Mersa/Wadi Gawasis 2007-2008
Mersa/Wadi Gawasis 2007-2008 Kathryn A. Bard and Rodolfo Fattovich With contributions by: Mohammed Badr, Ksenija Borojevic, Claire Calcagno, Alfredo Carannante, Duncan FitzGerald, Rainer Gerisch, Christopher Hein, Giulio Lucarini, Ilaria Incordino, Elsayed Mahfouz, Andrea Manzo, Pasquale Musella, Tracy Spurrier, Stefano Tilia, André J. Veldmeijer, Sally Wallace-Jones, and Chiara Zazzaro Introduction In December 2007-January 2008 the Archaeological Expedition of the University of Naples “l’Orientale” (UNO), Naples, and the Italian Institute for Africa and Orient (IsIAO), Rome, in collaboration with Boston University (BU), Boston (USA) conducted the seventh field season at the site of Mersa/Wadi Gawasis, Red Sea (Egypt), under the direction of Prof. Rodolfo Fattovich (UNO/IsIAO) and Prof. Kathryn Bard (BU). The team in the field included Italian, American, Egyptian, British, German, Austrian, and Dutch personnel with different areas of specialization (archaeology, nautical archaeology, epigraphy, geoarchaeology, geology, paleoethnobotany, malacology, and topography). 1 Mr. Ayman Hendy Amin represented the Supreme Council of Antiquities in the field, and greatly supported our fieldwork. The site of Mersa/Wadi Gawasis is located 23 km to the south of the modern port of Safaga, on the top and along the slopes of a fossil coral terrace, which delimits the lower Wadi Gawasis to the north. Former excavations along the western slope of the terrace provided evidence of the use of Mersa Gawasis as the pharaonic port used for voyages to Punt from the early Middle Kingdom to the early New Kingdom (see Bard and Fattovich 2007, Fattovich and Bard 2007). In 2007-08 investigations were conducted only in the western sector of the site (Wadi Gawasis), and focused on the western slope of the coral terrace and the so-called “harbor area” between the wadi and the southeastern slope of the terrace.
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