Social life in ancient Egypt / by W.M. Flinders Petrie.

  • Flinders Petrie
Date:
1923
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Social life in ancient Egypt / by W.M. Flinders Petrie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    on prominent points. A very curious feature is the sudden stoppage of the patrol roads, which run along the edge of the cliffs ; they are well marked, and run on to the precipitous side of a gorge, and continue in the same line on the other side. They must have served separate patrols on each length between the valleys ; yet what was the use of patrols up there is hard to see, as any one approaching from the desert would go down the valleys. The roads across from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea are described by Pliny as running from (i) Pelusium, or (2) just to the east at Gerron, or (3) much farther east by Mt. Casius, and all joining at about half-way across to Suez, then called Berenice. The roads in the cultivation are mere tracks between fields, sufficient for the donkeys, and later for the camels brought in by the Arabs. More regular tracks go along the canal banks ; and the most important ways are on the top of the ancient dykes which run from the Nile to the desert, dividing the country into a series of basins for retaining the water of the inundation. These dykes are as old as the 1st Dynasty, belonging to the great irrigation works attributed by later writers to the age of Mena. Such dykes were the natural roads ever since they were made, especially during the inundation months,
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