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The Empire on the Margins: A Social History of the Egyptian Eastern Desert during the Roman Imperial Period (M. Hahn)

Habilitation project Dr. Michael Hahn

Abstract

This habilitation project examines the Roman Eastern Desert of Egypt as a social space of imperial presence beyond urban centres. Drawing on archaeological, epigraphic and, above all, ostracological sources, it analyses the everyday lives of soldiers, nomadic desert dwellers and traders/prostitutes between the 1st and 3rd centuries AD. The focus is on the question of how the Roman Empire was experienced, practised and defined in an extreme periphery. The study views the Empire not as a homogeneous sphere of rule, but as a fragmented world of experience. In doing so, it contributes to a social history of the Roman Empire from the perspective of marginalised actors.

Project description

The project examines the Roman presence in one of the most ecologically extreme and, at the same time, economically most important peripheral regions of the Roman Empire: the Egyptian Eastern Desert between the Nile Valley and the Red Sea. Despite its hostile environment, this region had been intensively developed since the 1st century CE – as a transit corridor for trade with India, as the site of imperial quarries, and as a militarily secured infrastructural zone of considerable fiscal and political significance. Trade with the Indian Ocean passed through the Red Sea ports of Myos Hormos and Berenice, whilst valuable building materials for imperial prestige projects were quarried from the imperial quarries. Securing these resources led to a profound military and administrative penetration of an otherwise sparsely populated area.

The project's aim is to offer the first systematic analysis of this region as a social sphere of lived experience under imperial rule. The central question is where, how and for whom the Roman Empire was tangibly present in everyday life, in the absence of established civil institutions such as cities, local elites or village communities. In doing so, the study deliberately shifts its focus away from urban centres, normative discourses of rule and elites, towards actors whose lives unfolded on the very periphery of the empire.

The study examines three groups that bring out the tension between the Empire and the individual with poignancy: Roman soldiers stationed at small military outposts, nomadic desert dwellers, and civilians – traders and sex workers – who carried out their work in the military camps in the desert. Drawing on these actors, the study analyses questions of belonging, identity, violence, dependence and scope for action within the tension between imperial order and existential isolation. It becomes clear that, for many of those involved, the empire was not a coherent sphere of rule, but was spatially and symbolically condensed within the walls of individual military camps.

Methodologically, the project combines social and cultural-historical approaches with a systematic analysis of archaeological, epigraphic and, above all, ostracological sources. The thousands of inscribed clay shards from the praesidia of the Eastern Desert – extensively studied since the 1990s through the work of Hélène Cuvigny, Adam Bülow-Jacobsen, Jean-Pierre Brun, Valerie Maxfield and Steven Sidebotham – provide a unique insight into everyday communication, administrative practices, conflicts and personal concerns in a world otherwise scarcely documented in writing. The thesis builds upon this foundational research but goes beyond it by integrating the scattered individual studies into a comprehensive ancient historical synthesis for the first time.

Engaging with current research debates on Romanisation, imperial integration and borderlands (including Clifford Ando, David Mattingly and Carlos Noreña), this habilitation thesis conceives of the Roman Empire not as a monolithic bloc, but as a fragmented world of experience. In the Eastern Desert, for many actors, the Empire was spatially, socially and symbolically confined to the walls of individual military camps; a sense of belonging and loyalty had to be renegotiated time and again. The study thus contributes to a social history of the Roman Empire ‘from below’ and demonstrates how imperial rule was produced, limited and transformed, particularly in the periphery.

Select Bibliography

  • Ando, C., Roman Social Imaginaries: Language and Thought in the Context of Empire, Toronto 2015.
  • Breeze, D. J./Reddé, M., Frontiers of the Roman Empire/frontiers de l'Empire Romain. The Roman Frontier in Egypt/La frontière romaine en Égypte, Oxford 2021.
  • Brun, J.-P./Faucher, Th./Redon, B./Sidebotham, S. (Hg.), The Eastern Desert of Egypt during the Graeco-Roman Period: Archaeological Reports, Paris 2018.
  • Bülow-Jacobsen, A., Traffic on the roads between Coptos and the Red Sea, in: Kaper, O. E. (Hg.), Life on the Fringe. Living in the Southern Egyptian Deserts during the Roman and Early-Byzantine Periods. Proceedings of a Colloquium Held on the Occasion of the 25th Anniversary of the Netherlands Institute for Archaeology and Arabic Studies in Cairo, 9-12 December 1996, Leiden 1998, 63-74.
  • Cuvigny, H. (Hg.), La route de Myos Hormos. L'armée romaine dans le desert Oriental d'Ègypte, 2 Bde., Kairo 2003/2006.
  • Cuvigny, H., Femmes tournantes: remarques sur la prostitution dans les garnisons romaines du désert de Bérénice, ZPE 172 (2010), 159-166.
  • Cuvigny, H. (Hg.), Rome in Egypt's Eastern Desert, 2 Bde., New York 2021.
  • Fuhrmann, Ch. J., Policing the Roman Empire. Soldiers, Administration, and Public Order, Oxford 2012.
  • Haensch, R., Der Exercitus Aegyptiacus – ein provinzialer Heeresverband wie andere auch?, in: Lembke K./Minas-Nerpel, M./Pfeiffer, S. (Hg.), Tradition and Transformation: Egypt under Roman Rule. Proceedings of the International Conference, Hildesheim, Roemer- and Pelizaeus-Museum, 3-6 July 2008, Leiden/Boston 2010, 111-132.
  • Mattingly, D., Imperialism, Power and Identity. Experiencing the Roman Empire, Princeton 2011.
  • Mattingly, D., Between Sahara and Sea. Africa in the Roman Empire, Ann Arbor 2023.
  • Maxfield, V., Ostraca and the Roman Army in the Eastern Desert, Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies. Supplement 81 (2003), 153-173.
  • Nappo, D./Zerbini, A., On the Fringe: Trade and Taxation in the Egyptian Eastern Desert, in: Kaizer, T./Hekster, O. (Hg.), Frontiers in the Roman World. Proceedings of the Ninth Workshop of the International Network Impact of Empire (Durham, 16-19 April 2009), Leiden/Boston 2011, 61-77.
  • Noreña, C., The Problem(s) of Empire, JRS 114 (2024), 125-43.
  • Rathbone, D., Koptos the Emporion. Economy and Society, I-III A.D., in: Boussac, M.-F./Gabolde, M./Galliano, G. (Hg.), Autour de Coptos : actes du colloque organisé au Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon (17 - 18 mars 2000) (Topoi Suppl. 3), Lyon 2002, 179-198.
  • Reinard, P., Maximinus Thrax und die Erhebung des C. Iulius Verus Maximus zum Caesar – O.Did. 29 und seine historische Einordnung, in: Reinard, P. (Hg.), Geschichte auf Scherben. Das Leben in der östlichen Wüste Ägyptens in römischer Zeit, Gutenberg 2020, 121-147.
  • Sidebotham, S., Berenike and the Ancient Maritime Spice Route, Berkeley/Los Angeles/London 2011.
  • Stauner, K., New Documents from the Roman Military Administration in Egypt’s Eastern Desert: The Ostraca from the Praesidium of Didymoi, Philia Supplements 1 (2016), 796-815.
  • Young, G. K., Rome‘s Eastern Trade. International Commerce and Imperial Policy, 31 BC-AD 305, London/New York 2001.