ABSTRACT
- Title of Dissertation:
- BUILDING A BASELINE: UNIFYING
SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL METHODOLOGIES TO UNDERSTAND ARCHAEOLOGICAL LOOTING IN EGYPT
Michelle R.D. Fabiani, Doctor of Philosophy 2019
- Dissertation directed by:
- Dr. Laura Dugan, Department of Criminology
and Criminal Justice
Archaeological looting – the illegal excavation or removal of an antiquity from the ground or structural complex of an archaeological site – is a persistent issue in many countries. National and international laws, agreements, conventions, and statutes all proscribe the looting transporting, possession, and sale of antiquities illegally removed from archaeological sites. Looting has also generated a lot of academic attention, with scholarship developing in archaeology, sociology, criminology, and law (among others). Despite such legal proscriptions and scholarly contributions to understanding this phenomenon, current efforts have been unable to produce tangible solutions for preventing this crime. Not only has there not yet been extensive scholarship to understand the link between looting and contextual forces, there is a dearth of research on the most effective ways to study these interconnected variables. Using a framework of routine activity theory, this dissertation proposes a new possible approach that considers spatial, temporal, and spatio-temporal relationships to establish baseline data on patterns of archaeological looting attempts in Lower Egypt from 2015 to 2017 relative to sociopolitical, economic, and environmental stress — and to begin to address this research gap. Specifically, this dissertation proposes a methodology for collecting and coding data on archaeological looting attempts from satellite imagery. It then applies a series of spatial (clustering, proximity), temporal (SEM, VAR, ARDL), and spatio-temporal methods (clustering, hot spots analysis, spatial time series) to these data to demonstrate the importance of analyzing this phenomena multidimensionally.
BUILDING A BASELINE: UNIFYING SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL
METHODOLOGIES TO UNDERSTAND ARCHAEOLOGICAL LOOTING IN
EGYPT
by
Michelle Rose Dippolito Fabiani
Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the
University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
2019
Advisory Committee: Professor Laura Dugan, Chair Professor Sally Simpson Professor Lauren Porter Professor Fiona Greenland Professor Richard Marciano
© Copyright by
Michelle Rose Dippolito Fabiani
2019
Dedication
This dissertation is dedicated to my husband, who has supported me throughout this journey and to whom I am eternally grateful.
ii
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my committee for their support, encouragement, and insightful comments in this dissertation: Dr. Sally Simpson, Dr. Lauren Porter, Dr. Fiona Greenland, and Dr. Richard Marciano. I would also like to specifically thank Dr. Laura Dugan, my committee chair, for the years of guidance, advice, and inspiration, both in the writing of this dissertation and in the years throughout my pursuit of this degree.
I would also like to thank the large network of colleagues who have provided advice and guidance throughout this dissertation. In particular, Dr. Daren Fisher helped me to better prepare, write, and succeed in this work. And Dr. Jesse Casana provided critical guidance to help me understand the process of collecting and coding satellite imagery.
Throughout this process and my education, I have been supported by a network of friends and family, both local and afar, who have helped keep me sane and on-track. I would particularly like to thank my sisters, Corinne and Laura, and their partners; my aunt and uncle, Marilyn and Mike Donovan; my cousins, Michael and Lily, Kathleen, and Mary; and my dear friends, Kelly and Gregor McGregor, Anna and Ted Wynfield, Ellen McCormick, Sarah Appleby and Curtis Winans, Lizabeth Remrey, Phoebe and Aaron Koenigsberg, Rebecca Koenigsberg, Mike Kohn and Tony Bowen, and Dennis Sendros and Alina George.
