Meyer et.al.: Bir Umm Fawakhir Survey Project

OIC 28. 

Bir Umm Fawakhir Survey Project 1993: A Byzantine Gold-Mining Town in Egypt. 

C. Meyer, L.A. Heidorn, W.E. Kaegi, and T. Wilfong. 

2000.

The Oriental Institute continued its survey of the site of Bir Umm Fawakhir in Egypt with a short season in January 1993. The site lies halfway between the Nile and the Red Sea, or about five kilometers northeast of the famous bekhen-stone quarries and graffiti of the Wadi Hammamat. The 1992 project was a geological study of the area of Bir Umm Fawakhir. Since the only resources in this hyperarid desert are mineral, it explains why the Bir Umm Fawakhir town existed where it did and why. By far the most valuable resource was the gold carried in white quartz veins in the local granite, and the mountainsides around Bir Umm Fawakhir are riddled and trenched with ancient mines. The purpose of the 1993 season was to continue mapping the site, to expand the pottery corpus, to seek for some specific features not found in 1992 such as defensive structures and churches, and to carrry out a more general survey of the site's immediate vicinity. All of the present work consists of surface survey and mapping; given the amount of previous looting another goal was to preserve a record of the site as it now exists.


OIC 30. 

Bir Umm Fawakhir, Volume 2: 

Report on the 1996-1997 Survey Seasons. 

Carol Meyer, 

with contributions by Lisa Heidorn, Alexandra A. O'Brien, and Clemens Reichel. 

2011.

The goals of the 1996 and 1997 field seasons were to complete the detailed map of the main settlement, to continue the investigation of the outlying clusters of ruins or "Outliers," and to address some specific questions such as the ancient gold-extraction process. The completion of these goals makes the main settlement at Bir Umm Fawakhir one of the only completely mapped towns of the period in Egypt. Not only is the main settlement plotted room for room and door for door, but also features such as guardposts, cemeteries, paths, roads, wells, outlying clusters of ruins, and mines are known, and some of these are features not always readily detectable archaeologically.

This volume presents the pre-Coptic material; a detailed discussion of the remains in the main settlement, outliers, and cemeteries; the Coptic/Byzantine pottery, small finds, and dipinti; as well as a study of ancient mining techniques.