The hydro-geomorphological setting of the Old Kingdom town of al-Ashmūnayn in the Egyptian Nile Valley

Abstract

The ancient Egyptian city of al-Ashmunayn (Minya Governorate, Egypt) has been an important regional centre since at least the Old Kingdom (c. 2686-2160 BC). It is assumed to have been founded on the banks of the Nile, although no scientific evidence was hitherto available to support this claim. In this multidisciplinary study, the results of a geoarchaeological survey were combined with the study of pottery fragments. Boreholes placed at al-Ashmunayn produced thick layers of late Old Kingdom pottery in association with the local occurrence of river channel deposits, allowing us to conclude that it is very likely that al-Ashmunayn originated on the banks of the Nile River. The regional borehole survey demonstrates that major geomorphological reconfigurations of the fluvial landscape occurred throughout the late Holocene, notably by the process of river avulsion. An interconnectedness of changes in the natural Nile Valley landscape and cultural dynamics of the ancient Egyptian riverine society seems possible, based on the coincidence of river reconfigurations with shifts in the preferential locations for high-status burials in the region.