The Polish Publications in Mediterranean Archaeology series from Peeters Publishers has yet another volume accessible online. It is a monograph on excavations of a megalithic ceremonial complex from the 5th millenium BCE in the Eastern Desert in Egypt.
The site is located almost directly in the middle of the Eastern Desert, on a wadi trail connecting the Valley of the Nile with the Red Sea. It was first documented during surveys by the Polish-American Berenike Project, co-directed by Iwona Zych. It must have formed an eye-catching landmark for the pastoral communities traversing the mountains in later times. Excavations, headed by Piotr Osypiński, revealed a human burial in the center of several burials of cattle and sheep, within an enclosure of upright stone slabs. The study of the animal remains, conducted by Marta Osypińska, adds to the current knowledge of cattle domestication in the Neolithic and early cattle mobility in northeastern Africa.
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Piotr Osypiński, Marta Osypińska and Iwona Zych, Wadi Khashab. Unearthing Late Prehistory in the Eastern Desert of Egypt, (=Polish Publications in Mediterranean Archaeology 5). Leuven–Paris–Bristol: Peeters Publishers
Information about forthcoming volumes in the PPMA series can be found on our website and on the Peeters Publishers website.
This open-access publication was made possible with support from the Ministry of Education and Science program for “Internationalization of Research of the Archaeological Centres of the University of Warsaw in Egypt, Peru, Georgia and Montenegro” and thanks to a grant from the ‘Initiative of Excellence – Research University’ (IDUB).