Mendes, City of the Ram-Man

Wednesday, November 17, 2021 at 8 pm EST via Zoom

Mendes, City of the Ram-Man

Donald Redford

Co-sponsored by the DC Chapter of ARCE

Approximately 50 km. due east  of the center line of the Egyptian Nile Delta, the rich arable land turns into a wilderness of rock and gigantic sand dunes. Proceeding towards the sunrise, the traveler has begun to cross the only land bridge linking the two largest continents on earth, Africa and Asia, viz. the Sinai Peninsula.

Two thresholds, Israel on the Asian side, and Lower Egypt on the African, constrain his route and throw the traveler together with other caravans, settlers, traders and armies carrying goods, slaves, even ideas!

Mendes, a large city occupied from remote pre-historic times to the Middle Ages, stands on this African threshold. We have subjected the site to excavation (now interrupted because of the pandemic) from 1990, and it has yielded a wealth of information, some of it turning our conventional wisdom on its head. Welcome to the “City-of-the-Ram-man!”

Donald Redford, Professor of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies and History at Pennsylvania State University and Director of the Mendes Excavations

For questions or to request accommodations contact:

Donald O Kane