| Popis: |
The first part of this chapter focuses on the relationships between the Nile, the biophysical landscape, and methods of ancient Egyptian irrigation. The initial discussion concerns the likely nature of the primeval Nile landscape, and the use of Sub-saharan analogues, such as the Niger and Senegal rivers, as arguments for there having been a free-draining, convex Nile floodplain. There is also discussion of Alleaume’s study of basin-irrigation in the Nile, which has implications for contemporary research on the Egyptian landscape. The second half of the chapter examines historical perspectives on the ancient environment of northeast Africa, allowing the rich body of available data to be analysed objectively. The latter section includes a detailed case study on the geoarchaeology of the Giza region, and specifically the Old Kingdom settlement site of Heit el-Ghurab. |
