Antiquities.
The archæological remains of Baharia Oasis admit of a classification, based on their ages, into the following three groups:—
| (a) | Egyptian, consisting principally of a stela of the 18th, a tomb of the 19th, and temples of the 26th Dynasty. |
| (b) | Roman, including the ruins of an arch and various other structures; also the subterranean aqueducts still in use for conveying water from springs to the cultivated land. |
| (c) | Coptic, embracing the ruins of several villages and a church. |
As the literature concerning these is mostly fragmentary and scattered, it may be well to describe briefly the various remains, following the above classification.
(a) Egyptian Antiquities.
The oldest inscription yet found in Baharia is that on a stela of the time of Thothmes II, which was discovered by Ascherson in 1876 to the west of Bawitti.
This stela is of historical importance, as being not only the oldest of all antiquities from the oases, but also older than any inscription bearing reference to the oases, and as proving that even at the beginning of the New Empire the Egyptians had taken possession of the oases and erected temples to their gods therein.
Ascherson was also the first to record the existence of the ruins of an Egyptian temple in the oasis. This structure is marked on his map[64] as existing some 2 kilometres north-west of El Qasr; he appears, however, to have noted no inscription on the walls (the only parts remaining) and his brief references to it in his memoir do not give any data as to its age.
In his recent visit (1900) to Baharia, Steindorff[65] discovered the remains of two Egyptian temples. The first of these exists under modern dwellings in the middle of the village of El Qasr, in a farm belonging to the Omda. It contains at present only one room, with no inscriptions except on the roof, whence, however, we learn that the building was erected during the reign of King Apries (B.C. 588-570) to “Ammon-Re, the Lord of the Oasis, who dwells in Desdest,” by a certain Weh-eb-Re-nofr and one Ded-Khens-ef-Onkh.