QuarryScapes

 

QuarryScapes is a collaborative project with partners from Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, UK, Belgium, Italy and Norway that aims at documenting and preserving quarry landscapes in the Eastern Mediterranean. A major goal is to present and raise awareness of these fragile sites, which are disappearing at an alarming rate and to develop a methodology for conservation. The project is an EU Sixth Framework Programme and is expected to run until October 2008.

 

The role of EAIS

EAIS is responsible for Work Package 7 and will create a Quarry Map of Egypt, using primarily the sites located by James Harrell (see website link below). Based on the information provided by Harrell’s work, individual datasets have been created for every quarry site listed. Based on their geographic location, ID codes were assigned to each site according to EAIS standards.

 

The map created in the GIS Unit will enable quarries to be located based on type of stone, type of quarry (softstone, hardstone, gemstone) and periods of use. In the Archaeology Unit, work has started by creating datasheets based on the sites listed by Harrell. In addition to the information provided by Harrell (rough dating, type of quarry and stone, gps points and basic geological formation), additional archaeological and historical data will be added in 2006 and 2007. The possibility of performing site visits to a number of quarries for risk assessment will be investigated. Finally, each datasheet will be translated into Arabic and entered into the EAIS bilingual database. This database covers registered and unregistered archaeological sites in Egypt from prehistory to 19^th century. Most of the quarry sites covered in the GIS in EAIS will be unregistered, but the Legal Unit is working on confirming the legal status of the larger sites and will assist in drawing up proposals for registration of selected quarries.

 

In addition to the National Quarry Map and the population of the EAIS database with archaeological, legal and threat information, EAIS will create detailed risk maps for three major quarry sites in Egypt (Chephren’s Quarry in Toshka, Widan el-Faras and Aswan).

 

Throughout the duration of the project, EAIS will collaborate closely with NSCE (North South Consultant Exchange, http://www.nsce-inter.com), in particular in coordinating dissemination issues and stakeholder information exchange and collaboration. Another important partner will be the newly created department for the Conservation of Ancient Quarries and Mines in Egypt, headed by Adel Kelany, a QuarryScapes team member and field director of the Unfinished Obelisk Museum in Aswan.

 

Quarries in Ancient Egypt

Quarries are a major part of ancient stone technology, but as yet comparatively little is known about the infrastructure behind the monumental temples and tombs erected in ancient Egypt.

 

The stone for these buildings were quarried at a number of locations in the Nile valley and in the Western and Eastern deserts. From an early stage of Egyptian history, hieroglyphic inscriptions left at the quarries show the presence of royal expeditions to acquire building stone and gemstones.

 

The time scale and scale of extraction greatly varies – some were used for millennia while others (such as the Old Kingdom basalt quarry at Widan el-Faras) were exploited for short periods. Archaeological evidence at quarries includes epigraphic data, quarry marks, tools, and pottery, as well as roads, tracks, workmen’s settlements and work areas.  

Widan el-Faras basalt quarry

 

The most important types of stone are limestone and sandstone, used for temples and tombs throughout the country. Other major stones include flint (quarried from the Palaeolithic period onwards), calcite (alabaster), granite and diorite. These stones were used for tools, in buildings and for the production of vessels and statuary.

 

Major quarry sites include Mons Porphyrites in the Eastern Desert (Gebel Dokhan), the only known source of imperial porphyry. This purple coloured stone was transported to Rome and Constantinople in large quantities and used for architectural elements and statuary. The copper and turquoise around the Serabit el-Khadim area in the Sinai peninsula (see below) was extracted during numerous royal expeditions for millennia. In the Nile valley, the high quality limestone found at Tura (east bank, south of Cairo) was used from the Third Dynasty onwards, most famously as the outer casing for the pyramids at Giza. Basalt, also used at the pyramid sites during the Old Kingdom, came from Widan el-Faras in the northern Fayyum and was transported upriver via the Fayyum lake (Moeris). At Aswan, granite was extensively quarried and shipped northwards. The Unfinished Obelisk, abandoned at a late stage of work, measures 42 meters and is now a major tourist attraction. Granite was used as early as the First Dynasty, when the tomb of Den at Umm el-Qa’ab in Abydos was paved with slabs of red and black Aswan granite.

The modern town of Aswan

has encroached on a number of quarry sites in the area

and large sections have been lost prior to archaeological recording

 

Today, hundreds of quarries throughout Egypt are under threat, chiefly from modern quarrying activities that erase all trace of ancient use. Many quarries have not been properly studied or documented, and once modern exploitation starts, there is very little chance to recover any archaeological evidence. Like other sites in Egypt, urban expansion, new roads and development projects also threaten to damage or destroy quarry sites. 

 

For an example of an important ancient quarry in Egypt, click here.