Mark E Lehner
University of Chicago, Oriental Institute, Department Member
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Research Interests: Archaeology and Art
This archives media files associated with the <em>ARCE Sphinx Project 1979-1983 Archive</em> project published by Open Context.The included JSON file "zenodo-oc-files.json" describes links between the various files... more
This archives media files associated with the <em>ARCE Sphinx Project 1979-1983 Archive</em> project published by Open Context.The included JSON file "zenodo-oc-files.json" describes links between the various files in this archival deposit and their associated Open Context media resources (identified by URI). These linked Open Context media resource items provide additional context and descriptive metadata for the files archived here.<br><strong>Brief Description of this Project</strong><br>Maps, drawings, and photographs from the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE) Sphinx Project, 1979-1983
Research Interests: World Wide Web and Sphinx
This archives media files associated with the <em>ARCE Sphinx Project 1979-1983 Archive</em> project published by Open Context.The included JSON file "zenodo-oc-files.json" describes links between the various files... more
This archives media files associated with the <em>ARCE Sphinx Project 1979-1983 Archive</em> project published by Open Context.The included JSON file "zenodo-oc-files.json" describes links between the various files in this archival deposit and their associated Open Context media resources (identified by URI). These linked Open Context media resource items provide additional context and descriptive metadata for the files archived here.<br><strong>Brief Description of this Project</strong><br>Maps, drawings, and photographs from the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE) Sphinx Project, 1979-1983
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Research Interests: Archaeology and Sphinx
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In addition to understanding small-scale societies in their own right "from a complex systems perspective" (Boekhorst and Hemelrijk this volume), workshop participants expressed a goal of using insights about the dynamics of... more
In addition to understanding small-scale societies in their own right "from a complex systems perspective" (Boekhorst and Hemelrijk this volume), workshop participants expressed a goal of using insights about the dynamics of small-scale societies to better understand the "evolution of state-like structures" (Small this volume), or "the 'emergence' trajectories by which a smallscale society, in its environment, may move autonomously from relatively simple (distributed, no ranking or centralized decision making) to complex (ranking/hierarchy, with centralized decision making and a degree of specialization)" (Doran this volume). Small-scale societies are seen as "preceding conditions" to the development of "rank vs. egalitarian ideologies" (Wright this volume) such as are found in archaic states. Ancient Egypt is a salient example of such an archaic state. In the comparative study of civilizations, ancient Egypt has stood out as the quintessence of a centralized nation-state ruling a large territory. Egyptologists often operate through a vision of ancient Egyptian society, whether explicit or assumed, as highly absolutist. Pharaoh's control of society is complete, effected through an invasive and pervasive centralized bureaucracy. Anthropologists, taking their cue from Egyptologists, see Egypt as one of the earliest examples of a unified nation-state, with a redistributive economy centrally administered over the entirety of the Egyptian Nile Valley. I offer a prospectus for approaching Egyptian civilization as a complex adaptive system (CAS) based on loose analogies with concepts of emergent order and self-organization. This a narrative exploration of ways that ancient Egyptian society may be amenable to the kind of agent-based modeling applied to small-scale societies. Although I recognize that in discussions of "complexity theory" there is nothing close to unanimity or an agreed paradigm (Wilson 1998), some of the more general concepts may at least offer insightful new ways to view social complexity in Egypt. My prospectus is a workin- progress. My sources for complex systems studies are "the literature of metaphor (e.g., Cowan et al. 1994), and the popularizations of metaphysics"; that is to say, what follows is most certainly in Morowitz's (1998) category of meta-metaphor (and I will try to refrain from "word magic").
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DURING the clearance of the area at the south base of the Second Giza Pyramid by Abdel Hafez Abd el-'Al in I960, a sealed passage was discovered near the remains of the small satellite pyramid, GI Ia.1 The passage opens in the... more
DURING the clearance of the area at the south base of the Second Giza Pyramid by Abdel Hafez Abd el-'Al in I960, a sealed passage was discovered near the remains of the small satellite pyramid, GI Ia.1 The passage opens in the bedrock 4 m west of the satellite pyramid and ...
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From 1979 to 1983 the American Research Center in Egypt carried out an architectural, archaeological and geo-archaeological study of the Giza Sphinx. Photogrammetry and conventional surveying techniques were used to prepare detailed plans... more
From 1979 to 1983 the American Research Center in Egypt carried out an architectural, archaeological and geo-archaeological study of the Giza Sphinx. Photogrammetry and conventional surveying techniques were used to prepare detailed plans and front and side elevations of the monument. These have made it possible to construct a computer model of the current condition of the Sphinx, and its hypothesized condition in ancient times, both as originally carved in the 4th Dynasty, and as remodelled and renovated during the 18th Dynasty. Careful analysis of surviving detached fragments of the Sphinx allowed details of beard and uraeus to be included in the reconstruction. This process of creating a computer model of the Sphinx is akin to sculpting the statue again in computer memory.
