Speaker Details

Dr Rosanna Pirelli +  Irene Bragantini
Università di Napoli "L'Orientale"

Presentation Abstract:

THE ITALIAN PROJECT IN THE

CENTRAL EASTERN DESERT OF EGYPT

Between Wadi Hamamah and Wadi Hammamat

 

During the first season of fieldwork, the Italian Archaeological Mission in the Eastern Desert of Egypt surveyed an area of about 17 km (in straight line) proceeding from the entrance of the Wadi Gasus and moving west-south-west. As planned, part of the survey focused on the (re)discovery of sites already identified by explorers and scholars of the past, while the other was devoted to a preliminary analysis and topographic survey of the "Greek-Roman station". A new mining site has also been identified in the area: although working areas and huts do not show signs of repairs or modifications, the site might have been exploited over a long period of time.

 

Among the previously discovered sites, the mission identified again the location and current conditions of some rock engravings and of three groups of Pharaonic rock inscriptions, which will be the focus of this paper:

 

1.      a short inscription at the entrance of a lead mine, recorded, photographed and copied by Tregenza in the first decades of last century;

2.      a small stela of the same period, also recorded by Tregenza in the neighbourhood and, according to his own words, brought to Cairo;

3.      the great scene of the time of Psammetichus I, at the mouth of Wadi Abu Gowah.