31st
Survey in Beheira
Andrea Rossi is now reading the paper of Mohamed Kenawi who unfortunately is unable to be with us today, about his survey of Graeco-Roman sites in Beheira. The best preserved GR towns are in the Fayum and the dry conditions there have preserved many papyri. The same is not true for the wetter conditions in the Delta even though, during this period, the capital of Egypt was in the Delta, at Alexandria. Most archaeological excavation has concentrated on pharaonic sites in the Western Delta. In the Ptolemaic Period farmers were encouraged to reclaim coastal land and in the Roman Period the area was extensively cultivated for grain production.
The Beheira Survey includes a datebase of 69 sites covering a landscape which has changed much since the GR Period, due to Nile movements, especially the drying-up of the Canopic branch, and fluctuations in the shape and size of Lake Mareotis. By the nineteenth century the area was regarded as a wasteland.
On the southern shore of Lake Mareotis are a number of sites which were investigated by the Survey and which proved to be centres of wine production in the Graeco-Roman Period. Finally Dr Kenawi illustrated several sites which have been lost to agriculture or development in recent years.
