The oases of the western desert of Egypt offer an unusual opportunity to look at the interrelationship of distance, value, and investment in a society of the Roman and Late Roman period. The oases were located far from the Nile valley, with its inexpensive river transportation, and their peculiar ecology demanded large-scale investment to make water available in quantity. The result was a society in which capital necessarily played an important role, and land transportation was critical. The social structure of the oases was for these reasons far more unequal than that of the Nile valley. Excavations of recent decades in the Dakhla and Kharga oases have given us a vivid picture of these extreme cases of the results of Roman capitalism.
المتحدث: prof. Dr. Roger S. Bagnall
Professor of Ancient History and
Leon Levy Director, emeritus
Institute for the Study of the Ancient World
New York University
