Weekly Websites

Rosette Project
http://vincent.euverte.free.fr/

Many thanks to Vincent Euverte for bringing the Rosette Project to my attention. You will need to be able to read French to get the benefit of it.

Il y a de cela presque deux siècles, le savant français Jean François Champollion découvrait, grâce à la Pierre de Rosette, le secret des hiéroglyphes et effaçait plusieurs siècles de doute et de spéculations sur cette écriture sacrée.

Aujourd'hui, alors que les épigraphistes chevronnés cernent de mieux en mieux les textes égyptiens, leur compréhension reste difficile pour une grande partie des passionnés. Comment offrir un outil qui permettrait au plus grand nombre d'accéder à des documents hiéroglyphiques ? Comment créer un programme simple et accessible à chacun ? Le Projet Rosette tente d'apporter un début de réponse à ces questions.

Oxford University Research Archive
ORA

Oxford University Research Archive (ORA) contains research publications and other research output produced by members of the University of Oxford. Content includes copies of journal articles, conference papers, theses and other types of research publications. The full text of many of these items is freely available to be used in accordance with copyright and end-user permissions.

Oxford University Research Archive is a growing repository of Oxford research publications and is therefore not a complete record of the research output from the university.

The Browse facility is currently being upgraded, but when I typed "Egypt" into the search engine it came up with some terrific papers by John Baines.

Sudan Electronic Journal of Archaeology and Anthropology (Arkamani)
Arkamani

The archaeological salvage campaigns of the 1960's brought to Nubia for the first time a large group of scholars with no background either in Egyptology or in the Classics; people who could theoretically approach the study of Nubian history without inherited preconceptions. From the work of these scholars, and later of their students, there has gradually arisen a recognized discipline of Nubiology, emphasizing the study of Nubia for its own sake rather than as an adjunct to the Egyptian or the Classical world'.

Arkamani's main objective is to make this new concept known both to Arab and non-Arab readers.

Nabta Playa
African Archaeology

Nabta Playa is an internally drained basin that served as an important ceremonial center for nomadic tribes during the early part of 9560 BC. Located 62 miles west of Abu Simbel some 60 miles west of the Nile near the Egyptian-Sudanese border. Nabta contains a number of standing and toppled megaliths. They include flat, tomb-like stone structures and a small stone circle that predates Stonehenge (2600 B.C.), and other similar prehistoric sites by 1000's of years.

Although some believe the high culture of subsequent Egyptian dynasties was borrowed from Mesopotamia and Syria, University of Colorado at Boulder astronomy Professor J. McKim Malville and others believe the complex and symbolic Nabta culture may have stimulated the growth of the society that eventually constructed the first pyramids along the Nile about 4500 years ago. Neolithic herders that began coming to Nabta about 10,000 years ago -- probably from central Africa -- used cattle in their rituals just as the African Massai do today, he said. Analysis of human remains suggest migration from sub-Saharan Africa (1).

The Nabta culture may have been a trigger for the development of social complexity in Egypt that later led to the Pharaonic dynasty he said.

Walter Granger's Faiyum Diary 1907
Faiyum Diary

The following is an abridged version of Walter Granger's daily account of America's first transoceanic fossil-hunt -- an expedition to the Fayum of Egypt in 1907. Granger's preserved, original handwritten record is the only firsthand account of any Fayum paleontology expedition made before 1947! This is the first treatment of this event based on the actual documentary record.

Tourism and Sustainable Development in Egypt 2002
PlanBlue

Tourism products in Egypt, which are attractive to international visitors, are represented by historical tourism along the Nile River as well as by marine tourism mainly with diving activities along the Red Sea coast. The activity patterns and the markets of these tourism are definitely different.

The historical tourism takes the form of sightseeing tours, while the marine tourism takes the form of long-term staying. Historical tourism attracts visitors from all over the world irrespective of distances from origin areas (long, medium and short haul market), while the marine tourism attracts visitors mostly from European countries (short and mid haul market).

Integrated products, which include both types of tourism destinations, are rare. In most cases, these two products are separated in each sub-region and prepared as optional tours with each other. That is because (a) the market of each tourism is deferent; (b) the domestic transportation system is not adequate to absorb the integrated tourism product; and (c) the capacity of Egyptian tourism industry is not satisfactory developed to supply the services for various needs of visitors. In other words, the capability of the Egyptian tourism industry is not yet matured enough to meet the various requirements from independent international visitors.

The other largest markets of Egyptian tourism are the Arab countries. They enjoy city tourism, staying in Cairo or Alexandria. Most of them are independent visitors, because there is no language barrier in communications.

See the above page for the full report (in PDF format).


UNEP/WCMC Report on Wadi Al Hitan (Faiyum Depression)
UNEP-WCMC

Wadi Al-Hitan in Egypt’s Western Desert is the only place in the world where the skeletons of families of archaic whales can be seen in their original geological and geographic setting of the shallow nutrient-rich bay of a sea of some 40 million years ago. The fossils and sediments of different periods and levels reveal many millions of years of life and are valuable indications of the palaeoecologic conditions, of Eocene vertebrate and invertebrate life and the evolution of these ancestors of modern whales. Remarkably, two species still had small hind limbs, feet and toes. The quality, abundance, concentration and state of preservation of these fossils is unequalled.

Deserts, Cars, Maps and Names
eSharp Issue 4
By Jim Harold

During the Spring and Summer of 1915, a thirty-nine year old sheep farmer, Claud H. Williams, travelled from New Zealand by way of the USA to Britain. On arrival in Britain he enlisted in the British Army and in particular the Pembroke Yeomanry and by April 1916 found himself stationed in the Egyptian desert. He was promoted to Captain and seconded to The Light Car Patrols (which may be considered to be a fore-runner to the Long Range Desert Group of WWII). He was to remain in Egypt until 1919.

Whilst this desert sojourn was a source of much frustration - kept, as he saw it, away from the action - by the end of hostilities in Egypt he had amassed a huge knowledge of the desert and motorised desert travel. Williams was awarded the Military Cross for his notable work which was to lead, just before his demobilisation by the middle of 1919, to the publication of his Report on the Military Geography of the North-Western Desert of Egypt. This was a one-hundred-and-seventy-one-page secret report with accompanying new and accurate maps of the desert terrain, which outlined the very serious potential for the use of motor vehicles in the deserts of Egypt. This document was to remain classified by the British Government until 18th October 1963.