The landscape setting of the pyramids of Abusir (Egypt)

Although the importance of the river Nile for ancient Egyptian society has never been doubted, current understanding of what the landscape looked like is still at best patchy. The most studied area is the region around the ancient Egyptian capital Memphis, a key region for understanding how some of the most important urban sites and monuments (the pyramids of Giza, Abusir, Saqqara and Dahhshur) emerged and evolved. Current assumptions on the ancient landscape there are mostly based on unsubstantiated hypotheses about an assumed, long-term migration process of the Nile bed from west to east. Some publications have bolstered this hypothesis by referring to core drillings; however, hardly any such drillings have ever been published, rendering verification of the hypothesis impossible. Moreover, due to the current city sprawl around Cairo, the area where research can still fruitfully be carried out is shrinking at an alarming rate. Currently, only a strip of agricultural land east of the pyramids of Abusir is easily accessible for core drilling.The project brings together researchers from the Centre of Egyptology of Charles University Prague, which holds the archaeological concession at Abusir, and archaeologists and geomorphologists from KU Leuven. The aim is to produce verifiable data about the ancient floodplain landscape near Abusir. The research will also touch upon the question of how the ancient waterways to be disclosed relate to harbour infrastructure at the edge of the desert, and to the Lake of Abusir, an important ancient ritual landscape connected to the ancient cemeteries of Abusir and Saqqara. The project is intended to function as a start for a later Marie Curie Sklodowska ITN, intended to bring geoarchaeology in Egypt to a higher level, and to offer training opportunities for young researcher both from Europe and Egypt.

Keywords:Abusir Egypt

Disciplines:History, Archaeology, Theory and methodology of archaeology, Other history and archaeology, Historical theory and methodology