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Research Interests: Conversation and Elite
... pyramid of Khufu. Post a Comment. CONTRIBUTORS: Author: Lehner, Mark. PUBLISHER: P. von Zabern (Mainz am Rhein). SERIES TITLE: YEAR: 1985. PUB TYPE: Book (ISBN 3805308140 ). VOLUME/EDITION: PAGES (INTRO/BODY): x,. SUBJECT(S): Jizah... more
... pyramid of Khufu. Post a Comment. CONTRIBUTORS: Author: Lehner, Mark. PUBLISHER: P. von Zabern (Mainz am Rhein). SERIES TITLE: YEAR: 1985. PUB TYPE: Book (ISBN 3805308140 ). VOLUME/EDITION: PAGES (INTRO/BODY): x,. SUBJECT(S): Jizah (Egypt); Egypt; ...
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Cet article rend compte en les évaluant des similitudes existant entre les écuelles grossières mésopotamiennes de la Période d'Uruk et le moule à pain (bedja) de l'Ancien Empire égyptien. Formes, pâtes, techniques de fabrication,... more
Cet article rend compte en les évaluant des similitudes existant entre les écuelles grossières mésopotamiennes de la Période d'Uruk et le moule à pain (bedja) de l'Ancien Empire égyptien. Formes, pâtes, techniques de fabrication, contexte archéologique, évolution, sont comparés; puis vient l'examen du pictogramme égyptien utilisé pour désigner le bedja. Sont enfin considérées les implications que peut avoir l'identification de l'écuelle grossière mésopotamienne avec le moule à pain égyptien pour notre connaissance de la formation de l'Etat dans le Proche Orient ancien.
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Tomb and temple - the meaning of the pyramids explorers and scientists the whole pyramid catalogue building a pyramid the living pyramid the legacy of the pyramid.
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Abstract Includes index and bibliographical references.. Appendix I, pottery/by Pamela J. Rose; Appendix II, textiles/by Gillian M. Vogelsang-Eastwood.. Electronic reproduction.. xxii,[72 p., 91] p. of plates ill., maps, plans 32 cm
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The MACHO Project was a collaboration between scientists at the Mt. Stromlo and Siding Spring Observatories, the Center for Particle Astrophysics at the Santa Barbara, San Diego, and Berkeley campuses of the University of California, and... more
The MACHO Project was a collaboration between scientists at the Mt. Stromlo and Siding Spring Observatories, the Center for Particle Astrophysics at the Santa Barbara, San Diego, and Berkeley campuses of the University of California, and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Our primary aim was to test the hypothesis that a significant fraction of the dark matter in the halo of the Milky Way is made up of objects like brown dwarfs or planets: these objects have come to be known as MACHOs, for MAssive Compact Halo Objects. The signature of these objects is the occasional amplification of the light from extragalactic stars by the gravitational lens effect. The amplification can be large, but events are extremely rare: it was necessary to monitor photometrically several million stars for a period of 10 years in order to obtain a useful detection rate. For this purpose we built a two channel system that employed eight 2048*2048 CCDs, mounted on the 50 inch telescope at Mt. Stromlo. The MACHO project data archive consists of approximately 127,000 two-colour images of fields collected between 1992 and 2003 covering the large and small Magellanic clouds and the galactic bulge and two-colour light-curves for approximately 18 million stars in the LMC and galactic bulge.
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We interpret walls, paths, and material culture excavated at the Heit el-Ghurab site up to 2010 as serving to monitor and control people involved in labor and production connected with building the 4th Dynasty Giza Pyramids.
Research Interests: Ancient History, Geography, Archaeology, Egyptology, Stratigraphy, and 15 moreMaterial Culture Studies, Architectural History, Egypt, Social History, Labor History and Studies, Ancient Egyptian History, Settlement archaeology, Archeological Science, Social Control, Ancient Egypt, ISBN, Giza, PYRAMID, Footprint, and ancient Egypytian pyramids
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This study is the first systematic description of the Great Sphinx of Giza. It is an architectural, archaeological, and geo-archaeological approach, based on five years of field work at the Sphinx between 1979 and 1983. The Sphinx and its... more
This study is the first systematic description of the Great Sphinx of Giza. It is an architectural, archaeological, and geo-archaeological approach, based on five years of field work at the Sphinx between 1979 and 1983. The Sphinx and its site were documented using photogrammetry and conventional surveying techniques. I describe the setting and layout of the site of the Sphinx and review the history of previous research and excavation. The results of eight years of excavation from the 1920s and 30s are documented here for the first time. I review published sources about the history and significance of the Sphinx. I describe the features of the Sphinx and its site on the basis of the field work. This work has lead to the following conclusions: Builders, under the 4th Dynasty pharaoh, Khafre (ca. 2,500 B.C.), quarried a series of terraces and a U-shaped sanctuary for the Sphinx. They extracted the stone in the form of multi-ton core blocks that they used for making the Khafre Valley T...
