Benjamin Pennington

Theban harbours and waterscapes survey, 2013

Report on the 2014 season of the Theban Harbours and Waterscapes Survey. The paper discusses topographic survey and data correction for the West Bank of Thebes and geoarchaeological investigation of the Temple of Millions of Years of Amenhotep III and the area to the east of the Ramesseum.

Data for: The fluvial evolution of the Holocene Nile Delta

The evolution of the Nile Delta, the largest delta system in the Mediterranean Sea, has both high palaeoenvironmental and archaeological significance. A dynamic model of the landscape evolution of this delta system is presented for the period c.8000–4500 cal BP. Analysis of sedimentary data and chronostratigraphic information contained within 1640 borehole records has allowed for a redefinition of the internal stratigraphy of the Holocene delta, and the construction of a four-dimensional landscape model for the delta’s evolution through time. The mid-Holocene environmental evolution is characterised by a transition from an earlier set of spatially varied landscapes dominated by swampy marshland, to better-drained, more uniform floodplain environments. Archaeologically important Pleistocene inliers in the form of sandy hills protruding above the delta plain surface (known as “turtlebacks”), also became smaller as the delta plain continued to aggrade, while the shoreline and coastal zone prograded north. These changes were forced by a decrease in the rate of relative sea-level rise under high rates of sediment-supply. This dynamic environmental evolution needs to be integrated within any discussion of the contemporary developments in the social sphere, which culminated in the emergence of the Ancient Egyptian State c.5050 cal BP.

Theban Harbours and Waterscapes Survey, Spring 2016

Report on the 2016 spring season of the Theban Harbours and Waterscapes Survey (THaWS). The article discusses the geoarchaeological and geophysical survey along a 3.2 km-long transect starting close to the front of the Temple of Millions of Years of Ay and Horemheb and stretching to the village of Geziret el-Bairat on the West Bank of the Nile.