The industrial landscape of the Northern Faiyum Desert as a World Heritage Site: modelling the ‘outstanding universal value’ of third millenniumbcstone quarrying in Egypt

Abstract

The pyramids and temples of the Egyptian Old Kingdom (early-mid-third millennium BC) are testament to an epoch of global significance in the evolution of monumental stone architecture. The basalt quarries of Widan el-Faras and gypsum quarries of Umm es-Sawan, located in the Northern Faiyum Desert of Egypt, were key production sites in the foreground of this transformation to largescale stone quarrying. Yet, the significance and value of these archaeological sites in shaping elements of the cultural landscape of the Northern Faiyum Desert, currently under nomination for World Heritage listing, remains largely in the background. This paper attempts to develop a methodology to articulate 'outstanding universal value' and to raise the significance of the largely mundane and non-monumental remains of these production sites. By deploying formulations in landscape archaeologies and key concepts used in the nomination of the Blaenavon industrial landscape in South Wales as a World Heritage Site, it argues for the cultural landscape of the Northern Faiyum Desert authenticating one of the world's oldest 'industrial' landscapes related to large-scale stone quarrying.

Forgotten People and Places: New Perspectives on the Social Context of Ancient Stone Quarrying in Egypt

“…The Northern Faiyum could have been one such regional base, given that stone tools at Widan el-Faras can be sourced to Aswan and Chephren's Quarry 1,000 km away. This could imply a connection between the Old Kingdom stoneworkers, either through trading between specialists of prized stone tools, or alternatively the Northern Faiyum was a center where such people resided and from where they were deployed (Bloxam and Heldal 2007). Hence, we can argue that stone quarrying was an important part of everyday social life and in maintaining these relationships across generations, given the longevity of these practices over thousands of years.…”

“…Stone tools found in the quarries comprised mainly large and small stone axes, with contracted necks making it possible to attach a handle, and presumably used in one or more of these extraction stages. As opposed to the stone tools at Chephren's Quarry and Wadi Hammamat being largely locally sourced, it is interesting to note that all the stone tools at Widan el-Faras are non-local (Bloxam and Heldal 2007;Harrell 2002). Stones such as gabbro, gneiss, and diorite that were used as tools have sources 800 km away to the south in the Aswan region.…”

Heritage Stone 6. Gneiss for the Pharaoh: Geology of the Third Millennium BCE Chephren's Quarries in Southern Egypt

“…These were made in the same way as vessel blanks, trimmed to a rough spherical shape. archaeological record (Bloxam and Heldal 2007;Bloxam 2015;Bevan and Bloxam 2015). Significantly, it is along the transport route out of Chephren's Quarries that most of the settlement and subsistence evidence is found.…”

‘A Place Full of Whispers’: Socializing the Quarry Landscape of the Wadi Hammamat

“…The conduit for these innovations, either direct or indirect, between local groups working in the quarries and others connected with centres of craft specialisation is most likely to have come from the logistics of channelling greywacke to Nile valley 'royal' funerary contexts. Evidence from other hard-stone quarries in Egypt tends to support this viewpoint because similar examples of innovation come at the point when there is a transition to large-block quarrying by the mid third millennium bc that links these sources to 'royal' construction projects (Bloxam & Heldal 2007;Shaw & Bloxam 1999). Yet, as we observe from the continuation of long-lived stone-working practices, any imported specialisms did not necessarily revolutionize existing local work practices, but instead caused there to be adaptation at a larger scale (see Bevan & Bloxam in press; also Heldal 2009, 148 in relation to silicified sandstone quarrying at Aswan).…”

“…7. The use of prestige stones for tools used in the quarrying process has been well documented at several ancient quarries in Egypt, in particular along the Aswan West Bank silicified sandstone quarries and at Chephren's Quarry, Gebel el-Asr (Chephren gneiss) (Bloxam & Heldal 2007;Shaw & Bloxam 1999). 8.…”