Stuart Ibrahim

Stuart Ibrahim (PhD in Classics & Archaeology) ‘The North Sinai Transformed: Third Intermediate Period / Iron Age I–II Raphia and Egypt’s response to the changed political spectrum in the Levant’

When the decades-long process called the Bronze Age collapse ended the globalisation that characterised the Late Bronze Age eastern Mediterranean, there was a massive upheaval that saw most of the great powers dissolving or being destroyed. While Egypt survived this ordeal, it was forced to discard the fortresses and settlements erected in the north Sinai and southern Levant, dubbed the ‘Ways of Horus.’ All later Egyptian interactions with the Levant were mercantile in nature, until the reign of the Libyan king Shoshenq I (c943–924 BCE). This study investigates the fate of the ‘Ways of Horus’ forts during the Third Intermediate Period between the New Kingdom Egyptian withdrawal and Shoshenq’s Levantine campaign, via the Egyptian references to these sites and the available archaeological evidence in the region. Identifying when the texts no longer mention the north Sinai forts will provide a potential terminus post quem for their abandonment, while the archaeological evidence confirms which sites were never reoccupied or which were only later used by other factions. The various interpretations of the Bubastide Portal, the primary record of Shoshenq’s campaign, are also examined, to assess how he undertook his campaign in the Levant. Ultimately, an analysis of the archaeological and textual evidence confirms that the north Sinai sites next to the eastern Nile delta remained Egyptian settlements, while most of the remaining sites were permanently abandoned. Even then, this process was gradual, starting during the reign of Seti II (c1199–1193 BCE) and concluding under Ramesses VI (c1141–1133 BCE). Nomads, Philistines and Canaanites then took over those sites that were left, the first group occupying Kharuba (xarwba) 289 and either nomads or Canaanites living in the case study site of Rafah. The analysis of the Bubastide portal City List shows that Rafah fell under Egyptian control, at the beginning of Shoshenq’s Levantine campaign, before later returning to its previous occupants or entirely new ones, when Egypt abandoned the region again.

Supervisors: Professor Louise Hitchcock, Dr Brent Davis