Browsing through documented history

To preserve Egypt's historical sites -- a large chunk of the world's cultural heritage -- from future hazardous urban, agricultural and infrastructure development, a comprehensive archaeological Atlas will soon be available on the Internet. Nevine El-Aref looks into it
Egypt has a unique historical and cultural heritage -- pre-dynastic, Pharaonic, Coptic and Islamic. Up to now, however, there have been no formally established boundaries between archaeological sites. This fuzziness has led to a tendency for one excavation to infringe on another.
An overwhelming number of monuments have been partially or wholly destroyed by urban and agricultural development. Well-known examples include Nazlet El-Siman in Giza, Al-Qurna in Luxor and Al-Qabari in Alexandria. The need for comprehensive documentation has long been regarded as imperative for future generations but, until recently, it has not been put into effect.
The aim of the present joint project between the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), in collaboration with Finnish experts, is to launch a coherent and sustainable reference to be called the Archaeological Geographical Information System (AGIS) which will not only register historical sites, land use and legal aspects of property, but will also indicate the risks they face.
An example of the seriousness of the inadvertent infringement on important archaeological areas can be seen at the site of Per-Ramses at Qantir. This is located on the banks of the now dried-up Pelusiac branch of the Nile at the former eastern edge of the Nile Delta, half-way between Tel Basta at Zagazig and Sa El-Haggar, the former city of Tanis.
German achaeological mission member Edgar Pusch embarked on a magnetic survey when the German team began its excavation in 1996. The survey revealed that the site, now hidden under agricultural land, was once a town even larger than those of Tel El-Amarna and Luxor. The area contained the remains of temples, houses, streets and living quarters, as well as objects unearthed from the soil and now kept in Cairo, Zagazig and the storehouses of Pusch and his colleagues at Tel El-Dab'a. Pusch handed his findings over to the Egyptian Antiquities Information System (EAIS) so they could be incorporated into their own survey and the AGIS.
The idea of establishing the AGIS centre was first raised during the International Congress of Egyptologists in March 2000, during which the SCA declared its intention to move ahead. A month later, it signed a protocol with Finland, under which the Finnish government issued a $1 million grant. Work on mapping three pilot sites -- at Sharqiya, the north coast and Sinai -- began last June.
Two projects will be carried out simultaneously. One, the EAIS project, will produce detailed maps at the site level, citing areas for site protection, planning and control. It will handle the various available maps including official boundaries of provinces, topographic maps, mission maps and land use maps.
EAIS team leader Naguib Amin says the National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Science, which carried out a survey of the necropolis from Giza to Dahshur and other areas, including Sharqiya province, is providing satellite images and maps.
Such maps have also been provided by other foreign missions working in Egypt, who provided details of the sites they have studied during their excavations. The Cairo University Engineering Centre for Archaeology and Environment, the Cabinet's Information and Decision Support Centre, and the General Organisation of Physical Planning also contributed.
The second is the AGIS project which, in cooperation with government agencies, will provide the technological apparatus needed to cover three levels of archaeological information. "One on the national level, where every site is presented by a point on the reference map and a set of data; the second on the site level, where each site is expanded to show its different structures; and the third is the monument level, with details of architectural elements on the monuments displayed," the director of the National Centre for Documentation and Cultural and Natural Heritage (CULTNAT), Fathi Saleh, said.
The massive pilot projects, which the Finnish government is financing, are estimated to be finished in two years. One function of the pilots is to train Egyptians in relevant fields so that the Egyptian government can continue to carry out similar documentation on all the sites in Egypt.
To control the boundaries of archaeological sites once they have been identified, the maps provided by the EAIS will be distributed among governmental authorities, including those of traffic and housing, agriculture, infrastructure, sewerage and drainage. In this way, proper planning and protection measures will be taken, and there is a chance that further haphazard urban expansion, road construction and agricultural infringement will be controlled.
The criteria for choice of the three pilot projects was based on those areas considered most endangered. In Sharqiya, this was because it is largely agricultural land, and heavily populated; on the north coast because it is succumbing all too rapidly to tourist development; and in Sinai because it is equally rapidly undergoing change.
On the Internet, the first level will be the national one, allowing the user to zoom into different regions and select sites according to date, type or other criteria. The basic information corresponding to the selected site will be displayed, including recent and archival photographs and information about the objects recovered from the site. At the second level, a detailed map will display the site's general components, as well as further data about the monument, its builder, type and age. The third and last level will provide in-depth data about the selected monument, and display a detailed plan of the structure, along with an overview image. A complete description of the reliefs or paintings will accompany the attached photograph. For some of the monuments, a 3-D model will be available, offering the possibility of a walk-through visit.
This is one of the most exciting developments in the preservation of Egypt's heritage in recent years. Too long have much-needed projects been shelved. So far, only the Giza plateau has offered a web-site for visitors to enjoy a journey round Egyptian monuments while sitting in an armchair on the other side of the world.
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