The agricultural landscape of Ayn Manawir (Kharga Oasis, Egypt) through the Persian period ostraca (vth-ivth century BC)

International audienceAbstractThis article proposes a first reconstruction of the agricultural landscape of the village located in a place called Ayn Manawir (south of Kharga Oasis, Egypt) during the Persian period (5th and 4th century BC). To this end, it uses the legal documentation relating to the sale of “water days”, which made it possible to irrigate fields and gardens. A small number of these documents detail the immediate environment of the plots so that it is possible to provide an overview of the natural components of the landscape (part 2). Moreover, the systematic study of hydronyms allows us to reconstitute the local agricultural history initially dominated by pioneer families who brought water from theperched groundwater to its gradual exhaustion (part 3)