Summary
Chephren's Quarry is one of the world's oldest hard-stone quarries. It is
situated in the easternmost part of Sahara - covering nearly 100k2 of flat,
hyper-arid desert, some 60 km west of Lake Nasser ( River Nile) and the famous
Abu Simbel temple in the extreme south of Egypt. Lately, it has been discovered
that this unregistered, archaeological site of great importance, is seriously
threatened by modern development - the canal and irrigation work related to the
South Valley Development Project. An initiative to a Norwegian - British -
Egyptian Project aiming to provide accurate maps and documentation of the
Chephren's Quarry site, was taken, and field work was carried out January 2003.
The mapping and documentation work in January 2003 were carried out by the
Geological Survey of Norway (NGU) with help from the Geological Survey of Egypt
(EGSMA), supported by the Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage
(Riksantikvaren) and generous funding by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign
Affairs. Simultaneously, our partner, a British team of archaeologists
undertook archaelogical excavations in the area. This part of the project was
funded mainly by the Egyptian Exploration Society (EES) and University of
Liverpool.
In total, 5 ancient stone quarry areas, one ancient mine and an ancient road
were mapped. This included approximately 700 ancient quarries (of these 40
large ones) and 2-300 features related to ancient infrastructure. The mapping
was done with GPS and field computers. Several thematic mapes were made,
including accurate maps of the areas of interest for future protection. Maps
and databases were handed over the EAIS (Egyptian Antiquities Information
System) project of the Supreme Council of Antiquites. In addition to these
data, the project revealed a lot of nwe and interesting information about the
ancient quarrying techniques
