The Nile Natural And Cultural Landscape In Egypt

Although Herodot's dictum that "Egypt is a gift of the Nile" is proverbial, there has been only scant attention to the way the river impacted on ancient Egyptian society. Egyptologists frequently focus on the textual and iconographic record, whereas archaeologists and earth scientists approach the issue from the perspective of natural sciences. The contributions in this volume bridge this gap by analyzing the river both as a natural and as a cultural phenomenon. Adopting an approach of cultural ecology, it addresses issues like ancient land use, administration and taxation, irrigation, and religious concepts.

The economic, political and historical story of the Nile in ancient times is unearthed through its landscape.

This volume presents the results of a research project extending over four decades on the identification, location and character of the archaeological sites of Lower Egypt, continued since 1997 as the Egypt Exploration Society's Delta Survey, supported by the British Academy. Data has been gathered from bibliographic sources, dedicated fieldwork and information from Egyptian and foreign missions to present a body of material previously available only in summary online. The present volume provides all the information in enhanced and extended form, with descriptions of each site, noting especially changes in condition over time, previous discoveries and current fieldwork, together with key references to bibliographic or other sources. This is an essential index of the ancient settlements of the Delta, alerting archaeologists and historians to the large cities, small towns, fortress and temple sites that covered the Delta in antiquity.

Located some one hundred kilometers southwest of Cairo, the Fayum region has long been regarded as unique, often described in terms that conjure up images of an idealized Garden of Eden. In An Egyptian Landscape, Claire Malleson takes a novel approach to the study of the region by exploring the ways in which people have, through millennia, perceived and engaged with the Fayum landscape. Distinguishing between the experienced landscape of state and bureaucratic record and the imagined landscape of myth, meaning, and observers’ personal influences and expectations, Malleson questions in detail where those perceptions come from. She traces religious practices, follows the tracks of myths and traditions, and investigates the roots of stories found in texts from the pharaonic, classical, and Medieval Islamic periods. She also reviews many, more recent travel writings on the region from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. The work of each author is presented in its historical and cultural context, and Malleson integrates what is known about ancient activities in the Fayum, based on the archaeological evidence from the many monuments and ancient settlements that exist in the region. Scholars and students of archaeology and landscape studies as well as general readers interested in Egypt’s history and archaeology will find this book highly engaging and enlightening.

The final chapter in the definitive, three-volume history of the world's first known state Archaeologist John Romer has spent a lifetime chronicling the history of Ancient Egypt, and here he tells the epic story of an era dominated by titans of the popular imagination: the radical iconoclast Akhenaten, the boy-king Tutankhamun and the all-conquering Ramesses II. But 'heroes' do not forge history by themselves. This was also a time of international trade, cultural exchange and sophisticated art, even in the face of violent change. Alongside his visionary new history of this, the most famous period in the long history of Ancient Egypt, Romer turns a critical eye on Egyptology itself. Paying close attention to the evidence, he corrects prevailing narratives which cast the New Kingdom as an imperial state power in the European mould. Instead, he reveals - through broken artefacts in ruined workshops, or preserved letters between a tomb-builder and his son - a culture more beautiful and beguiling than we could have imagined. Romer carefully reconstructs the real story of the New Kingdom as evidenced in the archaeological record, and the result - the final volume of a life long project - secures his status as Ancient Egypt's finest chronicler.

Ritual Landscape and Performance contains the peer-reviewed Egyptological contributions from the homonymous conference held at the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations of Yale University on September 23-24, 2016. The various articles discuss the use of ritual landscape from the Old to the New Kingdom of Ancient Egypt, by focusing on landscape archaeology of specific sites such as Saqqara, el-Bersheh, Abydos, Thebes, as well as Aniba in Nubia. Further contributions elucidate the interaction of desert and the Nile Valley through rock art, the depictions of watery environments in the delta and their association to rituals, as well as the habitation of landscapes using the example of southern Middle Egypt.

Contributors, consisting of historians and other scholars from Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Europe, Israel, Sudan, and the US, trace the complex intercultural relations that have revolved around the Nile River throughout recorded history. The volume's 20 articles focus on four themes: peoples and identities in medieval times; the Nile as seen from a distance (such as from Europe and as a gateway for missionary activity); mid-century perspectives; and contemporary views including the Aswan High Dam and revolutionary symbolism in Egypt. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.