Given the advances in archaeological practice, where should Egyptologists focus their efforts for detecting past landscapes? Ancient Egypt’s landscapes are palimpsets, and ancient Egypt needs to be reconceptualized as through a more ‘‘layered’’ history. First, Ancient Egypt’s landscapes need to be better defined, and archaeological sites must be though of in much broader contexts. No archaeological site ever existed unto itself, as past peoples have relied on numerous natural resources to survive and flourish. Using advanced scientific approaches (e. g. residue analyses, mass spectrometry, soil micromorphology), archaeologists will be able to ask questions regarding more subtle landscape changes. Using these and other findings, archaeologists may be able to take the past architectural and landscape renderings of ancient Egyptian landscapes and turn them into a more digital-based reality. There are countless ancient sites, river channels, field boundaries, and other landscape features to locate, dating to all of ancient Egypt’s time periods. The subfield of landscape archaeology within Egyptian Archaeology is only beginning but holds much promise for future research.
FURTHER READING
A good starting point for reading about landscapes in ancient Egypt is Butzer 1976. For reading about the Nile and general geology, Said 1988 and 1990 provide good overviews. No single book has yet been written on the landscapes of ancient Egypt, but many good articles exist that discuss environmental change on a local level. This includes articles by Manfred Bietak, Barry Kemp, and Fekri Hassan (listed in the bibliography). For a general overview for how one might approach past landscapes see Parcak 2009b which contains a number of Egypt-based case studies.
World History
