Abstract
Abstract. The paper explores the relationship between the archaeological zones of the ancient city of Sais at Sa el-Hagar, Egypt, and the natural landscape of the western central Nile Delta and, in particular, the extent to which the dynamic form of the landscape was an element in the choice of settlement location. Furthermore, settlement at Sais has been determined to have existed at several locations in the immediate environs of the current archaeological zones from the Neolithic period, around 4000 BCE (Before Common Era), to the modern day, suggesting that the local environment was conducive to sustainable settlement, culminating in the establishment of a capital city in the 7th century BCE. The nature of the settlement, its immediate environs and waterway systems will, thus, be described, based on correlation of geological, geophysical, remote sensing and archaeological data, in order to establish if and when human interactions in the landscape can be determined to be reactive or proactive.
Highlights
The archaeological site of Sais at Sa el-Hagar, Gharbiyah Governorate, Egypt (Fig. 1), has been studied since 1997, within its palaeo- and modern landscape, through a programme of archaeological survey and excavation combined with geoelectrical resistivity and magnetic survey as well as a manual drill coring programme (Wilson, 2006)
The dynamics of the landscape and human activity can be analysed for information about the extent to which the choice of area for settlement was dictated by naturally occurring favourable conditions, such as buried sand features and/or levees or levees, or by human political and economic choices connected with land and river management (Hritz, 2014, pp. 230–243)
This paper will analyse the extent to which different types of data from geophysical, archaeological, remote sensing and ancient textual information can be combined to correlate and extend the interpretation of single data sets, in order to track waterways, buried sandhills, human settlement and other landscape interventions over the longue durée of 6000 years at Sa el-Hagar in a floodplain dominated by an ancient river system
Summary
The archaeological site of Sais at Sa el-Hagar, Gharbiyah Governorate, Egypt (Fig. 1), has been studied since 1997, within its palaeo- and modern landscape, through a programme of archaeological survey and excavation combined with geoelectrical resistivity and magnetic survey as well as a manual drill coring programme (Wilson, 2006). The dynamics of the landscape and human activity can be analysed for information about the extent to which the choice of area for settlement was dictated by naturally occurring favourable conditions, such as buried sand features and/or levees or levees, or by human political and economic choices connected with land and river management This paper will analyse the extent to which different types of data from geophysical, archaeological, remote sensing and ancient textual information can be combined to correlate and extend the interpretation of single data sets, in order to track waterways, buried sandhills, human settlement and other landscape interventions over the longue durée of 6000 years at Sa el-Hagar in a floodplain dominated by an ancient river system
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