Wadi Hammamat (English: Valley of Many Baths, Coptic: ⲣⲱϩⲉⲛⲧⲟⲩ India way; gateway to India) is a dry river bed in Egypt’s Eastern Desert, about halfway between El-Quseir and Qena. It was a significant mining region and trade route east of the Nile Valley in ancient times, and three thousand years of rock carvings and graffiti make it a primary scientific and tourist site today.
Location of Wadi Hammamat
The Hammamat route ran from Qift (or Coptos), located just north of Luxor, to el-Quseir on the Red Sea coast.
Trade Route
Hammamat became the primary route from Thebes to the Red Sea and the Silk Road that led to Asia, or Arabia, and Africa’s horn. This 200 km journey was the most direct route from the Nile to the Red Sea, as the Nile bends toward the coast at the western end of the wadi.
The Hammamat route ran from Qift (or Coptos) north of Luxor to Al-Qusayr on the Red Sea coast. Qift was an essential centre for administration, religion, and commerce. Pharaohs of the First Dynasty established the cities at both ends of the route. However, egyptologists also found evidence of predynastic occupation along the way. There is evidence in the area of the prehistoric people, desert dwellers and nomads who left crude petroglyphs bruised into the rocks. Petroglyphs were curved reed boats, hunters and long-gone animals, including elephants and ostriches, suggesting that the desert was more hospitable.
Quarries in Wadi Hammamat
In Ancient Egypt, Hammamat was a central quarrying area for the Nile Valley. Quarrying expeditions to the Eastern Desert are recorded from the second millennia BCE, where the wadi exposed the Precambrian rocks of the Arabian-Nubian Shield. These include Basalts, schists, bekhen-stone (an especially prized green metagraywacke sandstone used for bowls, palettes, statues, and sarcophagi) and gold-containing quartz. The Narmer Palette, 3100 BC, is one of several early and predynastic artefacts carved from the distinctive stone of the Wadi Hammamat.
Pharaoh Seti I is recorded as having the first well dug to provide water in the wadi, and Senusret I sent mining expeditions there.
The Turin Papyrus Map’s earliest-known ancient geological map describes the site.
Carvings
Today, Hammamat is primarily famous for its ancient Egyptian graffiti. As well as in ancient times, it was a quarry that lay on the Silk Road to Asia and is a common destination for modern tourists. The wadi contains many carvings and inscriptions dating from before the earliest Egyptian Dynasties to the contemporary era. These carvings include the only painted petroglyph known from the Eastern Desert. Moreover, it contains drawings of Egyptian reed boats dated to 4000 BCE.
Common era
Occupying groups from the Roman-Byzantine Periods to the Late Ptolemaic Period operated gold mines near the well Bir Umm el-Fawakhir. Yet, the New Kingdom of Egypt gold mines at Wadi el-Sid were on a larger scale.
A modern asphalt road, the Wadi Hammamat road now runs 194 km through the wadi, making it a vital transport route. In addition, it enables tourists to travel easily between nearby Luxor and Thebes sites.
Modern European description
The first European descriptions of the Wadi Hammamat were from the Scottish traveller James Bruce in 1769. The Russian Egyptologist Vladimir Golenishchev led the first modern study of the inscriptions in 1884–1885.
Popular culture
In 1993, The Pogues wrote a song about it, Girl From The Wadi Hammamat, in their album Waiting for Herb.