Research Interests: Archaeology and Sphinx
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Council of Antiquities (SCA) inspectors in our excavation program from February 7 to April 2,
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Research Interests: Archaeology and Art
L'auteur discute ici l'idee de J.A. West et R. Schoch selon laquelle le Sphinx aurait ete edifie entre 7000 et 5000 av. J.-C. (et non autour de 2500 av. J.-C., comme il est communement admis), et serait donc le seul temoignage... more
L'auteur discute ici l'idee de J.A. West et R. Schoch selon laquelle le Sphinx aurait ete edifie entre 7000 et 5000 av. J.-C. (et non autour de 2500 av. J.-C., comme il est communement admis), et serait donc le seul temoignage d'une civilisation anterieure a l'Ancien Empire et inconnue des archeologues.
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Tomb and temple - the meaning of the pyramids explorers and scientists the whole pyramid catalogue building a pyramid the living pyramid the legacy of the pyramid.
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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior consent of the... more
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior consent of the publisher. ISBN: 0-9779370-6-2
I review survey and mapping of the Giza Necropolis.
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I look at geomorphological, archaeological, and architectural evidence related to the broad bedrock terrace on which the Khafre Valley Temple and Sphinx Temple were built to suggest that it may have served as a landing stage and depot for... more
I look at geomorphological, archaeological, and architectural evidence related to the broad bedrock terrace on which the Khafre Valley Temple and Sphinx Temple were built to suggest that it may have served as a landing stage and depot for delivery of stone and other material needed for building the pyramid of Khufu. The terrace would have been the easiest place for Merer and his phyle to offload the limestone that they delivered from Tura for the Khufu pyramid, as attested in the Wadi el-Jarf Papyri. A reconstruction of 4th Dynasty water transport infrastructure at Giza, based on evidence that has come to light over the past 30 years, suggests a central canal basin led from the Ro-she Khufu on a bank of a western Nile branch straight to the area east of the Sphinx. From here the shortest distance to the Khufu Pyramid leads along the course of the modern road passing 50 m north of the Sphinx. Does this reinforce the idea that Khufu conceived and started to form the Great Sphinx? While this is possible, architectural traces around the foundations of the Khafre Valley Temple and Sphinx Temple make it most probable that it was Khafre’s workers who quarried and shaped the Sphinx and built the Sphinx Temple as part of the same quarry- construction sequence.
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In a contoured bathymetric model I reconstruct the water transport infrastructure at the foot of the Giza Plateau in the Old Kingdom, 4th Dynasty when Egyptians built the Giza Pyramids, based on core logs, and exposures of 4th Dynasty... more
In a contoured bathymetric model I reconstruct the water transport infrastructure at the foot of the Giza Plateau in the Old Kingdom, 4th Dynasty when Egyptians built the Giza Pyramids, based on core logs, and exposures of 4th Dynasty structures and settlement over the last 30 years that give benchmarks and boundaries.
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This archives media files associated with the <em>ARCE Sphinx Project 1979-1983 Archive</em> project published by Open Context.The included JSON file "zenodo-oc-files.json" describes links between the various files... more
This archives media files associated with the <em>ARCE Sphinx Project 1979-1983 Archive</em> project published by Open Context.The included JSON file "zenodo-oc-files.json" describes links between the various files in this archival deposit and their associated Open Context media resources (identified by URI). These linked Open Context media resource items provide additional context and descriptive metadata for the files archived here.<br><strong>Brief Description of this Project</strong><br>Maps, drawings, and photographs from the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE) Sphinx Project, 1979-1983
In addition to understanding small-scale societies in their own right "from a complex systems perspective" (Boekhorst and Hemelrijk this volume), workshop participants expressed a goal of using insights about the dynamics of... more
In addition to understanding small-scale societies in their own right "from a complex systems perspective" (Boekhorst and Hemelrijk this volume), workshop participants expressed a goal of using insights about the dynamics of small-scale societies to better understand the "evolution of state-like structures" (Small this volume), or "the 'emergence' trajectories by which a smallscale society, in its environment, may move autonomously from relatively simple (distributed, no ranking or centralized decision making) to complex (ranking/hierarchy, with centralized decision making and a degree of specialization)" (Doran this volume). Small-scale societies are seen as "preceding conditions" to the development of "rank vs. egalitarian ideologies" (Wright this volume) such as are found in archaic states. Ancient Egypt is a salient example of such an archaic state. In the comparative study of civilizations, ancient Egypt has stood out as...
