Abstrakt
Although there are over 90 Roman fortlets, forts and fortresses in Egypt, they are only occasionally studied as a part of the bigger fortification system. A large number of preserved forts were built in the Late Antiquity.
Therefore we can follow the development of the fortification system in Egypt from the creation of the province in the year 30 BC through the Late Antiquity and the Byzantine era to the Arab conquest in 641 AD. There are three distinguishable limes areas in Egypt: the Nubian frontier, the frontier in the Eastern desert and the frontier in the Western desert.
Each area had its own characteristic. The Nubian frontier is the closest to purely military frontier in Egypt.
It protected Egypt against the neighboring Meroe kingdom. However it did not separate those two lands.
The frontier area was a zone of trade and worship of both Egyptian and Meroitic deities. The desert frontiers had broader socioeconomic functions.
The Eastern desert was more in the focus of the Roman army in the Early Empire and the Western desert in the Late Antiquity. In this paper I will focus on the differences between those three parts of Limes in Egypt, the influence of the nature of the enemy and geographical conditions on the form of the Limes and the change of the frontier over the time.