Weekly Websites
Egypt

Weekly Websites


Nubian Rock Art Virtual Archive
http://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/en/research/projects/DEPT1_Kleinitz-RockArt
"This online research archive is dedicated to the rock art of the Nile valley. Initially, it presents high resolution digital photographs, as well as video files, drawings and written information on the petroglyphs of the Fourth Nile Cataract region in northern Sudan. This riverine landscape will be lost in the waters of the Merowe Dam reservoir after the planned completion of the dam in 2008. Numerous national and international teams are currently working on rescue projects concerned with the archaeology and ethnography of this area.
Rock art sites, hitherto exclusively petroglpyhs, are among the most common finds in the Fourth Cataract region. Hundreds of petroglyph localities have been identified and recorded. Zoomporphs are the frequent types of motifs, in particular cattle and camel images, but also giraffes, birds, elephants and others. Anthropomorphs, boats, and geometric motifs occur, as well as Medieval Christian and Arab inscriptions.
The rock art of the Fourth Nile Cataract also contains a strong acoustic component. Numerous so-called ‘rock gongs’ were identified at rock art sites, resonant boulders that emnate sound when struck with a hard implement. The Fourth Nile Cataract region thus offers a rare opportunity to study the interplay between visual and non-visual aspects rock art landscapes, contrasting the impermanence of sound production with the relative permanence of the rock art images. Together with the thousands of petroglyphs, these percussion instruments give important information about the symbolic use of this Upper Nubian landscape over time."

The Nubian Society
http://www.nubiansociety.org/
"Nubia extends from modern Aswan, Egypt, to south of Khartoum, Sudan. For thousands of years this region has served as a corridor of contact linking the Mediterranean, Egypt and central Africa. Attention briefly focused on Nubia at the turn of the 20th century with the construction of the Aswan Dam and its subsequent raising in 1908.
Modern Nubiology was born in the early 1960s with the construction of the High Dam at Aswan. At this time, an international salvage campaign was launched by UNESCO to save the monuments of Lower Nubia being flooded by the construction of the Aswan High Dam and the creation of Lake Nasser. This campaign brought together scholars from over 25 countries from around the world and revealed the richness and cultural diversity of Nubian civilisation.
Founded in 1972 in Warsaw, Poland, The International Society for Nubian Studies provides a focus for those interested in the archaeology and history of Nubia and Sudan, and seeks to promote awareness of the rich cultural heritage of this region."
Also see the following page for the Merowe Dam Archaeological Salvage Project:
http://www.nubiansociety.org/MDASP.htm
There are some excellent links available from the site as well:
http://www.nubiansociety.org/links.htm

Hot Air Balloon over Luxor
http://www.pbase.com/galleria_rusticana/hot_air_balloon_over_luxor
Thanks very much to Warwick Barnard for emailing me this link of photos from his hot air balloon trip over Luxor. They are excellent. The colours of the sunrise are spectacuar in their own right, but I particularly like the photos where the agricultural land ends and the desert begins, drawing a clear line in the desert between ancient and modern. It gives you a very good idea of how far the reclaimed land has spread away from the Nile's banks.






- Online Journal: Egypt And Nubia In The 5th-4th Millennia Bce
British Museum Egypt and Nubia in the 5th–4th millennia BCE: A view from the First Cataract and its surroundings Maria Carmela Gatto British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan 13 (2009): 125–45 Introduction Prehistoric sites were first found...

- Unesco Celebrates 1960s Nubian Salvage Project
ANSA Med UNESCO is commemorating the mammoth combined effort by archaeologists, engineers and researchers from across the globe which led to the salvaging of extraordinary temples and Pharaonicc monuments which would otherwise have disappeared under the...

- Ancient Egypt Had Powerful Sudan Rival, British Museum Dig Shows
The Telegraph, UK (Stephen Adams) The Second Kushite Kingdom controlled the whole Nile valley from Khartoum to the Mediterranean from 720BC to 660BC. Now archaeologists have discovered that a region of northern Sudan once considered a forgotten backwater...

- More Re Sudan Rescue Archaeology
"Archaeology teams in Sudan are working against the clock to rescue an entire swathe of Nile Valley heritage from the rising waters of a Chinese-built dam. The Merowe dam is a controversial hydro-electric project - one of the largest in Africa - being...

- Important Rescue Archaeology In The Sudan
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article20843"Sudan’s archaeology is finally stepping out of Egypt’s shadow as teams work against the clock to rescue an entire swathe of Nile Valley heritage from the rising waters of a Chinese-built dam. 'The...



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