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Whenever twentieth-century modern art or new contemporary artworks are included amongst displays of ancient Egypt, press statements often assert that such juxtapositions are 'surprising', 'innovative', and 'fresh', celebrating the external perspective they bring to such collections. But contemporary art's relationship with museums and other disciplines needs to be understood in a longer-term perspective. Pairings of twentieth- and twenty-first-century artistic works with objects of antiquity is an activity that has been undertaken for more than a century in what has been a relatively long period of mutually reinforcing influences between modern/contemporary art, museum display, the art market, and Egyptian heritage. Together, they have decontextualised ancient Egyptian culture and shaped the language and perspectives of scholars, curators, and artists. In this paper, rather than considering how artists have been inspired by ancient Egypt, I will give a few examples of how more recent art practices from the late nineteenth century onwards have impacted the language and discourse of Egyptology and its museum representation. Then, using more recent artist engagements with the British Museum, I argue for greater interdisciplinary dialogues between artists and Egyptologists, as both take more critical stances towards research that recontextualises the power and agency of collections, representation, and knowledge production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to define the way Egyptians perceived the boundaries of their land and reassesses the impact of Egyptian colonialism during the Ramesside period (c. 1292–1069 BCE). During this era, expansive wars, diplomatic action and land administration/governance reforms led Egypt to control a large part of modern Israel, Palestine, Lebanon and Syria. To refer to this period, historians often use the terms Egyptian "empire" and Egyptian "imperialism", extending terminology coined in the 19th century to describe modern cases of political dominance to Late Bronze Age Egypt. Furthermore, traditional scholarship also presents Egypt's borders in such a way that Egypt appears as a solid territory with fixed borders, despite evidence pointing to a different model of geographical division. Seeking to explore whether the use of modern terms on ancient Egypt may be an anachronism, this paper reviews the scholarship on (a) Egyptian records documenting conquests and (b) contextual archaeological evidence from the southern Near East itself. This review highlights differences between modern and ancient conceptions of land domination. Finally, Egyptian border-related terms are used in a strictly local symbolic cultural context but not in the one of international diplomacy. As for Egypt's boundary, it was mostly formed as a buffer zone rather than a borderline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our paper presents a remote sensing workflow for identifying modern activities that threaten archaeological sites, developed as part of the work of the Endangered Archaeology of the Middle East and North Africa (EAMENA) project. We use open-source Sentinel-2 satellite imagery and the free tool Google Earth Engine to run a per-pixel change detection to make the methods and data as accessible as possible for heritage professionals. We apply this and perform validation at two case studies, the Aswan and Kom-Ombo area in Egypt, and the Jufra oases in Libya, with an overall accuracy of the results ranging from 85–91%. Human activities, such as construction, agriculture, rubbish dumping and natural processes were successfully detected at archaeological sites by the algorithm, allowing these sites to be prioritised for recording. A few instances of change too small to be detected by Sentinel-2 were missed, and false positives were caused by registration errors, shadow and movements of sand. This paper shows that the expansion of agricultural and urban areas particularly threatens the survival of archaeological sites, but our extensive online database of archaeological sites and programme of training courses places us in a unique position to make our methods widely available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to Numbers 21:4–9, the Nehushtan was a copper/bronze snake effigy that functioned as a 'magical' healing tool to cure the early Israelites from venomous snakebites they incurred during their desert wanderings. What is unclear from the narrative is the symbolic significance of the event, the materials used, the technical skills required, and whether magic was at play. Firstly, when considering the magical effects of the Nehushtan, we must define which type of magic—apotropaic or sympathetic—was involved. Based upon existing scholarship on the topic, the general consensus is that the Nehushtan represented sympathetic magic, underpinned in this instance by homeopathic/imitative magic. To highlight this point, this study will provide selected examples of both types of magic so that the Nehushtan's association with sympathetic magic can be illustrated. Secondly, and most importantly, we must consider why the image of a snake was chosen if the very affliction (envenomation) suffered by the people was caused by the creature now being posited as a symbol of divine healing. Did the ancient perceptions of snakes and healing play a role in this decision? Why did the early Israelites not question the logic behind the use of a magical snake effigy when both magic and effigies were technically prohibited by biblical laws? To answer these questions, the study will consider the historical background (the Exodus from Egypt), the set (geographical location), and the setting (cultural contact and influence) in which the narrative of the Nehushtan took place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The analysis of contemporary and archival satellite images and archaeological documentations presents the possibility of monitoring the state of archaeological sites in the Near East (for example, Palmyra in Syria). As it will be demonstrated in the case of Upper Egyptian sites, the rapid growth of agricultural lands and settlements can pose a great threat to sites localized on the border of fields and the desert. As a case study, the Qena district was chosen, a region of significance for the history of ancient Egypt. To trace the expansion of agriculture and the development of modern settlements, a synthesis of archival maps (from the last 200 years), and archival and contemporary satellite images was created. By applying map algebra to these documents, it was possible to determine areas which may be marked as "Archaeological Hazard Zones". The analysis helped to trace the expansion of agricultural areas during the last 200 years and the influence of both-ancient Egyptians and the Nile-on the local landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arid