Gebel el-Asr Project

Beginning in 1997, the joint British-Egyptian-Norwegian Gebel el-Asr Project undertook archaeological and geological fieldwork in a region of gneiss quarrying and chalcedony mining roughly 70km north-west of Abu Simbel in southern Egypt. In 2012, I joined the project for a brief archaeological survey of the cairn-shrines at the Stelae Ridge chalcedony mines at the north end of the quarrying region, in preparation for a landscape analysis of the site which I undertook as part of my PhD research.

Archaeological surveyor and GIS specialist

Archaeological survey and landscape analysis

Photograph shows a rectangular stone with an uniscribed a flat face uppermost. A scale to the left suggests the stone is approximately 40cm long.
Photograph of a small stone, roughly shaped into a pyramid form sat upright on the sand. A scale suggests it is roughly 25-30cm long.
Photograph of 3 mounds of stone, variously denuded with tracks running up to them. The cairn in the right foreground is best preserved. The cairn in the rear left is badly denuded.
Photograph of an area of largely flat desert with a large landform in the distance and a series of mounds of stones in the foreground.
A plan of the Stelae Ridge cairns showing an area of modern disturbance with three mounds inside it to the south and a series of mounded structures to the north. A final feature is shown a short distance to the west.
Photograph of a shallow bowl in carved stone. The stone has a light background with darker blue-black streaks. A serekh is inscribed on the inside.

Over two days I undertook a total station survey of the Stelae Ridge area, recording the surviving cairns, areas of modern activity, major mines, and some of the peripheral cairns. I downloaded the data and created a plan of the site, to complement existing handheld GPS data and satellite imagery.

I also made a personal record of my experience of visibility at the site through panoramic photographs and a drawing of the ‘circular view’, a sketch drawing of what was visible 360 degrees around the site in the near, middle and far distance. This would inform discussion of visibility at the site, providing a more human-centric counterpoint to the algorithmic process of GIS-based visibility analysis (also known as ‘viewshed analysis’).

The ‘Circular View’, showing the features visible in the near, middle and far distance for 360 degrees around Stelae Ridge. Drawn by the Author in December 2012.

Institution
University of Liverpool

Timeline
2012

Role
Archaeological surveyor

Funding
The Peet Fund of the University of Liverpool; The Seven Pillars of Wisdom Trust.

Outputs

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to my PhD supervisor Ian Shaw, Liz Bloxam and Ashraf el-Senussi my fellow team members in 2012. We would also like to thank the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities, who gave permission for the research at Gebel el-Asr, particularly the Aswan and Abu Simbel offices and our inspector in 2012, Mr. Tahseen Mohammed Atteya Abd El Motaleb, whose hard work ensured we were able to undertake the survey at Stelae Ridge in 2012. I am extremely grateful to the University of Liverpool’s PEET travelling prize fund, the Seven Pillars of Wisdom Trust and Molly Houldsworth for funding for this project.

Get new content delivered directly to your inbox.

Related posts