late Cretaceous). This formation contains a light-brown type of sandstone that is subject to desert varnish. Fawakhir granite (Late Precambrian). This formation contains light-grey to pinkish-grey granite, crossed by abundant quartz veins. These veins often contain mineralization of gold and sulfides, including silver. From a distance, this rock ranges in colour from pink to pale red, with the quartz veins stained reddish-brown by the oxidation of the minerals. Atalla serpentinite (Late Precambrian). This formation includes serpentinite (dark green and dark grey mottled) and some slightly metamorphosed gabbro (dark greenish-grey). These rocks appear pinkish-brown when viewed from a distance due to weathering. Some gold- and sulfide-bearing quartz veins of the Fawakhir granite extend into the Atalla serpentinite. Dokhan volcanic rocks (Late Precambrian). This formation includes rhyolitic tuff (light brown) and, to a lesser extent, andesite and basalt (dark grey). These rocks may be slightly metamorphosed. Viewed from a distance, they appear pinkish-brown due to weathering.
The Hammamat siliciclastic rocks are by far the dominant formation and form the core of the valley (hence its name), while the other formations are found mainly at its extremities. Gold-bearing rocks occur at the eastern end of the valley and farther east in the mountains, in Wadi Fawakhir and Wadi el-Sid. This is why Wadi Hammamat was primarily exploited as a quarry, while gold mining was concentrated in Wadi Fawakhir and Wadi el-Sid. Modern estimates range from 1.7 to 9 grams of gold per tonne of ore at Wadi Fawakhir and from 4 to 28 grams per tonne at Wadi el-Sid. The ore extracted at Wadi el-Sid has a precious metal content of 80% gold and 20% silver.
Coptos–Myos Hormos road In addition to providing access to the mines of Wadi Fawakhir and Wadi el-Sid, Wadi Hammamat has been part since antiquity of an important communication route between the Nile Valley and the Red Sea. This route crossed the Arabian Mountain Range from west to east, from Coptos (modern Qift) to the port of Myos Hormos (modern El Qoseir). The route was called Hodos Myshormitikè during the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Nowadays, the entire route is often referred to for convenience as the Wadi Hammamat road, because the wadi marks the beginning of the route through the mountains. In reality, Wadi Hammamat represents only a small portion of a few kilometres of a total route 183 kilometres long.
From Qift (Coptos), the route runs through a series of low-altitude wadis, including Wadi el-Matula, Wadi Rod 'Ayid and Wadi Kwei, passing through the sites of El-Matula, Laqeita (Phoinikôn), Qasr el Banat and El-Muwayh (Krokodilô). The route then continues into the mountains through Wadi Hammamat and then Wadi el-Fawakhir. The road continues eastward and crosses the most difficult part of the route: the El Rieh Pass, located 534 metres above sea level and marking the drainage divide between the drainage basin of the Nile and that of the Red Sea. The route then passes through El-Zarqa (Maximianon) and reaches the long Wadi Abu Ziran. Wadi Abu Ziran passes through El-Hamra and then turns north, crossing several higher mountains including Jabal Umm 'Aradah, Jabal Ba'anib and Jabal al-Murr. After Bir Sayyala, the route turns sharply right towards the southeast. The road continues through Wadi el-Haramiya, passing along Jabal Dawwi to the north. The route passes through El-Iteima (Dawwi) and then turns east at Bir Beidah. The road continues east through Wadi Ambagi and then Wadi Quseir el-Qadim, finally reaching El Qoseir (Myos Hormos).
This route is one of the most direct and least difficult routes between the Nile Valley and the sea. It is relatively easy because it passes through wadis with flat floors and compacted sand and gravel surfaces. The route avoids high-altitude passages (only one pass, at just 500 metres elevation) and the passages between the valleys present no particular difficulty. The journey has been calculated at six days, for a total of 33 hours of walking, which corresponds fairly well to the account of Strabo in the 1st century BC.
Rock inscriptions In addition to its importance as a quarry and caravan route, Wadi Hammamat is also remarkable for its enormous corpus of rock inscriptions. Approximately 750 inscriptions have been found in the valley, including texts and images. They include official and religious inscriptions as well as graffiti, written in hieroglyphs, hieratic, demotic or ancient greek, either carved or painted directly onto the rock. The inscriptions date from all periods of ancient Egypt, from the Early Dynastic Period of Egypt. Most of the inscriptions are concentrated around the main greywacke quarry (): the "mountain of Bekhen" or "pure mountain".
History Under pharaonic administration The stone quarries of Wadi Hammamat remained in operation almost continuously throughout ancient Egypt. Numerous remains of quarrying activity and rock inscriptions have been discovered at the site. Among these texts are highly detailed reports of expeditions, carved in Egyptian hieroglyphs on the rock of the wadi, as well as prayers and thanksgiving addressed to the deities, most often to the triad of Coptos: Min, Isis and Horus, with Min being the patron deity of Coptos and protector of caravan routes and long-distance expeditions.
Quarrying activity at Wadi Hammamat began 6,000 years ago, during the Pre-Dynastic period. The earliest known use of greywacke and slate from the valley was for the manufacture of stone objects (cosmetic palettes, balls, bracelets and stone vessels) during the Pre-Dynastic period and the First Dynasty of Egypt. During the Old Kingdom, greywacke from the quarries of Wadi Hammamat began to be used for large-scale elements such as ornamental statues, steles and sarcophaguses. From this period onward, pharaohs organized large expeditions to Wadi Hammamat to gather resources in the wadi or farther toward the Red Sea. Old Kingdom expeditions could already involve thousands of men, as during the height of the New Kingdom. The Old Kingdom also saw the beginning of gold mining in the valleys surrounding Wadi Hammamat.
During the Old Kingdom, Wadi Hammamat became an essential route to the Red Sea through the Eastern Desert from Coptos. The route provided access to the galena mines of Gebel Zeit and to the Land of Punt via the Red Sea. Coptos lies on the bend made by the Nile eastward around Qena, and therefore at the point where the Nile is closest to the sea. The city consequently became a major departure point for expeditions to the Red Sea. Coptos had shipyards where boat components were manufactured, transported to the coast and assembled on site. Nevertheless, throughout the pharaonic period (before the Ptolemaic period), there was only one permanent port on the Red Sea coast in southern Egypt: Saww (modern Mersa Gawasis). Although passage through Wadi Hammamat to reach the port of Mersa Gawasis from Coptos is attested by a historical source, it was probably not the usual route. The most direct access to Mersa Gawasis was through Wadi Qena, which saved several days of travel compared with Wadi Hammamat. The Wadi Hammamat route therefore probably led instead to one of the intermittent ports on the coast, around El Qoseir, where the port of Myos Hormos would later be built, 26 kilometres south of Mersa Gawasis. In any case, the importance of these routes was such that in the first millennium BC, the Red Sea was called the "Sea of Coptos".
During the First Intermediate Period, control of Wadi Hammamat became the subject of a conflict between the cities of Thebes and Coptos, which ended in favor of the former, ruled by Intef the Elder.
Expeditions to the Red Sea through Wadi Hammamat are better documented from the Middle Kingdom. At this time, the wadi was called Rô-hanou in ancient Egyptian, meaning "outlet of the waters" or simply "road to the sea". Under the reign of Mentuhotep III, the chancellor Henenu led an expedition into Wadi Hammamat to prepare a voyage to the Land of Punt, and it was probably at this time that the port of Saww was founded, from which expeditions to Punt departed during the Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt.