Peer review information Nature Geoscience thanks Cecile Blanchet, Eva Lange-Athinodorou and the o... more Peer review information Nature Geoscience thanks Cecile Blanchet, Eva Lange-Athinodorou and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Primary Handling Editors: James Super and Tamara Goldin, in collaboration with the Nature Geoscience team. Reprints and permissions information is available at www.nature.com/reprints.
O. DeM 10121: Contrary to the suggestion stated on pp. 3 and 118, this document does not present ... more O. DeM 10121: Contrary to the suggestion stated on pp. 3 and 118, this document does not present a kind of inventory, but is a clear example of the mid-Twentieth dynasty lists of pictograms representing name marks, cf. B. Haring, 'Towards Decoding the Necropolis workmen's Funny Signs', GM 178 (2000), 45-58.
Geological analysis of 5–10‐m‐long sediment cores in the context of the anthropologically derived... more Geological analysis of 5–10‐m‐long sediment cores in the context of the anthropologically derived materials within them has allowed us to identify ancient landscape features in the Theban area around Luxor, Egypt. From these observations we propose a sequence of island formation and northwestward movement of the Nile from the Middle Kingdom onward in the area of the temple complexes of Karnak. The geoarchaeological techniques used appear to document the Holocene lateral migration and vertical aggradation of the Nile. Our method can be used to test postulated movements and is applicable to sites in river or coastal plains where sediments were being deposited during the occupation of the site. The sediments were sieved to retrieve sherds and numerous other small items (2 mm and larger), which included worked stone fragments, rootlet concretions (rhizocretions), desert polished sand grains, and occasionally beads. The small stone fragments can be correlated with buildings and sherds of...
We have constructed a preliminary map of the locations of the Nile since the Old Kingdom from obs... more We have constructed a preliminary map of the locations of the Nile since the Old Kingdom from observations of historic maps, satellite images, and recent topographic survey. In addition to this work, we have made a walking tour of the Giza urban environment and find that patters in the landscape are remarkably persistent. Our results suggest that the pyramids were built close to a branch of the Nile but that this branch moved rapidly eastwards from the pyramid site with time.
"A programme of fieldwork has recently been conducted as part of the Theban Harbours and Wat... more "A programme of fieldwork has recently been conducted as part of the Theban Harbours and Waterscapes Survey (THaWS) in the Nile Valley, Upper Egypt. The project, run by the Egypt Exploration Society (http://www.ees.ac.uk; http://eestheban.tumblr.com) is an ongoing programme of research designed to advance our understanding of the past locations and migrations of the river Nile in the Theban Region over the last five millennia, and locate any basins and canals that may have been excavated to connect palaces and temples on the West and East Banks to the River Nile, including the enormous basins known today as Birket Habu and Birket Luxor. Work is also continuing on the East Bank to clarify interpretations of the geomorphological origins and development of the complex of temples at Karnak. The 2012 field season, conducted in February to April, reprised the aborted field season of 2011. While a reconnaissance of the study area had been possible in 2011, the situation in Egypt in late January of that year led to the field season being curtailed. The aim of the 2012 fieldwork was to catch up with the proposed surveys from 2011 and advance the survey work of the project, looking at a number of specific locations on the West and East Banks of the Nile river at Thebes. Original work conducted by the team in 2008 had begun to investigate the ancient landscapes, waterways and location of the River Nile within the Theban region using geophysical techniques, principally Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT), followed up by hand augering along the geophysical profiles in order to ground-truth the results. During past surveys in the Egyptian Nile valley we found ERT to be a very effective tool for detecting sub-surface features and former channels at Karnak and in the Edfu floodplain. For the original ERT surveys in 2008 and 2009 a Geoscan Research RM15 resistance meter was used with a PA3 probe array to take readings using an expanding Wenner array. In the 2012 season an Allied associates Tigre 64 multi-probe system was used (Figure 1). All the data has been processed using the Res 2D Inv software program. All the ERT profiles (and all other work e.g. hand augering and magnetometry) have been geo-referenced using a Total Station and the topographic data has been incorporated in the processing of the profiles. To complement this work we had also made limited use of magnetometry (Figure 2) to map potential near-surface archaeological features in broader area survey. As magnetometry is limited to collecting data to only 1.5 to 2m below the surface we plan to further complement this with the use of Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) in coming seasons. Our geophysical work was followed by geoarchaeological investigation. Locations were selected based upon the results of our geophysical survey data for hand augering in order to assess what the resistance readings corresponded to below the ground. An Eijkelkamp hand-auger was used to retrieve sediment from the floodplain to a depth of 8m. The sediments are recorded on-site immediately after retrieval and all sediment is sieved using 2mm and 4mm mesh to recover any artefacts (e.g. ceramic and stone fragments) and non-artefacts (e.g. other stones, rhizocretions etc). The data from the hand auger survey was then compared with the results of the ERT and magnetometer surveys."
the egyptian Royal titulary of Alexander the Great, I: Horus, two Ladies, Golden Horus, and thron... more the egyptian Royal titulary of Alexander the Great, I: Horus, two Ladies, Golden Horus, and throne names Francisco Bosch-Puche the PastoPhorion: 'Priests' Houses' in Legal texts from Ptolemaic Pathyris and elsewhere in egypt siân e thomas Compositions in egyptian Hieroglyphs in nineteenth Century england Chris elliott Local Vessels and Imported Copies Manufactured in sandy Fabrics silvia Lupo at tell el-Ghaba, north sinai and Maria Beatriz Cremonte Missing Koms and Abandoned Channels: Joshua trampier, the Potential of Regional survey in Willem toonen, Aude simony, the Western nile Delta Landscape and Jennifer starbird some Remarks on a negated earlier egyptian nominal sentence and Related Constructions sami Uljas some Literary Aspects of the Kamose Inscriptions Roland enmarch Brief CommuniCations A Roman Period Child's Mummy in the saffron Walden Museum Christina Riggs A Block of Ramesses II Reused as a threshold in the Wakala of Qawsun (Cairo) David Lorand A Coptic epistolary exercise from Wadi sarga Jennifer Cromwell A Middle Kingdom Funerary stela of a Woman at Al-salam school Museum, Assiut Abdalla Abdel-Raziq A stable of the third Intermediate Period at tell el-Retaba Łukasz Jarmużek new titles of the Great Chancellor Bay Alexander safronov the oracular Amuletic Decrees: A Question of Length t G Wilfong A neglected Funerary text James P Allen on the Validity of sexing Data from early excavations: examples from Qau tatjana Beuthe reviews
Page 1. Special Volume 3 (2012), pp. 135–142 Angus Graham – Kristian D. Strutt – Morag Hunter – S... more Page 1. Special Volume 3 (2012), pp. 135–142 Angus Graham – Kristian D. Strutt – Morag Hunter – Sarah Jones – Aurélia Masson – Marie Millet – Benjamin Pennington Reconstructing Landscapes and Waterscapes in Thebes, Egypt ...
New Kingdom royal cult temples in Thebes (Luxor, Egypt) are all located on the lower desert edge.... more New Kingdom royal cult temples in Thebes (Luxor, Egypt) are all located on the lower desert edge. Kom el-Hettân (Amenhotep III: reign 1391-1353 BCE, 18th Dynasty) is an exception, as it is located in the present Nile floodplain. Its anomalous position has puzzled Egyptologists, as has the termination of its use, which traditionally has been attributed to natural hazards such as flooding or earthquakes. Geoarchaeological analyses of the subsurface shows that Amenhotep III's temple was initially founded on a wadi fan that stood several metres above the contemporary surrounding floodplain landscape. The temple was fronted by a minor branch of the Nile, which connected the temple to the wider region, but the temple itself was relatively safe from the annual flood of the Nile. This geoarchaeological study comprised a coring programme to determine the c. 4000-yr landscape history of the local area. Chronological control was provided by the analysis of ceramic fragments recovered from within the sediments. This study shows that the New Kingdom period was, at least locally, characterised by extremely high sedimentation rates that caused a rapid rise of the floodplain and gradual submergence of the pre-existing high temple grounds. This is, however, not a plausible reason for the destruction of the temple, as frequent inundation did not begin until the temple was already out of use and largely dismantled.
In the Theban area around modern Luxor (Egypt), the River Nile divides the temple complexes of Ka... more In the Theban area around modern Luxor (Egypt), the River Nile divides the temple complexes of Karnak and Luxor from New Kingdom royal cult temples on the western desert edge. Few sites have been archaeologically identified in the western flood plain, despite its presumed pivotal role in the ancient ritual landscape as the territory that both physically divided and symbolically connected the areas inhabited by the living and the areas occupied by the dead. Using borehole data and electrical resistivity tomography, the current investigation of subsurface deposits reveals the location of an abandoned channel of the Nile. This river course was positioned in the western, distal part of the Nile flood plain. Over 2100 ceramic fragments recovered from boreholes date the abandonment of the relatively minor river channel to the (late) New Kingdom. This minor river branch could have played an important role in the cultural landscape, as it would have served to connect important localities in the ritual landscape. Changes in the fluvial landscape match with established periods of basin-wide hydroclimatic variability. This links cultural and landscape changes observed on a regional scale to hydroclimatic dynamics in the larger Nile catchment, in one of the focal areas of Ancient Egyptian cultural development.
Report on the 2016 spring season of the Theban Harbours and Waterscapes Survey (THaWS). The artic... more Report on the 2016 spring season of the Theban Harbours and Waterscapes Survey (THaWS). The article discusses the geoarchaeological and geophysical survey along a 3.2 km-long transect starting close to the front of the Temple of Millions of Years of Ay and Horemheb and stretching to the village of Geziret el-Bairat on the West Bank of the Nile.
The 2012 season in the Theban region ran from 15 February to 4 March and from 20 March to 7 April... more The 2012 season in the Theban region ran from 15 February to 4 March and from 20 March to 7 April. The team consisted of the authors of this report, with Reis Omar Farouk managing the hand augering and our local team of workmen. Our MSA inspector was Ms Warda el-Najar.
Peer review information Nature Geoscience thanks Cecile Blanchet, Eva Lange-Athinodorou and the o... more Peer review information Nature Geoscience thanks Cecile Blanchet, Eva Lange-Athinodorou and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Primary Handling Editors: James Super and Tamara Goldin, in collaboration with the Nature Geoscience team. Reprints and permissions information is available at www.nature.com/reprints.
O. DeM 10121: Contrary to the suggestion stated on pp. 3 and 118, this document does not present ... more O. DeM 10121: Contrary to the suggestion stated on pp. 3 and 118, this document does not present a kind of inventory, but is a clear example of the mid-Twentieth dynasty lists of pictograms representing name marks, cf. B. Haring, 'Towards Decoding the Necropolis workmen's Funny Signs', GM 178 (2000), 45-58.
Geological analysis of 5–10‐m‐long sediment cores in the context of the anthropologically derived... more Geological analysis of 5–10‐m‐long sediment cores in the context of the anthropologically derived materials within them has allowed us to identify ancient landscape features in the Theban area around Luxor, Egypt. From these observations we propose a sequence of island formation and northwestward movement of the Nile from the Middle Kingdom onward in the area of the temple complexes of Karnak. The geoarchaeological techniques used appear to document the Holocene lateral migration and vertical aggradation of the Nile. Our method can be used to test postulated movements and is applicable to sites in river or coastal plains where sediments were being deposited during the occupation of the site. The sediments were sieved to retrieve sherds and numerous other small items (2 mm and larger), which included worked stone fragments, rootlet concretions (rhizocretions), desert polished sand grains, and occasionally beads. The small stone fragments can be correlated with buildings and sherds of...
