﻿6 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 59 



Lib. 2, which indicates that in the time of Josephus the population 

 of those remote tracts was considered as pure Egyptian. In attack- 

 ing Apion, Josephus accuses him of wishing to be considered a 

 Greek, when he is an Egyptian, and says " He believes himself [a 

 Greek], and that too, being born in the Oasis of Egypt whence he 

 is, as one would say, the first of all Egyptians." 



During the periods of the Persian, Greek, and Roman dominions 

 of Egypt, the Oasis was evidently regarded as an inherent part of 

 Egypt and its inhabitants as not differing from the Valley Egyptians. 

 It suffered, as it probably did before, invasions of the more southern 

 and more warlike tribes, which, however, did not result in coloniza- 

 tion. 



Edmonstone thus quotes (pp. 139-140) 1 two letters of the bishop 

 Nestorius, referring to later times, particularly to destructive raids 

 on the Oasis by the " Blemmyes " and other more southern tribes : 

 " After the Oasis was, as I mentioned above, taken by the bar- 

 barian (Blemmyes), and completely laid waste and devastated by 

 fire, they who, for what cause I know not, carried me off, suddenly 

 took compassion and dismissed me, adding threats, however, if I 

 did not instantly leave the country, for they said the Maziei were to 

 take possession as soon as we left it." The Blemmyes, according 

 to Strabo (Xylandri, L. 17, p. 786), were subject to the Ethiopians, 

 and inhabited " both sides of the Nile, on the borders of Egypt, to 

 which country, being a nomad race, they became very troublesome 

 neighbors." These raids have in all probability repeatedly reduced 

 the population of the Oasis, but did not alter its ethnic nature. 



There are a few later records concerning Kharga, touching on its 

 famous wines, on its tributes to Egypt, on its being used as a place 

 of banishment (particularly during the early centuries of the Chris- 

 tian era) and on its temples, its Christians (Copts), and its garri- 

 sons, 2 but these contain nothing of anthropological interest except 

 the indication of the affluence to the Oasis, through those who were 

 banished thither and through the garrison personnel, of foreign 



1 From Evagrius, Hist. Eel., Lib. 1, cap. 5. 



2 The references apply in some of the cases to the oases in general. Thus, 

 for instance, the " Notitia dignitatum," composed under the sons of Theo- 

 dosius the Great and mentioned by Schweinfurth in his " Notizen zur Kennt- 

 niss der Oase El-Chargeh " (Petermann's Mittheilungen, 1875, p. 385), speaks 

 of the garrisons of the oases as having been composed of Quades, Armenians 

 and Ahasges. And when the Great Oasis is spoken of separately it doubt- 

 less includes mostly Dakhla as well as Kharga, for these were not always 

 distinguished as two separate territories. 



