Mersa Gawasis ( Ancient Egyptian ''Saww'') is a small

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

ian

harbour A harbor (American English), harbour (British English; see spelling differences), or haven is a sheltered body of water where ships, boats, and barges can be docked. The term ''harbor'' is often used interchangeably with ''port'', which is a ...

on the

Red Sea The Red Sea ( ar, البحر الأحمر - بحر القلزم, translit=Modern: al-Baḥr al-ʾAḥmar, Medieval: Baḥr al-Qulzum; or ; Coptic: ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϩⲁϩ ''Phiom Enhah'' or ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϣⲁⲣⲓ ''Phiom ǹšari''; T ...

and a former Egyptian port city. The harbour lies at the mouth of Wadi Gawasis, 2 km south of the mouth of

Wadi Gasus Wadi ( ar, وَادِي, wādī), alternatively ''wād'' ( ar, وَاد), North African Arabic Oued, is the Arabic term traditionally referring to a valley. In some instances, it may refer to a wet (ephemeral) riverbed that contains water onl ...

. 25 km north is the city of

Safaga Port Safaga, also known as Safaga ( ar, سفاجا ', ), is a town in Egypt, on the coast of the Red Sea, located south of Hurghada. This small port is also a tourist area that consists of several bungalows and rest houses, including the Safaga ...

and 50 km south al-Qusair
mersa gawasis coordinates
The place was apparently used as a port in the reigns of

Senusret I Senusret I (Middle Egyptian: z-n-wsrt; /suʀ nij ˈwas.ɾiʔ/) also anglicized as Sesostris I and Senwosret I, was the second pharaoh of the Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt. He ruled from 1971 BC to 1926 BC (1920 BC to 1875 BC), and was one of the most ...

Amenemhat IV :''See Amenemhat, for other individuals with this name.'' Amenemhat IV (also known as Amenemhet IV) was the seventh and penultimateJürgen von Beckerath: ''Handbuch der ägyptischen Königsnamen'', Münchner ägyptologische Studien, Heft 49, ...

of the 12th Dynasty, and served as a loading point for expeditions to Punt. The harbour was also a starting point for journeys to the mines of

Sinai Sinai commonly refers to: * Sinai Peninsula, Egypt * Mount Sinai, a mountain in the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt * Biblical Mount Sinai, the site in the Bible where Moses received the Law of God Sinai may also refer to: * Sinai, South Dakota, a place ...

.Sayed: ''Wadi Gasus'' in: Bard, ''Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt'', 1999, S. 868.

Etymology

''Mersa'' means ''port'', and ''Gawasis'' is a medieval term for ''scout boat''.Sayed: ''Wadi Gasus'' in: Bard, ''Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt'', 1999, S. 866.

History of investigation

When a

stele A stele ( ),Anglicized plural steles ( ); Greek plural stelai ( ), from Greek , ''stēlē''. The Greek plural is written , ''stēlai'', but this is only rarely encountered in English. or occasionally stela (plural ''stelas'' or ''stelæ''), whe ...

from the 12th Dynasty was found in Wadi Gasus, in which a nearby port called ''Saww'' was mentioned,Stele des Chentchtaywer aus dem 28. Jahr des Amenemhet II., berichtet wird von einer sicheren Rückkehr aus Punt. the

University of Alexandria Alexandria University ( ar, جامعة الإسكندرية) is a public university in Alexandria, Egypt. It was established in 1938 as a satellite of Fouad University (the name of which was later changed to Cairo University), becoming an indepen ...

began an excavation headed by Abdel Monem A.H. Sayed near the

Graeco-Roman The Greco-Roman civilization (; also Greco-Roman culture; spelled Graeco-Roman in the Commonwealth), as understood by modern scholars and writers, includes the geographical regions and countries that culturally—and so historically—were di ...

hydreuma In Roman Egypt, (plural ) was an enclosed (and often fortified) "watering station" along trade routes in dry regions. A ''hydreuma'' was a manned and fortified watering hole or way station along a caravan route, providing a man-made oasis. E ...