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A partir des traces laissees dans le paysage par la rampe principale d'approvisionnement en materiaux, par la carriere, par les installations d'habitation des travailleurs et par le port qui servit a apporter le materiel non... more
A partir des traces laissees dans le paysage par la rampe principale d'approvisionnement en materiaux, par la carriere, par les installations d'habitation des travailleurs et par le port qui servit a apporter le materiel non local, l'A. reconstitue le trace du projet de construction de Cheops (avec l'aide de projections isometriques du plateau de Gizeh, le processus de travail est interprete). Le plateau avant l'exploitation en carrieres de la IV dynastie. Les vestiges du plan de travail de Cheops. Reconstitution des elements de ce plan (rampes, port de dechargement, etc.)
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We report on the strategic locations of bed platforms, or sleeping platforms across doorways, or with lines of sight for monitoring access to certain spaces in the so-called pyramid workers&#39; town of Heit el-Ghurab, which reveals... more
We report on the strategic locations of bed platforms, or sleeping platforms across doorways, or with lines of sight for monitoring access to certain spaces in the so-called pyramid workers&#39; town of Heit el-Ghurab, which reveals something about control at the extreme local end of the scale of administration. Unfortunately, in the final publication both figs. 6 and 7, which we meant to compare the plans of younger and older phases in the NW corner of the RAB enclosure, give the plan of the older phase twice.
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I review the idea that the ancient Egypt state arose as a result of top down, absolute control by central authority against the idea that Egyptian civilization emerged bottom up from reciprocal ties of service, dependency and patronage.
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DURING the clearance of the area at the south base of the Second Giza Pyramid by Abdel Hafez Abd el-'Al in I960, a sealed passage was discovered near the remains of the small satellite pyramid, GI Ia.1 The passage opens in the... more
DURING the clearance of the area at the south base of the Second Giza Pyramid by Abdel Hafez Abd el-'Al in I960, a sealed passage was discovered near the remains of the small satellite pyramid, GI Ia.1 The passage opens in the bedrock 4 m west of the satellite pyramid and ...
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5 Villages and the Old Kingdom Mark Lehner Narratives on ancient Egyptian settlements often focus on the New Kingdom, mostly because of two exceptionally well-preserved towns: Deir el-Medina and Amarna. Settlements dating to the Old... more
5 Villages and the Old Kingdom Mark Lehner Narratives on ancient Egyptian settlements often focus on the New Kingdom, mostly because of two exceptionally well-preserved towns: Deir el-Medina and Amarna. Settlements dating to the Old Kingdom are of great interest too, ...
Research Interests: Urban History, Egyptian Archaeology, Urban Planning, Village Studies, Ancient economies (Archaeology), and 9 moreLabor Organizations, Labor History and Studies, Old Kingdom (Egyptology), Settlement archaeology, Ancient Near Eastern Economy, Giza, PYRAMID, History of Urban Planning, and ancient Egypytian pyramids
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From January 8 to May 31, 2004, we carried out two kinds of excavation at the site of a large Old Kingdom settlement 400 m southeast of the Sphinx and south the colossal stone Wall of the Crow. We cleared large volumes of overburden... more
From January 8 to May 31, 2004, we carried out two kinds of excavation at the site of a large Old Kingdom settlement 400 m southeast of the Sphinx and south the colossal stone Wall of the Crow. We cleared large volumes of overburden consisting of sand and material dumped in modern times. Underneath we exposed and mapped more of the compact surface of the ancient settlement ruins. We also carried out detailed excavations and intensive sampling of material culture in selected small areas (fig. 1). We focused our large-scale clearing north of the Wall of the Crow and east, west, north, and south of the Abu Hol Sports Club in the southeastern part of the site (fig. 2). The most remarkable discovery of this season was a vast, unknown section of the ancient city, the Western Town, which covers more than a hectare. In this report I review the work of our 2004 season, beginning north of the Wall of the Crow. I summarize our detailed excavations, moving south across parts of the site that we...
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We present archaeological information about the Khentkaues Town from work during four field seasons (2005, 2007, 2008, and 2009). We introduce the site, our methodology, describe results, and present tentative conclusions.
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Observations about the monument of the 4th Dynasty queen-mother, Khentkawes I, and about the eastern Annex of the Menkaure Valley Temple (formerly identified as the valley temple of Khentkawes I) lead to the inference that quarry workers... more
Observations about the monument of the 4th Dynasty queen-mother, Khentkawes I, and about the eastern Annex of the Menkaure Valley Temple (formerly identified as the valley temple of Khentkawes I) lead to the inference that quarry workers and builders finished the queen's monument during the 4th Dynasty period of major stone work at Giza, and to the hypothesis that Khentkawes I was the mother of Menkaure, and the queen of the famous dyad that George Reisner found in Menkaure's Valley Temple.
