It is essential to think about the dynamic nature of Egypt’s past landscapes. Many settlements first appeared ongeziras, or ‘‘turtlebacks,’’ before 3000 bc, often located along river edges. Flood-plain dwellers based their settlements on gezirahs to remain safe on high ground, above the annual Nile floods. Over time, these towns expanded. The ancient Egyptians built over their predecessors’ houses, and periods of economic decline or destruction contrasted with periods of prosperity. These different periods have created different archaeological horizons and settlement patterns. Silts from high floods, household collapse debris (mud brick), and related material culture created fill layers within and between the shells of houses. As many towns lay enclosed within large walls and were restricted to finite mounds and gezirahs, they could only expand upwards. This building pattern formed archaeological tell sites with complex stratigraphies, as well as organic structures (Kemp 1972: 657-80), which occur throughout the ancient Near East. The whole town could be abandoned altogether in one phase while major rebuilding activity could occur in a following period. The reconstructed urban and demographic patterns are infinite.
Actual physical changes to ancient landscapes are an additional factor to consider. Each year the Nile’s floodwaters left silt deposits (Butzer 1976: 23), which caused the landscape surrounding archaeological sites to rise. Abandoned sites and portions of sites in
Figure 1.4 Quickbird satellite image draped over Shuttle Radar Topography Image at the site of Mendes. Image Courtesy of Google Earth Pro.
Low-lying areas would eventually be covered over by Nile silts, with some occupation located above a sterile silt layer. Large-scale silting stopped after the construction of the Aswan High Dam, but Egypt’s massive population growth in the past seventy years is altering the landscape in more diverse ways than the former annual Nile flooding.
Changes in archaeological sites are closely entwined with these landscape and social changes and may influence how and why people chose to settle somewhere in the first place. This, in turn, affects how we might identify those sites and associated landscapes. Desert outposts, farming communities, and pyramid towns may all represent settlements containing people, but their primary purpose and functions differed widely. These factors affected their layout and growth. How and why ancient people chose to settle in various regions are just as important to our understanding of settlements as our knowledge of the landscapes surrounding them. Archaeological survey designs should take all these factors into account, in particular, satellite remote-sensing and subsequent ground survey. Specific satellite remote-sensing analysis methods work better in different areas. Some methods deal well with vegetation and landscape changes, while other methods help in highlighting key features within a landscape. All satellite types have limitations in floodplain environments and are best suited primarily for evaluating surface features. Having clear project goals assists in choosing which methods to use for the overall ancient-landscape analyses, in particular, if one is interested in studying either broad-scale or more localized environmental trends.
Today, Egypt’s landscape is equally dynamic, with rapidly expanding towns and agricultural development on desert regions (e. g. North Sinai irrigation and agriculture program) (Lenney et al. 1996: 8-20). When comparing satellite images of Egyptian towns and fields from 2002 with the same towns and fields on maps from the 1920s, one realizes immediately how much settlements have grown, while agricultural lands have expanded into the desert. These factors and the need for sebakh, or fertilizer, have caused the levelling or covering over of innumerable archaeological sites. In many cases, modern settlements covering ancient sites have preserved the earliest levels from destruction (below and between modern foundations) but are not free for detailed excavation. Archaeological site looting (prevalent across the globe), urbanization, population increases, and pollution are all affecting modern archaeological landscape exploration (El-Gamily et al. 2001: 2999-3014). Egyptologists need to strategize and plan carefully to help preserve past landscapes for future work. This can be done in part through the use of satellite remote sensing.
World History
