Les inscriptions rupestres du Ouadi Hammamat I

Écrire en expédition, de l’Ancien à la fin du Moyen Empire

By (author) Vincent Morel

Book cover: Les inscriptions rupestres du Ouadi Hammamat I

Extent: 438 pages

Publisher: Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale

Subjects: Ancient Egypt

Language: French

Paperback (Forthcoming)

(July 2026)

ISBN: 9782724710588

8 x 11 inches

Price: $52.00

On back order

In Egypt’s Eastern Desert, the greywacke quarries of Wadi Hammamat preserve a vast corpus of rock inscriptions spanning several millennia. Drawing on recent field surveys, this volume examines key inscriptions from the Old Kingdom through to the end of the Middle Kingdom. It adopts a combined material, visual, and textual perspective that brings to light the spatial dynamics of these carvings, their graphic arrangement, and the intertextual dialogues they establish with each other. Combining landscape archaeology and literary analysis, the book offers a renewed interpretation of these inscriptions, elucidating the social and intellectual worlds that shaped them. The study shows that inscriptions produced during expeditions, while serving as a means of marking presence and asserting control over space, are also embedded within an environment which the act of inscribing itself helps to construct and to sacralize.

  • By (author) Vincent Morel