'' (watering station) where the stele was found. As no other pharaonic monuments were found, it was concluded that the stele had been transported in Roman times from Saww to the watering station. The search was continued further east at the mouth of Mersa Gasus, where still no pharaonic remains were found. Just two kilometers further south of Mersa Gawasis, a small stele was discovered with fragmentary inscriptions of the

cartouche In Egyptian hieroglyphs, a cartouche is an oval with a line at one end tangent to it, indicating that the text enclosed is a royal name. The first examples of the cartouche are associated with pharaohs at the end of the Third Dynasty, but the fea ...

of Senusret I and the geographical name ''Bia-n-punt''. 250 meters west of the harbor, on the north side of Wadi Gawasis, was found a small shrine with the name and titles of Ankhu, valet of Senusret I. The shrine consisted of a limestone anchor as a base, from which the upper holes were cut out. In the inscriptions appeared again the name Saww (as ''Sww''), which is confirmed as the location of the harbor at Mersa Gawasis. Two hundred meters to the west of the shrine, another small stele was discovered with a limestone anchor as a base. It contained an order from Senusret I to the vizier

Intefiqer The ancient Egyptian noble Intefiqer ''(ỉnỉ-ỉt.f ỉqr)'' was ''overseer of the city'' and Vizier under Amenemhet I and Senusret I during the early 12th Dynasty (1991–1802 BC). He is known from several rock inscriptions in Lower Nubi ...

for a ship to travel to Bia-Punt. Subsequent excavations in 1977 recovered some pottery shards with hieratic inscriptions listing the content, origin and destination of the vessels. Among them appeared a temple of

Senusret II Khakheperre Senusret II was the fourth pharaoh of the Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt. He ruled from 1897 BC to 1878 BC. His pyramid was constructed at El-Lahun. Senusret II took a great deal of interest in the Faiyum oasis region and began work on an ...

, the name ''Punt'' and the name of an official from the time of

Senusret III Khakaure Senusret III (also written as Senwosret III or the hellenised form, Sesostris III) was a pharaoh of Egypt. He ruled from 1878 BC to 1839 BC during a time of great power and prosperity, and was the fifth king of the Twelfth Dynasty of the ...

. The finds revealed that ''Saww'' could now be clearly identified with Mersa Gawasis and that in the Middle Kingdom the ships sailed from here to Punt and back. It was found that the ships - as on the outward journey - were disassembled on return and transported to the Nile Valley in pieces. The approximately anchors were made in Mersa Gawasis and on return were left in place and reused, for example as a shrine or stela base.

Bibliography

* Kathryn A. Bard: ''Harbor of the Pharaohs to the land of Punt'', 2007, . * Abdel Monem A.H. Sayed: ''Wadi Gasus'' in: Kathryn A. Bard, ''Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt'', 1999, S. 866–868.

External links

"The Wadi Gawasis/Wadi Gasus, Egypt: A Preliminary Assessment"
- Istituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli
"Mersa Gawasis (Red Sea - Egypt): UNO/IsIAO and BU 2003-2004 Field Season under direction of Rodolfo Fattovich and Kathryn Bard"

* [https://archive.today/20120705043427/http://www.archaeogate.org/egittologia/article/441/1/joint-archaeological-expedition-at-mersawadi-gawasis-re.html "Joint Archaeological Expedition at Mersa/Wadi Gawasis (Red Sea, Egypt) of the University of Naples "l'Orientale" (Naples, Italy), Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente (Rome, Italy), and Boston University (Boston, USA) - 2005-2006 Field Season"]
"Mersa/Wadi Gawasis 2006-2007 Report"
Rodolfo Fattovich and Kathryn A. Bard editors

Kathryn A. Bard and Rodolfo Fattovich et al.

by Rodolfo Fattovich, Andrea Manzo - University of Naples "l'Orientale," Naples, Italy, and Chiara Zazzaro - University of Exeter, Exeter, UK

Notes

{{Coord, 26, 33, 26, N, 34, 02, 11, E, display=title Ancient Egypt Red Sea Governorate