We have constructed a preliminary map of the locations of the Nile since the Old Kingdom from obs... more We have constructed a preliminary map of the locations of the Nile since the Old Kingdom from observations of historic maps, satellite images, and recent topographic survey. In addition to this work, we have made a walking tour of the Giza urban environment and find that patters in the landscape are remarkably persistent. Our results suggest that the pyramids were built close to a branch of the Nile but that this branch moved rapidly eastwards from the pyramid site with time.
"A programme of fieldwork has recently been conducted as part of the Theban Harbours and Wat... more "A programme of fieldwork has recently been conducted as part of the Theban Harbours and Waterscapes Survey (THaWS) in the Nile Valley, Upper Egypt. The project, run by the Egypt Exploration Society (http://www.ees.ac.uk; http://eestheban.tumblr.com) is an ongoing programme of research designed to advance our understanding of the past locations and migrations of the river Nile in the Theban Region over the last five millennia, and locate any basins and canals that may have been excavated to connect palaces and temples on the West and East Banks to the River Nile, including the enormous basins known today as Birket Habu and Birket Luxor. Work is also continuing on the East Bank to clarify interpretations of the geomorphological origins and development of the complex of temples at Karnak. The 2012 field season, conducted in February to April, reprised the aborted field season of 2011. While a reconnaissance of the study area had been possible in 2011, the situation in Egypt in late January of that year led to the field season being curtailed. The aim of the 2012 fieldwork was to catch up with the proposed surveys from 2011 and advance the survey work of the project, looking at a number of specific locations on the West and East Banks of the Nile river at Thebes. Original work conducted by the team in 2008 had begun to investigate the ancient landscapes, waterways and location of the River Nile within the Theban region using geophysical techniques, principally Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT), followed up by hand augering along the geophysical profiles in order to ground-truth the results. During past surveys in the Egyptian Nile valley we found ERT to be a very effective tool for detecting sub-surface features and former channels at Karnak and in the Edfu floodplain. For the original ERT surveys in 2008 and 2009 a Geoscan Research RM15 resistance meter was used with a PA3 probe array to take readings using an expanding Wenner array. In the 2012 season an Allied associates Tigre 64 multi-probe system was used (Figure 1). All the data has been processed using the Res 2D Inv software program. All the ERT profiles (and all other work e.g. hand augering and magnetometry) have been geo-referenced using a Total Station and the topographic data has been incorporated in the processing of the profiles. To complement this work we had also made limited use of magnetometry (Figure 2) to map potential near-surface archaeological features in broader area survey. As magnetometry is limited to collecting data to only 1.5 to 2m below the surface we plan to further complement this with the use of Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) in coming seasons. Our geophysical work was followed by geoarchaeological investigation. Locations were selected based upon the results of our geophysical survey data for hand augering in order to assess what the resistance readings corresponded to below the ground. An Eijkelkamp hand-auger was used to retrieve sediment from the floodplain to a depth of 8m. The sediments are recorded on-site immediately after retrieval and all sediment is sieved using 2mm and 4mm mesh to recover any artefacts (e.g. ceramic and stone fragments) and non-artefacts (e.g. other stones, rhizocretions etc). The data from the hand auger survey was then compared with the results of the ERT and magnetometer surveys."
