CAIRO - An American-Egyptian archeological team uncovered a large, 4,000-year-old pharaonic settlement near Egypt's Kharga oasis, Egypt's Ministry of Culture announced in a press release circulated on Wednesday. The settlement is around 1,000 years older than other known remains in Kharga, which lies in Egypt's Western Desert some 170 kilometres west of Luxor. Zahi Hawass, head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, said the settlement was probably an administrative centre along an ancient trade route between Egypt's oases and Nile Valley and what is now western Sudan. The settlement included an ancient bakery, and the amount of debris uncovered suggests the settlement may have been a source of food for an army.
