Image Details

Hershel Shanks

Colorfully dressed bedouin identified as “37 Asiatics” ask for permission to enter Egypt in this 19th-century B.C. wall painting from the tomb of Nomarch Khnum-Hotep in Beni-Hassan. The head Bedouin, whose depiction has been emphasized by a cleaning of the wall, is identified as, “The Ruler of a Foreign Country Ibsha.” Egyptian literature, too, tells that “Asiatics” and foreigners came to Egypt to graze and water their livestock.