the egyptian Royal titulary of Alexander the Great, I: Horus, two Ladies, Golden Horus, and thron... more the egyptian Royal titulary of Alexander the Great, I: Horus, two Ladies, Golden Horus, and throne names Francisco Bosch-Puche the PastoPhorion: 'Priests' Houses' in Legal texts from Ptolemaic Pathyris and elsewhere in egypt siân e thomas Compositions in egyptian Hieroglyphs in nineteenth Century england Chris elliott Local Vessels and Imported Copies Manufactured in sandy Fabrics silvia Lupo at tell el-Ghaba, north sinai and Maria Beatriz Cremonte Missing Koms and Abandoned Channels: Joshua trampier, the Potential of Regional survey in Willem toonen, Aude simony, the Western nile Delta Landscape and Jennifer starbird some Remarks on a negated earlier egyptian nominal sentence and Related Constructions sami Uljas some Literary Aspects of the Kamose Inscriptions Roland enmarch Brief CommuniCations A Roman Period Child's Mummy in the saffron Walden Museum Christina Riggs A Block of Ramesses II Reused as a threshold in the Wakala of Qawsun (Cairo) David Lorand A Coptic epistolary exercise from Wadi sarga Jennifer Cromwell A Middle Kingdom Funerary stela of a Woman at Al-salam school Museum, Assiut Abdalla Abdel-Raziq A stable of the third Intermediate Period at tell el-Retaba Łukasz Jarmużek new titles of the Great Chancellor Bay Alexander safronov the oracular Amuletic Decrees: A Question of Length t G Wilfong A neglected Funerary text James P Allen on the Validity of sexing Data from early excavations: examples from Qau tatjana Beuthe reviews
Page 1. Special Volume 3 (2012), pp. 135–142 Angus Graham – Kristian D. Strutt – Morag Hunter – S... more Page 1. Special Volume 3 (2012), pp. 135–142 Angus Graham – Kristian D. Strutt – Morag Hunter – Sarah Jones – Aurélia Masson – Marie Millet – Benjamin Pennington Reconstructing Landscapes and Waterscapes in Thebes, Egypt ...
New Kingdom royal cult temples in Thebes (Luxor, Egypt) are all located on the lower desert edge.... more New Kingdom royal cult temples in Thebes (Luxor, Egypt) are all located on the lower desert edge. Kom el-Hettân (Amenhotep III: reign 1391-1353 BCE, 18th Dynasty) is an exception, as it is located in the present Nile floodplain. Its anomalous position has puzzled Egyptologists, as has the termination of its use, which traditionally has been attributed to natural hazards such as flooding or earthquakes. Geoarchaeological analyses of the subsurface shows that Amenhotep III's temple was initially founded on a wadi fan that stood several metres above the contemporary surrounding floodplain landscape. The temple was fronted by a minor branch of the Nile, which connected the temple to the wider region, but the temple itself was relatively safe from the annual flood of the Nile. This geoarchaeological study comprised a coring programme to determine the c. 4000-yr landscape history of the local area. Chronological control was provided by the analysis of ceramic fragments recovered from within the sediments. This study shows that the New Kingdom period was, at least locally, characterised by extremely high sedimentation rates that caused a rapid rise of the floodplain and gradual submergence of the pre-existing high temple grounds. This is, however, not a plausible reason for the destruction of the temple, as frequent inundation did not begin until the temple was already out of use and largely dismantled.
In the Theban area around modern Luxor (Egypt), the River Nile divides the temple complexes of Ka... more In the Theban area around modern Luxor (Egypt), the River Nile divides the temple complexes of Karnak and Luxor from New Kingdom royal cult temples on the western desert edge. Few sites have been archaeologically identified in the western flood plain, despite its presumed pivotal role in the ancient ritual landscape as the territory that both physically divided and symbolically connected the areas inhabited by the living and the areas occupied by the dead. Using borehole data and electrical resistivity tomography, the current investigation of subsurface deposits reveals the location of an abandoned channel of the Nile. This river course was positioned in the western, distal part of the Nile flood plain. Over 2100 ceramic fragments recovered from boreholes date the abandonment of the relatively minor river channel to the (late) New Kingdom. This minor river branch could have played an important role in the cultural landscape, as it would have served to connect important localities in the ritual landscape. Changes in the fluvial landscape match with established periods of basin-wide hydroclimatic variability. This links cultural and landscape changes observed on a regional scale to hydroclimatic dynamics in the larger Nile catchment, in one of the focal areas of Ancient Egyptian cultural development.