Finally, I am eternally grateful to my parents for encouraging me throughout my life to believe in my intelligence, ambition, and abilities. This dissertation would not have been possible without my mother and father’s examples, their support, and their belief. Their inspiration is reflected here in this work and in my heart every day. iii
Table of Contents
Dedication..................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements......................................................................................................iii Table of Contents......................................................................................................... iv List of Tables .............................................................................................................. vii List of Figures.............................................................................................................. ix List of Abbreviations .................................................................................................. xii Chapter 1: Introduction................................................................................................. 1 Chapter 2: Spatial and Temporal Theories of Crime.................................................... 7
Routine Activity Theory ........................................................................................... 8 A Spatial and Temporal Theoretical Framework for Archaeological Looting Attempts.................................................................................................................. 12
Formal and Informal Guardianship..................................................................... 13 Archaeological Sites as Suitable Targets............................................................ 16 Spatio-Temporal Influences on Looting............................................................. 18
Chapter 3: Lower Egypt as a Case Study.................................................................... 21
Macro-level Conditions in Lower Egypt ................................................................ 26
Demographics ..................................................................................................... 27 Economics........................................................................................................... 31 Environment........................................................................................................ 35 Socio-political..................................................................................................... 39
Lower Egypt’s Cultural Landscape ........................................................................ 41
A Brief Timeline of Ancient Egypt (8000 BCE – 1000 CE).............................. 42 Archaeological Sites in Lower Egypt ................................................................. 43
Egypt’s Efforts to Protect Cultural Heritage........................................................... 47
Chapter 4: Data Collection and Coding Strategy....................................................... 50
Archaeological Site Satellite Image Data Collection & Coding............................. 53
Phase 1 – Identification of the “universe” of archaeological sites in Lower Egypt ............................................................................................................................. 56 Phase 2 - Initial image collection and recalibration and construction of sampling strategy................................................................................................................ 60 Phases 3 and 4 – Review data collection from Digital Globe and additional data collection from Google Earth Pro....................................................................... 64 Data Coding Strategy.......................................................................................... 76 Limitations in Archaeological Looting Attempts Data Collection and Coding Strategy ............................................................................................................... 89
Sociopolitical Stress Data Collection & Coding..................................................... 94
Limitations in Sociopolitical Stress Data Collection and Coding Strategy........ 97
Economic Stress Data Collection & Coding......................................................... 100
Limitations in Economic Stress Data Collection & Coding Strategy............... 101
Environmental Stress Data Collection & Coding................................................. 103
Limitations in Environmental Stress Data Collection & Coding...................... 104
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Chapter 5: Spatial, Temporal, and Spatio-Temporal Methods ................................. 106
Spatial Analyses.................................................................................................... 106
Limitations........................................................................................................ 115
Temporal Analyses ............................................................................................... 117 Spatio-Temporal Analyses.................................................................................... 125
Chapter 6: Results..................................................................................................... 130
Descriptives........................................................................................................... 130 Spatial Analyses (Hypotheses 1 – 3) .................................................................... 148
Point Pattern Analysis Results.......................................................................... 150 Characteristics of Archaeological Sites & Looting Attempts (Hypotheses 1 and 1a) ..................................................................................................................... 156 Proximity and Evidence of Looting Attempts (Hypothesis 2).......................... 158 Co-location of Archaeological Looting Attempts and Indicators of Stress (Hypothesis 3)................................................................................................... 162
Temporal Analyses (Hypotheses 4 & 5)............................................................... 169
Structural Equation Modeling Results.............................................................. 169 Lag-Augmented Vector Autoregression & Vector Error Correction Results... 174 Autoregressive Distributed Lag Model (ARDL) Results ................................. 177 Sensitivity Analyses.......................................................................................... 180 Results by Hypothesis....................................................................................... 182
Spatio-Temporal Analyses (Hypothesis 6)........................................................... 184
Spatio-temporal Clustering of Looting Attempts with Indicators of Stress (Hypothesis 6)................................................................................................... 187
Summary of Results.............................................................................................. 190
Chapter 7: Spatial and Temporal Patterns of Archaeological Looting Attempts ..... 191
The utility of spatial and temporal methods for identifying patterns in archaeological looting attempts ............................................................................ 191 The utility of satellite imagery for identifying looting attempts........................... 193 What does this tell us about spatial and temporal patterns of archaeological looting evidence?............................................................................................................... 194 Theoretical Implications ....................................................................................... 198 Limitations............................................................................................................ 201 Future Directions .................................................................................................. 204
