 Beit el-ʿArāʾis, looking north | ||
| Beit el-ʿArāʾis · بيت العرائس | ||
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Beit el-'Ara'is (also Beit el-Arais, Beit el-Areis, Arabic:بيت العرائس, Beit el-ʿArāʾis, „House of the Brides“) Is the location of a Roman cemetery about four and a half kilometers southwest of the village el-Maʿṣara in the egyptian Sink ed-Dāchla. Archaeologists should be primarily interested in the site.
background
The Beit el-ʿArāʾis cemetery is located four and a half kilometers as the crow flies southeast of el-Maʿṣara and about four and a half kilometers south-southwest of Ismant el-Charab, about 300 meters south of the fruiting land in the desert.
The cemetery from Roman times, probably from the first to the third century, consists of seven adobe chapels and numerous shaft graves that were dug into the sanded limestone soil. The shaft graves are behind, i.e. H. south of the chapels, and in front of the three hills that form the southern and outer boundaries of the cemetery.
The burial chapels are similar to those in Ismant el-Charāb, but are smaller and simpler than those in Ismant. The chapels were built with air-dried clay bricks in alternating layers of stretcher and binder. The chapels were decorated with flat half-pillars, pilasters that support a beam or a flat fillet. The entrance to all chapels is in the north. The larger chapels consist of two rooms one behind the other. The chapels are covered with barrel vaults and domes at the top.
The site has so far not been archaeologically investigated and has only rarely been visited and described by travelers in the past. Was one of the few explorers Herbert Eustis Winlock (1884–1950), who stayed in ed-Dāchla in 1908 and used the site as El Ḳaṣr designated.
getting there
The village of el-Maʿṣara is relatively easy to get to by car, taxi or public transport. It is located directly on the main road from Mūṭ to el-Chārga. You leave the village in the south and walk or drive on dirt roads in a south-easterly direction. Shortly after the fields you come across a slope in an east-west direction. The best way to get there is on foot or on a motorcycle. If you drive carefully, you can also go to Beit el-ʿArāʾis by car.
mobility
The subsoil in the area of the cemetery is sandy. To the south behind the funerary chapels there are numerous shaft graves, so you should be careful when walking here.
Tourist Attractions
The archaeological site is actually guarded, so it may only be possible to see it from the slope in the area of the guard house.
The largest and solitary grave chapels are located on the outside in the east and in the west. In the middle there are two groups with two or three chapels. All chapels have a roughly square floor plan and were built exclusively with air-dried clay bricks. Half pillars have been indicated in the masonry on all sides and corners. Some of the chapels still have the original plaster made of clay and lime mortar. Where it is missing, you can of course recognize the masonry.
The easternmost (left), about five meters wide chapel originally consisted of two rooms. The front room has a transverse barrel vault, the rear, square one has a flat dome with pendentives, these are corner gussets. In the middle of the dome there is an opening through which the light falls. In the middle of the back room is the grave shaft. Later the chapel was extended by a vestibule, of which only the lowest layers have been preserved. The masonry of the vestibule is also different: it consists of running and rolling layers.
The westernmost chapel also consists of two rooms, each with a transverse barrel vault. The inner walls have a special feature because the walls rest on a flat base.
The middle grave chapels are smaller and often have a domed ceiling with pendentives.
The chess tombs consist of a roughly square shaft with an edge length of about one meter.
accommodation
Accommodation is available in, for example courage and in Qasr ed-Dachla.
trips
The visit of Beit el-ʿArāʾis can of course be combined with that of the village el-Maʿṣara connect. About seven kilometers east of the village on the same side of the road is the archaeological site of Ismant el-Charab. The church ruins are located a few kilometers northwest of the village Deir el-Malāk from the 16./17. Century.
literature
- : Ed Dākhleh Oasis: Journal of a camel trip made in 1908. new York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1936, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Dept. of Egyptian Art; 5, P. 42, panels XIII (bottom right), XXXII.
