干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

The site of Deir al-Barsha (Middle Egypt) is well known for its nomarchal rock tombs cut in the cliffs and dating to the Middle Kingdom (2040-1640 BC), but the presence of a necropolis of the same date in the sandy gravel desert plain was seldom mentioned in the past. Part of this necropolis had been investigated at the beginning of the twentieth century, but no plans or detailed accounts were ever published. The tombs were observed then to be structures lined with mud bricks with shafts going down several metres. In 2002, when archaeologists returned to this burial ground, few of the archaeological remains were still visible on the surface, the area being pitted with deep craters leftover from the earlier excavations. The objective of the research, which was to gain insight into the overall organization and social stratification of the cemetery, required the use of the magnetic surveying method. A series of anomalies was registered in effect and interpreted as the images of shafts and accompanying ground structures (circuit walls). Several of these features have already been verified in excavations. The magnetic study has also led to the discovery of a previously unrecognized dirt road cutting across the necropolis from the nomarchal tombs to the Nile valley. The research has also attested later post-burial human activity: the magnetic maps have provided a record of several hundred of pits dug by grave robbers and not visible presently on the surface. Copyright (c) 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.