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Ancient Egypt Magazine

Volume Two Issue Six -- May/June 2002

Netfishing by Hapy  

There are plenty of would-be archaeologists out there who may never have the chance to go ‘digging’, for reasons of health, wealth (lack of either, or both), opportunity or ability. It takes certain qualities to be an excavator, foremost of which is stamina.

 The Internet has brought opportunities to the armchair archaeologist. Previous Netfishing pages have advised you of the splendours of Professor Kent Weeks’ work at KV5 (www.kv5.com) and Nigel Strudwick’s Cambridge site which features ongoing work in the tomb of Senneferi. These are real chances to participate, vicariously, in the trials and tribulations of Egyptian archaeology.

  When it was suggested that 1 take a look at www.liv.ac.uk/abqain, the site relating to our feature on wells in the current issue, 1 was delighted.

 Yes, I admit to a certain bias towards archaeologists who spend much of their time up to their necks in water down holes in the ground, as do the Liverpool academics. Lovely! (And it makes a change from the editor’s tales of long wet summers spent at Gloucester or Tamworth down similar holes in the ground, masquerading as moat sluices and sumps, and filled with Roman or medieval detritus.)

 It’s a friendly site, Tell Abqa’in. It’s interesting because it gives a new view of Egyptology, which so often centres on the Nile Valley itself, although also, increasingly, on the oases which have their own stories to tell. Tell Abqa’in was a remote frontier site, (as was Zawiyet Umm el Rakham, featured in earlier editions of AE).

 There’s a map of the site of Tell Abqa’in provided, which has a click-on facility to view the walls, the central gateway, and of course, the famous wells. More water! Great!

 Visitors used to the temples and tombs of the Nile Valley will see images, photographic and graphic, of a different type of archaeology; the fortified site betrays the fears of its age, of invasion, of territorial claimants, of the unknown.

 The numerous photographs of the team at work provide a true flavour of what it’s like to  work on an Egyptian site, and there’s a handy photographic index listing all the images.

 With the online launch of the entire collection of the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, and the new Kahun database comprising artefacts from both the Petrie and Manchester Museums, it seemed a good time to re-visit the ‘Digital Egypt for Universities’ pages (www.petrie.ucl.ac.uk/digital_egypt/) for which the Petrie collection has also provided the inspiration.

 This too is an ongoing project, developed by the Petrie in conjunction with the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, UCL.

 At this stage, the images of various settlement, cemetery and palaces are particularly appealing, including visualisations and reconstructions of well-known locations such as Hierakonpolis, Buhen, Lahun, Amarna, Badari and Naqada; Thebes, Saqqara and the Fayum are also included. These can be located via the ‘Archaeological Record’ on the opening page.

 While ostensibly aimed at university level students, there is a page for beginners to the subject, and a tour of the predynastic aspects of the site is on offer (with more to come). Images of Egyptian art and architecture are also well-advanced. It will be interesting to see how this develops after the launch of the whole Petrie collection, with its digitised images of every one of the 80,000 items located there.

Is virtual visiting an alternative to a trip to Egypt or to a museum? No. It is a useful accessory to a visit, but the latter is preferable. However, the huge amount of time, effort and resources needed to put these web sites into place may help the observer to realise the vast amount of work that has always gone on behind the scenes at every museum. Museums can never hope to display every item in their collections to best advantage but in the future, digitisation may put an end to the frustration of the student seeking particular pieces which are not exhibited publicly.

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