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I made a rather intractable attempt to apply complex adaptive systems and agent-based modeling ideas to what we know about how ancient Egyptian civilization worked, a non-computational, metaphorical approach that suffered a bit from use... more
I made a rather intractable attempt to apply complex adaptive systems and agent-based modeling ideas to what we know about how ancient Egyptian civilization worked, a non-computational, metaphorical approach that suffered a bit from use of post 1820 AD basin irrigation works. But I still believe in the general principles, and the isomorphism between CAS and Max Weber's sociology as applied to ancient Egypt. After 18 years, Fractal House of Pharaoh needs revisiting.
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In addition to understanding small-scale societies in their own right &quot;from a complex systems perspective&quot; (Boekhorst and Hemelrijk this volume), workshop participants expressed a goal of using insights about the... more
In addition to understanding small-scale societies in their own right &quot;from a complex systems perspective&quot; (Boekhorst and Hemelrijk this volume), workshop participants expressed a goal of using insights about the dynamics of small-scale societies to better understand the &quot;evolution of state-like structures&quot; (Small this volume), or &quot;the &#39;emergence&#39; trajectories by which a smallscale society, in its environment, may move autonomously from relatively simple (distributed, no ranking or centralized decision making) to complex (ranking/hierarchy, with centralized decision making and a degree of specialization)&quot; (Doran this volume). Small-scale societies are seen as &quot;preceding conditions&quot; to the development of &quot;rank vs. egalitarian ideologies&quot; (Wright this volume) such as are found in archaic states. Ancient Egypt is a salient example of such an archaic state. In the comparative study of civilizations, ancient Egypt has stood out as the quintessence of a centralized nation-state ruling a large territory. Egyptologists often operate through a vision of ancient Egyptian society, whether explicit or assumed, as highly absolutist. Pharaoh&#39;s control of society is complete, effected through an invasive and pervasive centralized bureaucracy. Anthropologists, taking their cue from Egyptologists, see Egypt as one of the earliest examples of a unified nation-state, with a redistributive economy centrally administered over the entirety of the Egyptian Nile Valley. I offer a prospectus for approaching Egyptian civilization as a complex adaptive system (CAS) based on loose analogies with concepts of emergent order and self-organization. This a narrative exploration of ways that ancient Egyptian society may be amenable to the kind of agent-based modeling applied to small-scale societies. Although I recognize that in discussions of &quot;complexity theory&quot; there is nothing close to unanimity or an agreed paradigm (Wilson 1998), some of the more general concepts may at least offer insightful new ways to view social complexity in Egypt. My prospectus is a workin- progress. My sources for complex systems studies are &quot;the literature of metaphor (e.g., Cowan et al. 1994), and the popularizations of metaphysics&quot;; that is to say, what follows is most certainly in Morowitz&#39;s (1998) category of meta-metaphor (and I will try to refrain from &quot;word magic&quot;).
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DURING the clearance of the area at the south base of the Second Giza Pyramid by Abdel Hafez Abd el-'Al in I960, a sealed passage was discovered near the remains of the small satellite pyramid, GI Ia.1 The passage opens in the... more
DURING the clearance of the area at the south base of the Second Giza Pyramid by Abdel Hafez Abd el-'Al in I960, a sealed passage was discovered near the remains of the small satellite pyramid, GI Ia.1 The passage opens in the bedrock 4 m west of the satellite pyramid and ...
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I introduce the idea and some of the evidence that, more than just a "workers' town," the Heit el-Ghurab 4th Dynasty (c. 2500 BC) settlement site, 400 m south of the Sphinx, formed part of the major Nile of its time, south of Giza's... more
I introduce the idea and some of the evidence that, more than just a "workers' town," the Heit el-Ghurab 4th Dynasty (c. 2500 BC) settlement site, 400 m south of the Sphinx, formed part of the major Nile of its time, south of Giza's central basin and delivery zone which lay east of the Sphinx and Khafre Valley Temple.
