White Desert Adventure: 2 Days of Camping, Fun & Exploration

History of the City

Over time, the Bahariya Oasis has had a number of different names. It has been called the Northern Oasis, the Little Oasis, Zeszes, Oassis Parva and the especially during the Christian era, the Oasis of al-Bahnasa, along with various other names. At one time, the Bahariya Oasis, as well as most of the rest of what is today referred to as the Western (or Libyan) Desert, was the floor of an immense ocean. Yet from about 3000 BC until the present, almost no rainfall graces this part of the world, so groundwater is its life blood.

Remains of stone tools found in the Bahariya oasis evidence the existence of settlements in the area as early as the Paleolithic Period. In fact, we are told that anyone with a trained eye, walking about the oasis, can spot prehistoric stone knives and and axes simply lying upon the surface of the sand.

However, little real excavation has been carried out in the Oasis, at least until the last several years, and so we know little of the history of the Bahariya Oasis prior to Egypt's Middle Kingdom. What we do know comes mostly from the work of Ahmed , and 20th century Egyptologist, who worked in the Oasis. Otherwise, most of the archaeological investigation has been carried out by the local antiquity authorities, and some recently by Zahi Hawass. It is possible that during the Old Kingdom there may have been a governor appointed to the Bahariya Oasis, as there was in Dakhla, but so far we have no hard evidence that might support such an argument. In fact, we hear of a people known as the Tjehenu, who inhabited the Western Desert and were fair skinned with blond hair and blue eyes, and with whom the early Egyptian's fought. However, its seems that the Bahariya Oasis was originally inhabited by a mix of people from the Nile Valley and Bedouins from Libya. At that time, evidence suggests that the Oasis was much larger than it is now, but no settlements dating to the Predynastic, Early Dynastic or Old Kingdom have thus far been unearthed.

By the Middle Kingdom, Bahariya was known as Zeszes, and definitely fell under the control of the Egyptian kings, though only a single scarab (inscribed with the name of Senusret) from that period has been found in Bahariya. Yet, documentary evidence provides that both Amenemhet and Senusret II began to pay considerable attention to the Oasis, probably to deflect regular attacks from the Libyans. At that time, there must have been large agricultural estates, large houses for the landowners, and even military garrisons to keep marauders at bay. Agriculture was, as it is now, of major importance to this community, and wine, as well as other goods of the Oasis, made their way from here to the Nile Valley by donkey caravans along two different routes.

However, during the 15th Dynasty, when Egypt was under the rule of the Hyksos kings from Palestine, there was a lapse in trade with the Oasis, presumably because the trade routes were unsafe. At that time, we find only one text that refers to the Oasis, when King Kamose refers to it as DjesDjes, the word for the region's famous wine.

According to Fakhry, under Tuthmosis III, many improvements were made in the Oasis, including new water wells. His reign marked an increase in the local population. At this time, the Oasis was under the control of Thinis (Abydos), to which they paid tribute. We find visual evidence of this in the private tomb of Rekhmire, who was Tuthmosis III's vizier. One scene portrays the people of the Oasis, wearing striped kilts, presenting gifts of mats, hides and wine. However, the Oasis apparently had at least a governor who was a native of Bahariya, for the oldest tomb so far discovered in the Oasis is that of Amenhotep Huy, where his title is given as "Governor of the Northern Oasis". The tomb is dated to the end of the 18th Dynasty or the beginning of the 19th. By the 19th Dynasty of Egypt's New Kingdom, the Bahariya Oasis became even more important because of its mineral abundance. Even today, the mining of iron ore continues to be a vital industry. Even Ramesses II, in the Temple of Amun at Luxor, refers to the Bahariya as a place of mining. Of course agricultural products continued to be important in the Oasis, including dates, grapes, figs, livestock and pigeons (for food).

Bahariya was known as the Northern Oasis, or sometimes as Waha al-Khas during the early Islamic period. How exactly the religious pecking order of the Bahariya was made up during the Christian and Islamic periods is unclear, but it is evident that the Oasis had a considerable Christian community until the 16th or 17th century. Amir Ibn el-As, the commander of the Arab army that conquered Egypt, sent troops under Uqba Ibn-Nafea to insure political stability within the Western Desert, but apparently the more remote areas did not immediately adopt Islam. Islam migrated into the Oasis from two different directions, both from Libya and the Nile Valley. It has been theorized that, at least during its earliest phase, those converted to Islam were not Christians, but left over pagans from the old religions. During this period, the oasis suffered considerably, as did most places in the Western Oasis. We here of sand dunes covering cultivated land, and gone was the trade in wine due to the edicts of Islam. Taxes were now levied against dates and olive oil. Much of this period is relatively unknown to us, but the Fatimids, who had affiliations in Libya, may have crossed the desert in the conquest of Egypt at Bahariya.

Muhammad Ali, often sited as the founder of modern Egypt, made claim to the Bahariya Oasis, including Farafra and Hayz, as early as 1813, before bothering with any of the other oasis. He executed a tribute of 2,000 Spanish piasters annually, and Wilkinson says he later raised this to 20,000 reals. Apparently, this created problems, because unlike Kharga, Bahariya required a large force of between 400 and 500 men to maintain peace within the oasis.