The PCMA Seminar will host another lecture discussing the archaeology of the Eastern Desert and the Red Sea region. It will be presented by Dr. Maël Crépy from the Institut français d’archéologie orientale: “Gold, roads, water and forts in the Eastern Desert of Egypt.” The lecture series is organized by Dr. Mariusz Gwiazda.
Abstract: “Created in 1994 by Hélène Cuvigny, the French Archaeological Mission of the Eastern Desert (MAFDO) initially focused on road forts and quarries from the Roman period. From 2013 onwards, under the direction of Bérangère Redon, and then Thomas Faucher, the work opened to the analysis of desert exploitation in the Ptolemaic period, in particular of gold mines, in the Samut mining district, and then at the Ptolemaic fort of Abbad. From 2020, onwards, the mission began excavating the Hellenistic gold-mining village of Ghozza, as well as a nearby Early Roman period fort (Βερκου), and the site of Deir el-Atrash, where one of the forts occupied in Roman and late Roman periods on the road to the Porphyrites quarries is located. The study of this region is now continuing under the direction of Maël Crépy. In parallel, the ERC-funded Desert Networks project, directed by Bérangère Redon, has made it possible to trace the routes and produce a regional analysis of the water resources. This presentation will highlight the main results of the MAFDO in the district of Ghozza since 2020, as well as some of the progress in the understanding of the roads and watering places developed in the framework of the Desert Networks project.”
The seminar will be held online on Monday, 5th June at 2 pm Warsaw time (UTC+2) on Zoom. To obtain a link, please write to the PCMA UW office: pcma@uw.edu.pl