The Wadi el-Jarf site, excavated since 2011, is an harbour on the Red Sea shore that was used at the beginning of the IVth dynasty to reach the copper and turquoise mines of the south-western part of Sinai Peninsula. During the 2013 archaeological campaign, hundreds of fragments of papyrus from the end of Khufu’s reign were collected at the entrance of one of the storage galleries that are one of the most remarkable features of the site. This is at the moment the oldest papyrus archive ever found in Egypt. It is related to a team of sailors and mainly includes two categories of documents: accounts of commodities delivered to the workers, and logbooks registering their daily activities over several months. Those last documents record missions led under the direction of the inspector Merer that are related to the transport of limestone blocks from the quarries of Tura to the Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza, then under construction on the opposite bank of the Nile. This book is the publication of the two best preserved logs of this archive. |