Digital Reconstruction of the Archaeological Landscape in the Concession Area of the Scandinavian Joint Expedition to Sudanese Nubia (1961-1964)

These data were collected for a master (Swedish "magister") thesis in Egyptology and are published with approval of the student's tutor (Daniel Löwenborg, Uppsala Uni.)
The Scandinavian Joint Expedition to Sudanese Nubia (SJE) was one of the substantial contributions of crucial salvage archaeology within the International Nubian Campaign which was pursued in conjunction with the building of the High Dam at Aswan in the early 1960’s. A large quantity of archaeological data was collected by the SJE in a continuous area of northernmost Sudan and published during the subsequent decades. The present study aimed at transferring the geographical aspects of that data into a digital format thus enabling spatial enquires to the archaeological information to be performed in a computerised manner within a geographical information system (GIS). The landscape of the concession area, which is now completely submerged by the water masses of Lake Nasser, was digitally reconstructed in order to approximate the physical environment which the human societies of ancient Nubia inhabited. Information on the nearly 500 indexed archaeological sites of the SJE was classified and imported into the GIS. The potential of the system thereby established, validated against modern remote sensing data and aerial photography, was then demonstrated by a number of spatial analyses at an inter-site level. The system hereby developed is intended to be used in further studies of the relevant and information-rich research fields of ancient Nubia, for applications similar to those demonstrated in the present project or for educational and research purposes hitherto unpredicted.

Purpose:

The study aimed at transferring the geographical aspects of analogue data collected by the Scandinavian Joint Expedition to Sudanese Nubia into a digital format, thus enabling spatial enquires to the archaeological information within a geographical information system (GIS).

The dataset consists of seven shape files describing the area's topography and archaeological sites. All map data are digitized from The Egypt New Series Map 1:25000. The shape files consist of:

East Bank Spot Elevations: Points defining elevation above sea level in the East Bank of northern Sudan (SJE concession area);

Elevation Contours: Elevation contours representing topographical heights from 120 m.a.s.l. to 220 m.a.s.l. interspersed with 5 m or 10 m intervals, digitalised as polylines;

Lines of Steepest Descent: Branched lines which intersect the elevation contours at right angles, digitalized in the direction from higher to lower elevation as independent segments of polylines;

Nile Shores: Polylines representing the shorelines of the River Nile adjacent to the SJE concession area;

The River Nile: Polygons representing all water surfaces adjoining the SJE concession area;

West Bank Spot Elevations: Points defining elevation above sea level in the West Bank of northern Sudan (opposite the SJE concession area);

Master List: Points representing published and unpublished indexed SJE archaeological sites with various attributes. Show less..