Three sites of Kharga Oasis (Dush, Labakha, and El-Deir), which were explored between 1981 and 2010, are considered in this chapter. They were occupied from the end of the fourth century BC till the early fifth century AD. About a thousand buried individuals were examined. The studies concerned sex ratio, age at death, causes of death, and pathology of mummies. More men than women were discovered, and the number of children found was particularly high in the Christian cemetery at El-Deir. Regarding age at death, the main feature is the proportion of women between 12 and 40 (as at many cemeteries). The pathological study, mainly based on X-rays, revealed problems with bones (fractures, arthritis, scoliosis…), problems with teeth (worn teeth, decay cases), and many cases of bilharzia. Presence of GAL (growth arrest lines) was observed on many mummies or skeletons,indicating periods when food was inadequate. Exploring cemeteries revealed the activities of their inhabitants: they were mainly farmers and craftsmen involved in potting, weaving, wickerwork, stone-cutting, and woodwork. There were obviously “rich” and “poor” tombs, but differences in quality could be due to an impoverishment of populations between Ptolemaic and Roman times.

Only a few of the cemeteries in the Great Oasis from Ptolemaic and Roman times have been published: Kellis (Dakhla), Dush, Labakha, El-Deir (Kharga). There are mainly family tombs, often reused. People are usually mummified. In every cemetery funerary equipment was present (painted coffins and cartonnages, painted or gilded masks), as well as votive offerings, mainly ceramics. Traditional Egyptian practices were preserved till major changes in the late third to fourth century AD. Individual pit-graves normally disposed west/east took the place of collective tombs; mummification was practiced, but many bodies were naturally dried out; funerary equipment became rare (no coffins nor cartonnages). This new type of funerary practice is related to Christianisty’s expansion. A funerary textile is an archaeological object and must be studied in its context. At El-Deir we can follow the tradition and the changes, also thanks to the textiles. The three fibers highlighted on the site are flax, cotton, and wool. They reflect the evolution of funerary practices and daily life, and their economy, and pose questions on the origin and appearance of textile novelties, during a complex period, in a specific context.

Introduction

Over the course of three centuries, two successive conquests profoundly altered Egyptian society. The introduction of a new ethnic group into the country resulting from the Macedonian conquest in 332 seems not to have brought about major changes. Greco-Macedonians and Egyptians coexisted without great conflict. And Egypt in the hands of the Ptolemies remained, at least up until the second century BCE, an independent and prosperous kingdom. But in integrating Egypt into a vast empire of which it was only one province among many, the Roman conquest of 30 BCE far more profoundly transformed its institutions, administrative and economic organization, and Egyptian society as a whole. (See Map 4.) Henceforth, the practice of the traditional religion of Egypt occurred within the framework of a nation subject to “foreign occupiers,” but under very different circumstances.

The religious policy of the rulers

The new regimes did not demonstrate any hostility to the native Egyptian religion. What interested the conquering powers was the domination and exploitation of the territory, not the diffusion of their own religious cults in the vanquished nation. Because they resided in Egypt, the Lagids found it necessary to heed the reactions of a people obviously committed to its traditional forms of worship. This was far less the case for the emperors; barring rare exceptions, they did not set foot in a country that for them was basically, in the words of Tiberius, “sheep for shearing” (see Cassius Dio 57.10).