Chapter 8: Conclusion............................................................................................... 208 Appendix 1: Data Coding Instructions ..................................................................... 212 Appendix 2: Spatial Methods.................................................................................... 228 Appendix 3: Additional Descriptive Statistics and Information............................... 230
Looting Attempt Evidence Types by Coding Strategy (2015 – 2017) ................. 230 Looting Attempts versus Sociopolitical Stress Indicators (2015 – 2017)............. 234 Looting Attempts versus Economic Stress Indicators (2015 – 2017)................... 235 Looting Attempts versus Environmental Stress Indicators (2015 – 2017)........... 239 Sociopolitical Stress Descriptives......................................................................... 240 Economic Stress Descriptives............................................................................... 242 Environmental Stress Descriptives ....................................................................... 243
Appendix 4: Spatial Results...................................................................................... 244
Incremental Spatial Autocorrelation Results ........................................................ 244
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Weighted Analyses for Site Characteristics.......................................................... 250 Weighted Proximity Analyses .............................................................................. 250
Straight-Line Distance to Key Locations.......................................................... 250 Road-network Distances to Key Locations....................................................... 251 Distance between Sociopolitical Stress and Looting Attempts ........................ 252
Appendix 5: Temporal Results ................................................................................. 253
Path Diagrams for Structural Equation Models.................................................... 253
Model 1 Path Diagrams .................................................................................... 253 Model 2 Path Diagrams .................................................................................... 254 Model 3 Path Diagrams .................................................................................... 256 Model 4 Path Diagrams .................................................................................... 258 Model 5 Path Diagrams .................................................................................... 260
ARDL Model Results with Sociopolitical Stress as the Dependent Variable ...... 263
Appendix 6: Spatio-temporal Results....................................................................... 266
Hot and Cold Spot Patterns................................................................................... 266
Bibliography ............................................................................................................. 268
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List of Tables
Table 1. Hypotheses based on the theoretical framework .......................................... 20 Table 2. Distribution of Lower Egypt’s Population by Governorate (2017).............. 28 Table 3. Age and Sex Distribution as Percent of Total Population by Governorate .. 29 Table 4. Employment and Unemployment for Males and Females by Governorate.. 30 Table 5. Lower Egypt’s Art Historical Timeline 8,000 BCE – 1,000 CE.................. 43 Table 6. Data and Analytic Requirements for Spatial, Temporal, and Spatio-Temporal Data............................................................................................................................. 50 Table 7. Variables, Type of Data, and Data Sources.................................................. 52 Table 8. Sources of Information on Archaeological Sites in Lower Egypt................ 59 Table 9. Distribution of Archaeological Sites by Governorate in Lower Egypt ........ 64 Table 10. Overview of Site-Months Collected from DigitalGlobe and Google Earth Pro............................................................................................................................... 67 Table 11. Overview of Missingness............................................................................ 69 Table 12. Validation Statistics.................................................................................... 82 Table 13. Descriptives from Both of the Combined Looting Datasets (“Either” and “And”)......................................................................................................................... 83
Table 14. Treatment of Missing Data for Short Periods of Missingness (≤ 4 months)
Table 15. Treatment of Missing Data for Long Periods of Missingness (≥ 5 months)
..................................................................................................................................... 87 Table 16. Operationalizations of Archaeological Looting Attempts Variables.......... 88 Table 17. Conflict and Attack Types .......................................................................... 97 Table 18. Operationalizations of Socio-Political Stress Indicators ............................ 99 Table 19. Operationalizations of Economic Stress Indicators.................................. 102 Table 20. Operationalizations of Environmental Stress Indicators .......................... 105 Table 21. Spatial Data Formats................................................................................. 111 Table 22. Spatial Summary Statistics ....................................................................... 130 Table 23. Temporal Summary Statistics................................................................... 131 Table 24. Spatio-temporal Summary Statistics......................................................... 131 Table 25. Hypothesized Relationships between Archaeological Looting Attempts & Indicators of Stress.................................................................................................... 135 Table 26. Correlations between Sociopolitical Stress Indicators and Looting Attempts ................................................................................................................................... 136 Table 27. Correlations between Economic Indicators and Looting Attempts.......... 141 Table 28. Correlations between Environmental Indicators and Looting Attempts .. 143 Table 29. Global Spatial Autocorrelation................................................................. 153 Table 30. Local Moran’s I Spatial Autocorrelation and Clustering.......................... 154 Table 31. Archaeological Site Characteristics and Evidence of Looting Attempts.. 156 Table 32. Distances to Nearest Key Locations ......................................................... 159 Table 33. Straight Line Proximity versus Evidence of Looting Attempts................ 160 Table 34. Road Network Proximity versus Evidence of Looting Attempts ............. 162 Table 35. Distance to Sociopolitical Stress versus Evidence of Archaeological Looting Attempts ...................................................................................................... 167