September 2001

Columbia University Scholars Win $2 Million National Science Foundation Information Technology Grant to Develop New Tools for Digital Archæology

View online press release.

View online press release.

ISERP awards $15,000 grant for digital curriculum development at Amheida archæological excavation in Egypt.


The Columbia University Excavation at Amheida, an ancient settlement site located in the Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt and the Visual Media have been awarded a $15,000 grant from ISERP for development of an online teaching initiative to complement the project's research and fieldwork. The excavation is a collaborative endeavor among departments and centers across the Columbia campus, a genuine example of scholarship that, although grounded in the social sciences, bridges traditional academic categories. Building on the Visual Media Center's experience in developing online pedagogical resources that link research and learning, the digital aspect of the project will enable our partners to integrate data into online resources and disseminate original content to the Columbia University community, other institutions, and the general public. Through the application of online technology and a cross disciplinary academic approach, diverse> interpretations of 5,000 years of Egyptian society will be made available to as broad an audience as possible.

Why is Dakhleh Important? Dakhleh Oasis provides a unique opportunity to confront the central issues of Egyptian settlement archæology in a site likely to yield a rich assemblage of artifacts including written and pictorial materials. Despite several hundred years of excavation in Egypt, there is not a single archæological project that involves the excavation of a site with a comparable depth of material and that has been carried out to the highest standards of modern archæology. Consequently, the Amheida excavations will include full involvement of relevant scientific specialties, including palaeobotany, micromorphology, and residue, faunal and ceramic analyses in addition to the multiple techniques available today for the study of human remains. It will also afford anthropologists and social historians the opportunity to study the peoples and cultures of Egypt's Western Desert, a substantial lacuna in the field of Egyptian history and anthropology. The excavation includes participants from the departments of Anthropology, Classics, Art History and Archæology, History, and Computer Science; the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory; and the Historic Preservation program of the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation. These participants will bring their distinct academic interests to the project and broaden understanding of Egyptian culture.

Mention of Egyptian archæology tends to bring forth images of monumental funerary complexes and high-quality "objets d'art" rather than a snapshot of daily life. This is in part because settlement patterns and the inundation cycles within the Nile River Valley leave desert funerary sites intact but cover settlements with silts and modern villages. As a result, our understanding of Egyptian social history beyond the mortuary sphere is limited. The opportunity to focus on a settlement is invaluable. As a site outside of the Nile Valley, Amheida will give a different vantage point from which to view ancient Egypt. The Dakhleh Oasis was on the border of what we generally think of as Egyptian society. Amheida was a settlement occupied as early as the 3rd millennium BCE, and the oasis itself is mentioned in Old Kingdom texts as part of the desert road that joined the Nile Valley to Nubia and North Africa. Occupation continued through the Roman period when the site seems to have become the city of Trimithis, and was perhaps the location of a Roman military garrison. As late as the nineteenth century, the oasis served as an important stop on the trans-Saharan trade routes. The project is sure to cast light on Egypt's position at this crossroad.