I present a synopsis of a reconstruction of water transport infrastructure below the Giza Pyramids Plateau in the 4th Dynasty (c. 2500 MB) based on evidence from contours in the floodplain as of 1977, core drillings and trenches for the... more
I present a synopsis of a reconstruction of water transport infrastructure below the Giza Pyramids Plateau in the 4th Dynasty (c. 2500 MB) based on evidence from contours in the floodplain as of 1977, core drillings and trenches for the late 1980s AMBRIC project to install a waste water system, and subsequent excavations to make foundations for modern buildings. 4th Dynasty structures exposed by these interventions provide benchmarks for the level of the ancient floodplain (c. 12.00-12.5 m asl) and boundaries for waterways and basins. This study reverses the conclusion reached in the article, "Capital Zone Walkabout, Spot Heights on the Third Millennium Landscape," to the effect that waterways and basins filled with Nile water could not have reached the pyramid valley temples nor the base of the plateau. In 2009 the AERA team found the northern end of an artificial basin directly east of the Khentkawes Town and northeast of the Menkaure Valley Temple, with its bottom at least as low as the predictions for the level of the 4th Dynasty flood plain. In a consilience of discovery, German colleagues found an artificial basin east of the so-called Valley Temple of the Bent Pyramid at south Dahshur, about 1 km up the wadi from the floodplain. The evidence for the water transport infrastructure at Giza as here reconstructed will appear in more detail in a forthcoming article, "Lake Khufu, On the Waterfront at Giza: Modeling Water Transport Infrastructure at 4th Dynasty Giza.” In, Profane Landscapes, Sacred Spaces, M. Bárta and J. Janák, eds., (Sheffield: Equinox). Modeling in three dimensions with actual values above sea level allows us to visualize floodplain infrastructure during low Nile (c. 7 m all) and during the annual flood plenitude (13.5-14 m asl).
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This article presents archaeological information from work during four seasons (2005, 2007, 2008 and 2009) in the Khentkaues Town (KKT, the planned settlement north and south of the causeway leading east from the gigantic two-tier mastaba... more
This article presents archaeological information from work during four seasons (2005, 2007, 2008 and 2009) in the Khentkaues Town (KKT, the planned settlement north and south of the causeway leading east from the gigantic two-tier mastaba (LG 100) that served as the tomb and memorial of the late 4th Dynasty queen Khentkaues I, known from her figure, name, and titles carved into the granite doorjambs of her chapel). We introduce the site, our methodology, and provide a detailed description of the 2005 to 2009 results. We try to match the phases of occupation and abandonment in the KKT to those in the adjacent Menkaure Valley Temple (MVT), as construed by George Reisner from his excavations in the MVT between 1908 and 1910.
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I examine the bottom-up role of villages in low population density Old Kingdom Egypt, and later ancient Egypt, against the top-down, planned, and centrally controlled Heit el-Ghurab urban site at Giza, which has been interpreted as... more
I examine the bottom-up role of villages in low population density Old Kingdom Egypt, and later ancient Egypt, against the top-down, planned, and centrally controlled Heit el-Ghurab urban site at Giza, which has been interpreted as infrastructure for pulsing people from provinces, towns, and villages through royal pyramid building works at the emerging core of the Egyptian state.
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We interpret walls, paths, and material culture excavated at the Heit el-Ghurab site up to 2010 as serving to monitor and control people involved in labor and production connected with building the 4th Dynasty Giza Pyramids.
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I discuss results from AERA work at the Heit el-Ghurab (HeG) site and at the Khentkawes Town (KKT) and relate those results to discussion, observations, and conclusions about the floodplain and Nile flood levels at Dahshur, in the... more
I discuss results from AERA work at the Heit el-Ghurab (HeG) site and at the Khentkawes Town (KKT) and relate those results to discussion, observations, and conclusions about the floodplain and Nile flood levels at Dahshur, in the Memphis/Saqqara area, near Giza, and points northwest in the region of Ausim and Abu Roash, with an emphasis on the Old Kingdom.
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I explore hypotheses that people living in the 4th Dynasty (c 2500 BC) settlement at the Heit el-Ghurab site at the Giza Pyramids may have used a building featuring rows of pedestals, bins, and jar sockets for evaporative cooling and... more
I explore hypotheses that people living in the 4th Dynasty (c 2500 BC) settlement at the Heit el-Ghurab site at the Giza Pyramids may have used a building featuring rows of pedestals, bins, and jar sockets for evaporative cooling and malting.
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We report on the both conservation of the remains of a 4th dynasty (c. 2500 BC) house on the Heit el-Ghrab site by backfilling and burying it with clean sand, and, at the same time showing its ground plan by reconstructing the walls in... more
We report on the both conservation of the remains of a 4th dynasty (c. 2500 BC) house on the Heit el-Ghrab site by backfilling and burying it with clean sand, and, at the same time showing its ground plan by reconstructing the walls in the exact location of the original with bricks that match those of the original walls.
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We report on the strategic locations of bed platforms, or sleeping platforms across doorways, or with lines of sight for monitoring access to certain spaces in the so-called pyramid workers' town of Heit el-Ghurab, which reveals something... more
We report on the strategic locations of bed platforms, or sleeping platforms across doorways, or with lines of sight for monitoring access to certain spaces in the so-called pyramid workers' town of Heit el-Ghurab, which reveals something about control at the extreme local end of the scale of administration. Unfortunately, in the final publication both figs. 6 and 7, which we meant to compare the plans of younger and older phases in the NW corner of the RAB enclosure, give the plan of the older phase twice.
