Laurence Hapiot

Qaret el-Toub is one of the few sites in the northern Bahariya oasis that escaped the archaeological surveys conducted by Ahmed Fakhry in the 1930s and 1940s. A graveyard settled on the bedrock was used from the end of the Old Kingdom until the early Roman Period. It belongs to the large ring of cemeteries surrounding the urban area of Psôbthis, ancient chief town of the “Small Oasis”. In the last quarter of the 3rd century AD, military castra were installed over the graves in the incoming area of the caravan routes from the south (Darb el-'Arbayin) and from the northwest (Siwa Oasis). This first volume of the final archaeological reports of the excavations at Qaret el-Toub attempts to identify the nature of the site, to make an assessment of the scientific potential of its archaeological field, and to determine the overall chronology of the history of this oasis fortress, that was built in order to embody locally and to protect the public institutions of the Roman State. As the fort was occupied continuously, from its building under Diocletian and Maximian until the 10th century AD, the sequence of occupation levels which it provides makes it an ideal research field for the study of the transitional period leading from late Antiquity to Arabic times.