Egyptian or Nubian? Dry-Stone Architecture at Wadi el-Hudi,Wadi es-Sebua,and the Eastern Desert

Abstract

When building in dry-stone, Nubians and Egyptians used different techniques to construct walls. Wadi es-Sebua has been used as a type-site for C-Group Nubian settlements. Its exterior wall exhibits courses of stones laid at an angle, a technique I associate with Nubians. The Egyptian fortified mining settlements at Wadi el-Hudi, el-Hisnein, and Dihmit use dry-stone architecture, similar to the architecture at Wadi es-Sebua. Texts and pottery support that many Nubians also worked for contemporary Egyptian mining expeditions in the Eastern Desert during the early Middle Kingdom. I suggest that Nubian workforces carried out much of the architectural construction of these fortified settlements using their own traditional building techniques, but following an Egyptian design, and I argue that the so-called ‘loopholes’ found in these exterior walls were not for military defence, but rather were windows. These construction techniques point to a latent Nubian agency within the operation of Egyptian mining settlements.