Who Inhabited Dakhleh Oasis? Searching for an Oasis Identity in Pharaonic Egypt

Abstract

A variety of textual and pictorial sources demonstrate that the inhabitants of Dakhleh Oasis were considered different from the people who lived in the Nile Valley. The archaeological profile of this oasis, however, displays nothing that is identifiable as non-Egyptian. This paper discusses why such an evidentiary inconsistency exists by examining contextual issues that contribute to the manifestation of identity in the archaeological record. Current theories on the identification of ancient identities are adapted to what is known of Dakhleh Oasis to demonstrate that the lack of non-Egyptian material culture does not necessarily equate to a population in Dakhleh Oasis that is homogeneous with the Nile Valley.