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 iv 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..........................................................................................................