The Delta Survey

This volume comprises the proceedings of two conferences organised by the Delta Survey Project held in Alexandria in 2017 and Mansoura in 2019. The papers contain the results of the latest fieldwork from the Nile Delta and Sinai.

This volume presents the results of recent explorations carried out by Jeffrey and Patricia Spencer for the Egypt Exploration Society's Delta Survey. The sites considered here were identified in the course of preliminary inspections to possess some features worthy of additional investigation by magnetometer survey or by limited excavation.

The Delta Survey Workshop comprises the proceedings of two conferences organised by the Delta Survey Project and held in Alexandria in 2017 and Mansoura in 2019. The 23 papers contain the results of the latest fieldwork in the Nile Delta and Sinai, from survey work that records and documents unknown and new sites such as Kom Dabaa and Mutubis or sites in Kafr Dawar and Wadi Tumilat, to excavation reports from established projects at major sites such as Qantir, Bubastis, Tell Heboua, Tell el-Maskhuta, Akademia, Taposiris Magna and Tell Fara'in (Buto). New work is also reported from Tell Tebilla, urban funerary sites in Alexandria, and Arab el Hisn (Heliopolis). There are also thematically focussed papers covering ovens recorded in archaeological and ethnological fieldwork, tower houses, amphorae and pottery and human remains. In addition, there are mapping and remote sensing reports from Mariut and the Buto area, rock inscriptions in Sinai and a catalogue project of material in the St Mark antiquities collection in Alexandria.

The results of the Amuq Valley Regional Projects (AVRP) presented in this volume are the outcome of eight seasons of intensive fieldwork (1995-2002) representing the first phase of a long-range, broadly-based archaeological investigation in the Hatay region of southern Turkey. From its inception the research was conceived as a series of coordinated field projects. The detailed and expansive scope of the regional project originated from a number of theoretical and methodological considerations. Encouraged in part by its potential for providing the examination of interactions between technological developments, complex social institutions, natural resources, and the environment, the original Oriental Institute project (then called the Syro-Hittite Expedition) in the 1930s was formally reactivated in 1995. The strategy of taking a regional approach with a series of linked field projects established an unusual multi-institutional laboratory to research key themes that it is hoped will provide explanations about regional and interregional relationships. The initial stage of the research strategy focused on contextualising the settlements by survey, followed by site-specific investigations prior to the resumption of new excavations. The regional surveys targeted the Amuq Valley (the plain of Antioch, today Antakya) and the delta of the Orontes River (today Samandag). Artifactual and micro-scale studies were the focus of the third scale of investigations.