Imperial and provincial responses to environmental and economic challenges on Rome’s frontier in the Egyptian desert (First-Sixth c. AD) – CRISIS

Geoarchaeology is the meeting point of the four partner archaeological teams working in the Great Oasis. We expand the study led by Jean-Paul Bravard on the sites of el-Deir (ANR “OASIS”) and Amheida (Partner University Fund program “Oasis Major”) to the whole northern area of the Kharga oasis, building a strong collaboration with the NKODAAS and the ERC L.I.F.E. project. We focus on examining climatic and environmental change diachronically in the north and the west of the oasis, and relating it to human activity at a variety of sites: urban (Amheida), military (Umm Dabadib, El-Deir), tracks (NKODAAS).
We use geomorphology and geoarchaeology to describe the appearance, shrinkage and vanishment of human occupation in the Great Oasis in Antiquity and grasp the problematic of water resources and water management in terms of crisis, determining the major chronological phases of the Oasis expansion and withdrawal. Then, we focus on specific areas and articulate archaeological data from the four archaeological teams with geoarchaeological hypotheses. The complementarity of the sites excavated by the four partners allow us to widen the frame of our reflection. Collaboration with ceramicists and text specialists at El-Deir, Amheida and Umm Dabadib help us refining the picture of the oasian economy. The mineral resources, such as alum and ochre deposits, will be surveyed and spatialized, and their extraction archaeologically dated.

Collaborative and pluridisciplinary tools have been created. The El-Deir archeological database now gathers a generalist table, with specialized tables, particularly a textile database, that will be a useful platform for other archaeologists. It is linked with a GIS, developed by A. Bolo, in which all spatial data are georeferenced.
Spatialization was another important result, as hydraulic networks and anthropic structures were mapped by J.P. Bravard and R. Gruel on a wide scale, focussing on Umm Dabadib, Qasr Lebekha, El Deir and Muhammed Tuleib areas. Geologic maps were georeferenced in order to provide a wide frame of all geologic layers in the area, and a fieldwork methodology was defined with the Politecnico of Milan and the MUSA Center of Naples to dispatch roles and competences between French and Italian partners (geomorphology, hydrology, 3D survey).
Our reflection on the resilience of oasian societies was deepened with a post-doc memoir prepared by J.Ph. Carrié, gathering data on the appearance of land estates such as oikoi at the turn of Late Antiquity in the oasis, and providing preconizations concerning the excavation of the «isolated tower«, possibly a big farm, at El-Deir.
Last, the preparation of the excavation of the fort of El-Deir was conducted by L. Chantre with a mission to London, in order to gather photographs and archives on the fortress occupation by the British army during the war they fought against the Ottomans and the Sanusyia between April 1916 and February 1917.

The project developed at Umm Dabadib by Corinna Rossi with the ANR CRISIS was selected by the ERC Consolidator Grant programme (project L.I.F.E., 2016-2021). Hired as a professor assistant at the Politecnico of Milan, and with the support of the ERC and ANR, Corinna Rossi was able to submit, together with Ashraf Salem, Salima Ikram and Gaëlle Tallet, a proposal to the Ministry of the Environment in Egypt and to the UNESCO, pleading for the creation of a Protected Zone that would cover the North Kharga Oasis and protect vegetal and animal species together with architectural vestiges and geosites. We hope that this partnership with Egyptian authorities and scientists will lead to a strong synergy between environnementalists and archaeologists. The fact that fieldwork was unfortunately impossible for us these two years led us all to bring together our knowledge, skills and tools, and should help building new collaborations between archaeological teams and Egyptian and Foreign scientific institutions in Egypt.

The CRISIS ANR collaborative programme led to several joint publications, most of them in press.

Certain concepts evoke such powerful connotations that they obscure the complexities of the phenomena they describe. The word crisis is one such example. While the term may appear to encompass a complex series of events leading up to fundamental changes, it proves problematic in that it introduces a time-related dimension that concentrates scattered structural sequences into a limited time period. Jared Diamond, who preferred the concept of collapse (2005), has deepened our approach to thinking about the resilience of a society, be it ancient or modern, and led us to look for answers and innovations, with a special focus on the sustainability of societies. These concepts, of « crisis » or « collapse » have deeply affected historiography, in particular that of the Roman Empire, with the controversial work of Huntington for instance, who tried to think the collapse of the Roman Empire in terms of climate. Still, these concepts pose important methodological questions; namely, how should the resilience of structures be measured? What chronological scale should be privileged ? How can we assess the dynamics and inputs of crisis in a society ?
In this regard, the second half of the third century AD used to be presented as a period of major political crisis within the Roman Empire. Ancient writers of both pagan and Christian faiths often associate this time with never-ending wars, barbarian invasions, famines, epidemics and earthquakes. Historians have refined this “major crisis of the third century,” in the words of Marc Bloch, over recent decades and enhanced the fact that regional situations differed strongly in the Provinces.
In Egypt, signs of crisis —often hastily attributed to the third century— do not coincide chronologically in the primary source material; rather, they occur throughout a transition period from the beginning of the third century all the way to the sixth century AD. The crisis becomes challenging to grasp fully as its manifestations extend over a long period and requires a pluridisciplinary approach as it encompasses environmental, political and economical aspects. The region of the oases of the Libyan Desert, especially the Great Oasis (Dakhla and Kharga), serves as an indicator for understanding the entire period, as it is located on the edges of the Empire and felt the various problems and debates pertaining to the crisis of Late Antiquity. Against all odds, this fragile, exposed, almost insular oasis environment, whose role in the Empire’s southern defensive line has long been debated, was able to avoid collapse during a long period.?
Four archaeological missions working in the Great Oasis – the Amheida team in Dakhla Oasis, directed by Roger Bagnall, the North Kharga Oasis Darb Ain Amur Survey, under Salima Ikram’s responsibility, the Umm Dabadib Mission, directed by Corinna Rossi, and the El-Deir mission in Kharga oasis, under Gaëlle Tallet’s direction- and a geoarchaeological team, led by Jean-Paul Bravard, aim at painting a more detailed picture of the situation in this major area of the Empire throughout a large transition period- first to sixth century AD- using a pluridisciplinary and collaborative methodology. The environmental, political, cultural and economical facets of the various crises faced by the Great Oasis throughout the end of Antiquity will be studied together in order to grasp the resilience and capacity of adaptation of these societies and to provide a regional frame to the understanding of the crisis of the Roman Empire.