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A popular account in a short-lived magazine about our discovery and beginning excavations of the Heit-el-Ghurab, 4th Dynasty (. 2500 BC), settlement site and its Gallery Complex, which we later hypothesized to have served as barracks.
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I made a rather intractable attempt to apply complex adaptive systems and agent-based modeling ideas to what we know about how ancient Egyptian civilization worked, a non-computational, metaphorical approach that suffered a bit from use... more
I made a rather intractable attempt to apply complex adaptive systems and agent-based modeling ideas to what we know about how ancient Egyptian civilization worked, a non-computational, metaphorical approach that suffered a bit from use of post 1820 AD basin irrigation works. But I still believe in the general principles, and the isomorphism between CAS and Max Weber's sociology as applied to ancient Egypt. After 18 years, Fractal House of Pharaoh needs revisiting.
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I review the idea that the ancient Egypt state arose as a result of top down, absolute control by central authority against the idea that Egyptian civilization emerged bottom up from reciprocal ties of service, dependency and patronage.
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Georges Bonani, Herbert Haas, Mark Lehner, Shawki Nakhla, John Nolan, Robert Wenke, Wilma Wetterstrom, and Willy Wölfli, report on the background and general results of the 1984 and 1995 Pyramids Radiocarbon Dating Projects.
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I examine hypotheses that the King's Chamber and Grand Galley in the Khufu Pyramid once contained wood frames.
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We report on how we located and excavated 4th Dynasty settlement west of the Khafre Pyramid and southeast off the pyramids in the Heit el-Ghurab site, on ancient bakeries, and on evidence for Old Kingdom settlement and water transport... more
We report on how we located and excavated 4th Dynasty settlement west of the Khafre Pyramid and southeast off the pyramids in the Heit el-Ghurab site, on ancient bakeries, and on evidence for Old Kingdom settlement and water transport infrastructure buried in the floodplain and under modern settlement east of the Giza Plateau.
Research Interests:
I compare the sketch maps of the site of the Zawiyet el-Aryan Pyramid done by C.S. Fisher with a 1977 topographic map to sort out the position of this unfinished 3rd dynasty pyramid with respect to mastaba Z500, and to establish that Z500... more
I compare the sketch maps of the site of the Zawiyet el-Aryan Pyramid done by C.S. Fisher with a 1977 topographic map to sort out the position of this unfinished 3rd dynasty pyramid with respect to mastaba Z500, and to establish that Z500 cannot be the beginnings of the pyramid's mortuary temple.
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I report on the 1991 experiments with tools, techniques, and operations involved in pyramid building for the 1991 filming of the WGBH NOVA documentary, The Old Pyramid.
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David Goodman and I report on how the survey control of the Giza Plateau Mapping project services excavations of ancient settlements at the foot of the Giza Plateau between 1988 and 1995.
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I review the arguments of John Anthony West and Robert Schoch on their dating of the Sphinx to a period before the Egypt's Old Kingdom, 4th Dynasty.
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We report on evidence that the pharaoh Khafre built the Sphinx in ancient Egypt's Old Kingdom, 4th Dynasty. We review arguments that the Sphinx dates to an earlier period.
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We report on the passage in the rump of the Sphinx, and the information it gives on the, geology and weathering of the Sphinx, and the history of its masonry casings.
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I report on the maps, profiles, and other records of the Great Sphinx of Giza produced by the 1979-1983 ARCER Sphinx Project.
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I report on the hypotheses and results of the first four seasons of excavation in the Heit el-Ghurab site, 1988-89, 1991 Spring, and 1991 Fall-Winter, and present bakeries found in the area then called A7.
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I report on the continuation of the Giza Plateau mapping project, establishing a control network across the Giza Plateau, survey and mapping features cut into the bedrock floor at the base of the Khafre Pyramid, and stratified deposits at... more
I report on the continuation of the Giza Plateau mapping project, establishing a control network across the Giza Plateau, survey and mapping features cut into the bedrock floor at the base of the Khafre Pyramid, and stratified deposits at the southeastern corner of this pyramid.
Research Interests:
David Goodman and I report on how we established survey control across the Giza Plateau as a basis for mapping and studying how the Egyptians organized the landscape for building the Giza Pyramids.
Research Interests:
I provide a preliminary report on the first season of the Giza Plateau Mapping Project (GPMP), were David Goodman and I established the survey control that served subsequent seasons of archaeological work. I also report on mapping... more
I provide a preliminary report on the first season of the Giza Plateau Mapping Project (GPMP), were David Goodman and I established the survey control that served subsequent seasons of archaeological work. I also report on mapping features cut into the bedrock floor a
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I provide an overview of the landscape of the Giza Pyramids plateau with the aim of understanding how the pyramid builders arrayed their forces over the course of three generations to build the three Giza pyramids and the Sphinx
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We reconstruct a statue transport shrine from pieces found in a wooden box under the satellite pyramid south of the Khafre Pyramid.