Report on the 2016 spring season of the Theban Harbours and Waterscapes Survey (THaWS). The artic... more Report on the 2016 spring season of the Theban Harbours and Waterscapes Survey (THaWS). The article discusses the geoarchaeological and geophysical survey along a 3.2 km-long transect starting close to the front of the Temple of Millions of Years of Ay and Horemheb and stretching to the village of Geziret el-Bairat on the West Bank of the Nile.
The 2012 season in the Theban region ran from 15 February to 4 March and from 20 March to 7 April... more The 2012 season in the Theban region ran from 15 February to 4 March and from 20 March to 7 April. The team consisted of the authors of this report, with Reis Omar Farouk managing the hand augering and our local team of workmen. Our MSA inspector was Ms Warda el-Najar.
In the Theban area around modern Luxor (Egypt), the River Nile divides the temple complexes of Ka... more In the Theban area around modern Luxor (Egypt), the River Nile divides the temple complexes of Karnak and Luxor from New Kingdom royal cult temples on the western desert edge. Few sites have been archaeologically identified in the western flood plain, despite its presumed pivotal role in the ancient ritual landscape as the territory that both physically divided and symbolically connected the areas inhabited by the living and the areas occupied by the dead. Using borehole data and electrical resistivity tomography, the current investigation of subsurface deposits reveals the location of an abandoned channel of the Nile. This river course was positioned in the western, dis-tal part of the Nile flood plain. Over 2100 ceramic fragments recovered from boreholes date the abandonment of the relatively minor river channel to the (late) New Kingdom. This minor river branch could have played an important role in the cultural landscape, as it would have served to connect important localities in the ritual landscape. Changes in the fluvial landscape match with established periods of basin-wide hydroclimatic variability. This links cultural and landscape changes observed on a regional scale to hydroclimatic dynamics in the larger Nile catchment, in one of the focal areas of Ancient Egyptian cultural development.
We report on the activities and results of the 2006 and 2007 field seasons of the Giza Plateau Ma... more We report on the activities and results of the 2006 and 2007 field seasons of the Giza Plateau Mapping Project in the 4th Dynasty (c. 2500 BC) settlement sites of the Khentkawes Town and at Heit el-Ghurab, as well as geophysical survey, laser scanning of the Khentkawes Monument, and geomorphological studies at Giza.
Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 25, 2019
New Kingdom royal cult temples in Thebes (Luxor, Egypt) are all located on the lower desert edge.... more New Kingdom royal cult temples in Thebes (Luxor, Egypt) are all located on the lower desert edge. Kom el-Hettân (Amenhotep III: reign 1391-1353 BCE, 18th Dynasty) is an exception, as it is located in the present Nile floodplain. Its anomalous position has puzzled Egyptologists, as has the termination of its use, which traditionally has been attributed to natural hazards such as flooding or earthquakes. Geoarchaeological analyses of the subsurface shows that Amenhotep III's temple was initially founded on a wadi fan that stood several metres above the contemporary surrounding floodplain landscape. The temple was fronted by a minor branch of the Nile, which connected the temple to the wider region, but the temple itself was relatively safe from the annual flood of the Nile. This geoarchaeological study comprised a coring programme to determine the c. 4000-yr landscape history of the local area. Chronological control was provided by the analysis of ceramic fragments recovered from within the sediments. This study shows that the New Kingdom period was, at least locally, characterised by extremely high sedimentation rates that caused a rapid rise of the floodplain and gradual submergence of the pre-existing high temple grounds. This is, however, not a plausible reason for the destruction of the temple, as frequent inundation did not begin until the temple was already out of use and largely dismantled .
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