For much of the twentieth century, Egyptologists shied away from explorations in the vast sand sea known as the Western Desert.
An expanse of desolation the size of Texas, the desert seemed too harsh, too implacable, too unforgiving a place
for an ancient civilization nurtured on the abundance of the Nile. In spring, a hot, stifling wind known as the Khamsin
roars across the Western Desert, sweeping up walls of suffocating sand and dust; in summer,
daytime heat sometimes pushes the mercury into the 130 degree–Fahrenheit range.
The animals, what few there are, tend to be unfriendly. Scorpions lurk under the rocks,
cobras bask in the early morning sun. Vipers lie buried under the sand.
Umm Mawagir, as the city is now known, flourished in the Western Desert from 1650 to 1550 BCE,
nearly a millennium after the construction of the Great Pyramid at Giza.
This was a dark, tumultuous period of Egyptian history.
the discovery of Umm Mawagir, in concert with finds from the more westerly Dakhla Oasis, says Darnell,
reveals clearly how the Theban dynasty succeeded in extending its power and military might
more than 100 miles into the hostile desert, building an entire city, and controlling a vital crossroads of trade routes.
The growing mountain of data revealed just how much traffic once flowed along the Girga Road,
which stretched 110 miles westward from Thebes in the Nile Valley to remote Kharga Oasis in the Western Desert.
In 2005, the team found a dense litter of ceramic molds for baking bread—vestiges of a large industrial bakery—
about half a mile north of the temple.
The sheer scale of the operation, says Darnell, suggests that Umm Mawagir was producing a huge surplus of bread,
enough to feed an army of soldiers."