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I provide isometric drawings of the Giza Pyramids Plateau and annotate geomorphological features and cultural interventions to understand pyramid building as architectural landscaping projects.
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I interpret holes and other features cut into the bedrock floors around the pyramids of Khufu and Khafre as reflecting the builders system of survey and layout to establish and build the pyramid base lines.
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A preliminary report on the results of the first year of the ARCE Sphinx Project.
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We compare the Mesopotamian Uruk bevel rim bowl with the Egyptian Old Kingdom bread mold in terms of their ubiquity and physical attributes to suggest a common function.
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Nicholas Conard and Mark Lehner report on the 1988-89 excavations of the enclosure and galleries built of broken-stone west of the Khafre Pyramid at Giza, the installation that W.M.F. Petrie dubbed the "Workmen's Barracks."
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I report on the results of excavation up to 2002 in the 4th Dynasty settlement at the Heit el-Ghurab site, 400 meters south of the Great Sphinx at Giza.
Research Interests:
... the Egyptians had been carving smaller scale lions in the round since the 1st Dynasty, and in relief ... 4). It is just here that there is the most serious flaw in the bedrock, the major ... in order to bypass this flaw, which... more
... the Egyptians had been carving smaller scale lions in the round since the 1st Dynasty, and in relief ... 4). It is just here that there is the most serious flaw in the bedrock, the major ... in order to bypass this flaw, which otherwise would have disturbed the outer contours of the sculpture. ...
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In this article I relate the Heit el-Ghurab (HeG, Wall of the Crow) 4th Dynasty settlement site to the idea that long-term pyramid towns did not originate in temporary workers settlements. Components of the HeG settlement fit attributes... more
In this article I relate the Heit el-Ghurab (HeG, Wall of the Crow) 4th Dynasty settlement site to the idea that long-term pyramid towns did not originate in temporary workers settlements. Components of the HeG settlement fit attributes of both types of settlement, which Egyptologists infer from texts and archaeological information from other sites. During its time, people may have called the HeG the Southern Tjeniu (bank settlement) of the Pyramid, Great is Khafre (§njw rcj Wr ¢a.f Ra). Under this name, the HeG comprised a kind of proto-pyramid city. Its counterpart, the Northern Grg.t (settlement), may have been associated with the Khufu Pyramid. But overall, the HeG settlement fits neither worker’s town nor pyramid town. I review the hypothesis that the HeG belonged to a major Nile port. As such, it serves as a footprint of a formal expeditionary force composed of apr-gangs and crews for either building or seafaring, or both. I hypothesize a possible match between gangs, phyles, and divisions and the Gallery Complex, the central component of the HeG. Certain officials may have administered functions of the HeG during its heyday in the mid to late 4th Dynasty, as reflected in titles they inscribed in their tomb chapels during the early to mid 5th Dynasty. One such official was Nesut- nefer, who held the title Administrator (aD-mr) of the Southern Tjeniu of Khafre. By the time these officials made their chapels, people had abandoned the HeG when the royal house moved to Saqqara and Abusir for building the king’s memorial complex. Those who stayed at Giza settled closer to the riverbank, or near the valley temples in pyramid towns named after the kings and their pyramids.
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This article surveys the so-called “Workers Town” at the Heit el- Ghurab in relation to information from Old Kingdom texts, art, and archaeology with the goal of learning more about the status of its inhabitants in the organization of... more
This article surveys the so-called “Workers Town” at the Heit el- Ghurab in relation to information from Old Kingdom texts, art, and archaeology with the goal of learning more about the status of its inhabitants in the organization of labor for the building of the anomalously gigantic pyramids of the 4th Dynasty. In the first part I ask: Do indicators of an abundance of meat, the presence of hunted game, and Levantine “luxury” imports suggest good treatment of common workers, or does this material hint that the occupants enjoyed a higher status than common workers and that the HeG hosted functions other than a barracks for workers? In the second part I pivot to a related question: If, for building the Giza pyramids, central authorities required extremely large numbers of people of a lesser status than the HeG occupants, did they use foreign captives or native corvée?
Research Interests:
An archaeological field school at the Heit el-Ghurab 4th Dynasty, Old Kingdom settlement site at the Giza Pyramids, Egypt, trains young archaeologists working for the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities and non-Egyptian archaeologist by... more
An archaeological field school at the Heit el-Ghurab 4th Dynasty, Old Kingdom settlement site at the Giza Pyramids, Egypt, trains young archaeologists working for the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities and non-Egyptian archaeologist by embedding students and instructors in interdisciplinary research excavations and engaging them in formulating and testing hypotheses about the social realities that produced the archaeological record.