No landscapes of Egypt have changed more dramatically than the Delta and the North Sinai coastlines. Many projects have studied these regions, using coring, systematic survey, and satellite imagery analysis to reconstruct past landscape changes. For example, Jean Phillipe-Stanley’s coring work in the Delta has revealed a great deal about both past landscape evolution and related climate changes (Stanley and Warne 1993: 628-34). Broad landscape changes through time can be viewed not just with the subsurface soil data, but with the changing locations ofancient settlements, which would have thrived or failed in line with the evolution of nearby river channels. Much less of a picture is available for Upper Egypt, as it is has not yet been systematically cored from north to south and east to west.
In Pharaonic times seven Nile Delta branches existed: the Canopic, Bolbinitic (Rosetta), Saitic, Sebennytic, Mendesian, Tanitic, and Pelusiac branches. Each branch had smaller channels or tributaries. Five Nile branches degenerated with silting due to tilting in the early Holocene (Gamilli and Shaalan 1988: 223-43), while the Nile branches shifted westward. Although the Nile and its branches changed course many times over the centuries, only two branches remain in the eastern Delta: the Pelusiac branch (the Bahr Faqus today) and the Tanitic branch (the Bahr Mamis), which flowed by Tanis (Bakr 1988: 41-62). The silted-over branches are still partly visible, and, using ground-based remote-sensing techniques, an Egyptian team found buried Nile channels near the old Sebennytic branch (Gamilli and Shallan 1988: 223-43). Another team used SIR-C RADAR imagery to locate former branches of the Nile connected to Alexandria during the Roman period (Stanley and Jorstad 2006: 503-14).
The Delta in antiquity looked very little like the Delta of today. It was a series of swamps and lagoons, and changed shape and size dramatically over thousands ofyears due to the Nile’s sediment discharge, sediment removal by oceans, and the fact that the Delta as a whole was a sediment trap (Stanley 2002c: 98-117). A number of survey projects have already aided in past landscape reconstruction, especially the work of Manfred Bietak, The Egypt Exploration Society Delta Survey, and ongoing work by the author (Parcak 2003; 2004a; 2004b). This work has detected 44 previously unknown archaeological sites and has incorporated survey data with data on 119 known archaeological sites in the East Delta to suggest locations for past river channels. The proposed model suggests an approach from the bottom up, using survey data to glean information about site placement, function, and changes through time. Site placement also allows us to examine environmental trends. Using site dates over time, it is possible for researchers to suggest possible previous Nile river channels that can later be confirmed through coring. For instance, prior to the formation of the Menzala lagoon, beginning in the fourth century AD, the Mendesian branch of the Nile flowed past Mendes and its satellite maritime port at Tell Tebilla. As early as the Old Kingdom Tell Tebilla provided an ideal location for the formation of a town, being well located to exploit both riverine and maritime transportation routes (i. e. trade) and regional floral and faunal resources (e. g. hunting, fishing, cultivation, animal husbandry). Using old maps and satellite images, the team working at Tell Tebilla showed how the site decreased in size, from 1000 m x 1000 m in the 1800s to 360 m x 360 m today (Parcak 2007a). Even so, using landscape topography, the archaeological team has hypothesized the potential location of Tell Tebilla’s harbor. Tell Tebilla’s ancient name was R-nfr, or ‘‘Beautiful Mouth,’’ showing how the name of a place could reflect its larger role in the broader Egyptian landscape (Lloyd 2002; Mumford 2004).
Sites are not only hidden by modern settlements: Silting over of sites has left countless numbers of ancient villages and cities of all sizes, as well as landscapes, many metres below the current ground level. How much information is ‘‘missing’’ beneath the ground in Egypt that cannot be detected? Even using Google Earth, a free online imagery visualization program, can aid in detecting buried features. To the west of the site of Tanis there are significant numbers of cropmarks, revealing that the city could have been twice as large in antiquity. At Tell ed-Daba, additional cropmarks show buried features in the entire area surrounding the extant surface site remains (Parcak 2009b).
Similar approaches have helped archaeologists reconstruct ancient landscapes of the North Sinai and West Sinai coastlines. At the site of Tell el-Borg in North-east Sinai archaeologists have used a combination of satellite photographs, coring, and sediment studies to locate a paleolagoon system. This area was important in the New Kingdom as Tell el-Borg was located along the ‘‘Ways of Horus,’’ a series of fortresses located along the North Sinai coast. Archaeological research has shown how important a role the palaeolagoon system played in general fort defence (Moshier and El-Khalani 2008: 450-73). Another fortress site, Tell el-Markha, located in the el-Markha Plain (130 km south of Suez), played a crucial role in Old Kingdom mining expeditions to Wadi Maghara. The fortress, measuring 44 m in diameter, is located 210 m from the coastline today. Geological investigations have revealed that the coastline was located no more than 150 m away an antiquity. The expeditions would probably have coincided with the seasonal appearance of water running in small springs flowing slightly to the north of the site (Mumford and Parcak 2002; 2003).
Figure 1.3 Quickbird satellite image revealing cropmarks to the west of Tanis. Image courtesy of Google Earth Pro.
World History
