Speakers
Mr Ehab Fahmy
Director, Red Sea Department, Central Department of Underwater Antiquities
Biography:
Ehab Mahmoud Fahmy Abdo is Director of the Red Sea Department of Underwater Antiquities, Central Department of Underwater Antiquities, Ministry of Antiquities; expert in archaeological surveys using geophysical survey tools, and a diving instructor. He graduated from the Faculty of Arts, Alexandria University, History and Egyptian and Islamic Antiquities Section. He obtained his MA in Mediterranean studies from the Institute for Mediterranean Studies, Faculty of Arts, Alexandria University; and advanced studies in using geophysical tools in revealing sunken sites from the University of Patras, Greece. He participated in several marine excavations with international missions: he was a member of the mission of the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology (EIUA) in both Abu Qir and Eastern Harbor in Alexandria; the mission of the Centre for Alexandrian Studies working near the Citadel of Qaitbay; and the mission of Southampton University in Mareotis Island. He also participated in the marine excavations of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Department of Underwater Antiquities; he headed the excavation team working in Ibrahimiya and Sporting; and was a member of the Egyptian mission in charge of the archaeological and geophysical surveys in the site of Gebel el Silsila, and archaeological surveys using the Sub Bottom Profiler, as well as land excavations of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Department of Antiquities in West Delta, conducted in the following Alexandrian archaeological sites: Maria, Faculty of Arts, Karmouz Hospital, el-Haouaria, and Marina el-Alamein. He published a research in 2001 in the Bulletin of the Geological Society of Greece entitled “A Reconnaissance Marine Geophysical Survey in Alexandria, Egypt, for the Detection of Ancient Shipwrecks and Other Traces of Human Activity”.
Abstract:
Department of Underwater Antiquities Archaeological Activities in Two Decades
Ehab Fahmy
Ibrahim Metwalli
While the activities on underwater cultural heritage were undertaken in Egypt since about one hundred years, the Department of Underwater Antiquities (DUA) was founded in late 1996. Since then, the DUA has supervised several cooperative and independent archaeological surveys and excavations in its territorial and inland waters. These include geophysical and visual archaeological surveys, and underwater excavations in different sites in the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea, the Nile, Lake Qarun, and around Lake Mareotis, covering the Pharaonic, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and Islamic Periods.
The presentation will briefly shed light on the most important archaeological activities conducted by the DUA in the past twenty years in Lake Mareotis, Lake Qarun, El-Kour Island and Maamoura. The results of the Nile Archaeological Mapping Project (NAMP) in both Aswan and Al-Silsilah, will be introduced in some details. In addition, an overall archaeological map containing all the underwater cultural heritage sites in Egypt, and the surveyed areas in both territorial and inland waters, will be presented.