environments are suitable for researching the resilience of landscapes, since their ecological conditions pose continuous water stress to plants, animals, and humans living there. It is not only water, but also soil that is a limited resource. The arid landscape of the Eastern Marmarica (NW-Egypt) serves as an example for studying the resilience in and of a past landscape and its inhabitants from the 2nd millennium BCE to the 1st millennium CE, which is conceptualised as a 'social arid landscape'. The adapted life strategies and resilient practices to make a living in the arid environment are reconstructed from (geo-) archaeological evidence, discussing the applicability of the concept of resilience for ancient (landscape) studies. Resilience is an etic concept, depending on the perspective on and scale of a system. With the categories of 'event', 'practice' and 'knowledge', however, various scales can be bridged; life strategies can be defined as communities of practice and dichotomies be solved. Niche dwellings in the ancient Marmarica, where exposure to stress was normal, functioned because of an elaborate water management and the mobility of the people living there. The resilience of the arid social landscape is based on mixed life strategies, where only a multi-factored crisis (economic and climatic) or a series of smaller shocks (many dry years) could have destructive impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abydos Temple is one of Egypt's most significant sites which has a long history that dates back to the ancient monarchy and continued until the coming of Islam and also served as one of Egypt's most significant ancient royal and high-ranking official burial sites. The main objective of this work was discovering more archaeological features buried underground such as ancient walls, monuments, and tombs. This objective was achieved using two near surface sophisticated geophysical techniques, namely ground magnetic survey and ground penetrating radar (GPR). This site was surveyed firstly using ground magnetic survey as reconnaissance stage and the locations which contain potential anomalies were resurveyed using GPR technique for determination the depth and the geometry of this potential targets. This site was divided into four regular grids and GPR model SIR-4000 equipment with 200 MHz central frequency antenna was used in this survey. The output of the magnetic survey is a total magnetic anomaly map which was filtered using High pass (HP) and first vertical derivative (VFD) techniques to extract the residual component of the shallow objects which may be archaeological targets. The results of the magnetic methods showed a group of anomalies which appeared on the residual map and were attributed to archaeological features by comparing them with the current excavated objects in and around the site. Their geometrical shapes and depths were estimated using source parameter imaging (SPI) and analytical signal (AS) techniques in Geosoft Oasis Montag Software. The estimated depth of these objects is between 1–3 m. Several hyperbolic shapes appeared in the radargram sections, indicating the possibility of probable buried archaeological objects. These potential objects can be found at depths of 2 to 4 m below the ground surface. The presence of eight probable targets associated with archaeological features at depths between 1–4 m is therefore the most likely outcome from both magnetic and GPR approaches. Therefore, this site contains potential archaeological targets which need confirmation by excavation. These results will influence domestic and foreign tourism in Egypt, leading to an increase in visitors and a rise in Economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

North Sinai is of significant historical interest primarily because of its role since late prehistoric times as a land bridge between Egypt and the Levant. Access to this region is challenging due to its harsh geography and security concerns. Remote sensing constitutes a convenient method for archaeological prospection and monitoring over such regions with its low cost (relative to ground based sensing techniques), global coverage, and high temporal and spatial sampling. This paper describes part of a study to revisit a number of sites investigated during the North Sinai Survey (1972–1982) with very high resolution optical and Synthetic Aperture Radar satellite imagery. These were acquired throughout the summer of 2017 in the framework of a European Space Agency research project. The Synthetic Aperture Radar data includes Spotlight and Staring Spotlight modes of the TerraSAR-X mission, while the optical imagery was acquired by the Pleiades mission. The TerraSAR-X data were processed to derive filtered amplitude and consecutive coherence time series. The results of the TerraSAR-X data processing, and the pan-sharpened Pleiades data were compared with the results of the North Sinai Survey to detect possible additional buried structures in the radar data, or newly excavated sites in the optical data. While the analysis is still ongoing, results are reported here of the Qasrawet archaeological site, which was partially investigated by the North Sinai Survey expedition, but assumed to cover a much larger area. Herein, a number of newly excavated structures are apparent in the remote sensing data. The similarity of features in both the TerraSAR-X and Pleiades data suggest that all structures are surface residues, and therefore, that the subsurface mapping capabilities of the TerraSAR-X data in this area are limited. The utility of both data types for archaeological site monitoring are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We correlate the gravity aspects (descriptors), namely the strike angles, derived from a recent gravity field model, with the known oil, gas and groundwater deposits/reservoirs and hypothetical paleolakes with the locations of archaeological sites. This allows us to extrapolate the investigation, by analogy, to unknown regions. The gravity aspects, derived from the EIGEN 6C4 gravity field model, are used, together with EMAG 2 magnetic anomalies and ETOPO 1 topography model, for the investigation of oil, gas and water deposits in Egypt. One of the gravity aspects, s/c strike angle, is significantly combed (oriented in one direction locally) in places where the known deposits exist. However, they are combed also in some other places. This may be used as a guide as to where to seek new and promising deposits. Accounting for the combed strike angles and the relationship between gravity anomalies and height differences, we reconstructed potential paleolakes under thick sand layers in the Great Sand Sea, Western Egypt (our previous work), and between Kharga and Toshka, Southern Egypt (this work), consistent with the known archaeological sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]