Under the pressure of increasing threats of plundering, the historical heritage in Egyptian desert areas by robbers using modern technologies, such as GPS navigation systems and heavy-duty off-road vehicles, Egyptian authorities appealed to the international Egyptological community in the year 2000 with a request for help with the exploration and rescue of immediately threatened monuments located in the high desert. The Czech archaeological team responded to the appeal and was assigned a concession for the exploration of the oasis of el-Hayez in the Western Desert. This are consist of about 40 square kilometers, and the large, and archaeologically nearly untouched el-Hayez Oasis lies in the heart of the so-called Black Desert, ca 400 km south-west of Cairo. Dominated by the ruins of a late Roman fortress and an early Christian basilica of St. Bartholomew, a very summary archaeological survey of the oasis was carried out about seventy years ago by Ahmad Fakhry.
In the first stage, the Czech team conducted a thorough archaeological survey of the oasis by means of modern methods of geoinformatics using, among other things, satellite photos. The survey seasons resulted in the making of an archaeological map of el-Hayez which records the main archaeological sites and monuments. The monuments come from various periods, but above all from prehistory and late Roman – early Christian periods but, surprisingly, also an Old Kingdom caravan station was discovered in the oasis.
Following the archaeological survey, a late Roman – early Christian village in the site called Bir Shawish in the western part of the oasis was chosen for a thorough exploration. The excavation of the village and its adjacent cemetery revealed rich evidence about the life at the fringe of the southern limes romanus and the gradual transition of the inhabitants of Bir Shawish to Christianity. Undoubtedly, one of the greatest discoveries in the el-Hayez oasis is that of a series of large manawars – a branching network of big underground tunnels serving to collect the rare rain water and conduct it to underground water tanks, from which it was distributed to the local fields and gardens.
