Explore the Uluburun Shipwreck - this website has an interactive plan of the wreck with links to object photos - great fun!
Monday, 6 July 2009
Website of the week!
Explore the Uluburun Shipwreck - this website has an interactive plan of the wreck with links to object photos - great fun!
Saturday, 27 June 2009
The Moth
A few shots (with my mobile phone camera) of a giant moth I came across recently. I was rather surprised to see a moth of that size and appearance in the North of England...
If anybody has an idea what kind of moth this one might be, please let me know...!
If anybody has an idea what kind of moth this one might be, please let me know...!
Saturday, 28 March 2009
Amarna, Elephantine and Luxor
I am writing from Luxor this time where I intend to stay until the day after tomorrow, before I go back to Cairo. Will probably take the day-train, just to see some more of the country and to make sure I can actually get some sleep during the night...
I travelled from Cairo to Mallawi by bus which took 5 hours but was a smooth ride and the desert road provided some beautiful scenery. At Mallawi I was collected by the project's house caretaker and its driver who took me to Amarna via the car ferry.
My visit to Amarna was superb - I was welcomed by some very friendly people working on the project. Barry kemp had kindly arranged for me to stay in the excavation house and share meals with the team. There were not many people working at Amarna at the time, and the three days and four nights I spent were the more enjoyable due to a very pleasant atmosphere.
The first morning I left the house which is located in the South Suburb and walked from there all the way to the Main City, accompanied by a policeman who was very kind and jolly and tried to communicate despite my lack of Arabis communication skills. the houses, some of which have walls preserved to shoulderheight, were great to look at and to go inside and I was able to take a large amount of good pictures. The layout of the city as a whole became a great deal clearer, as did the sheer scale of the place and the climatic conditions people would have dealt with on a daily basis. It was also good to observe what obstacles the survey of the site had to overcome, as some of the structures are only visible as very shallow mounds. I ended the walk just by the Small Aten Temple and the King's House, having incorporated the Great Palace and getting more and more to terms with the scale and layout of Amarna.
After a lift back to the house on a donkey cart, I left the house with the photographer, Gwil, and we were driven to the plain to the South of the Stone Village . We had to climb up the Gebel to reach the site, where we then met Anna and Wendy who were surveying some stone features, the function of which has not yet been determined. Gwil and I walked further to the Workmen's Village and walked around this before returning to the house.
In the afternoon I was given the opportunity to look at some of the cylindrical vessels connected to the glass workshop published by Paul Nicholson in 2007, most of which were surface finds from the vicinity of the Great Palace.
The following day I went to the Stone Village with Wendy and Anna and was assigned a feature to plan, so I actually did some work at Amarna :-) Spent some hours doing this, planning most stones and the cut at 1:25 and then left them and walked over to the South Tombs. I was able to see four toms: those of Eje/Ay (No. 25), Any (No. 23), Ramose (No. 11) and Maha (No. 9).
My last full day was spent driving around the site with a car Barry Kemp had hired for me to take me to the Northern part of Amarna. I first visited the North Palace and then the Northern City with the impressive Great Gateway.
After that I was able to see some tombs in the North Cemetary: Ahmose (No. 3), Merire (No. 4), Pentu (No. 5), Panehsy (No. 6) and Huia (No.1 ), and the Boundary Stela U before ending the tour at the Royal Tomb and returning back to the House. I mapped a large portion of the drive with the OpenMoko and shall display the results as soon as I have downloaded them.
I left at 8:30 the following morning, having to catch a train from Minya station at 10:40 to get to Aswan. I am extremely grateful to all the staff at Amarna for enabling me to visit and experience this site!
The train journey took longer than expected and I did not get into Aswan until 9pm... I cannot recomment the hotel (Nubian Oasis Hotel) I stayed in, despite the low prices the level of cleanliness is not satisfactory and the staff not very friendly and too pushy. I was not feeling too well, having been hit by the curse of the Pharaohs (it had to happen at some point) and maybe my temper was a little short for that reason. I managed to wake up at a reasonable hour and took the ferry to Elephantine Island where I met up with Cornelius von Pilgrim of the Swiss Institute who works with the German team on the New Kingdom settlement levels on Elephantine . he showed me around the site and pointed out the New Kingdom remains - these were not so obvious and rather badly preserved, partly due to the fact that in most cases the New Kingdom levels had been quarried out by later phases of occupation before these were established. Most of the recently uncovered NK remains were in fact, residential in nature.
I left for Luxor by train the same afternoon and fortunately this journey only took 3 hours and I got to my hotel on the west bank at c. 7pm. This morning I left for Malkata , the palace and temple city of Amenhotep III on the west bank. I met Ginger, a PhD student at Chicago, and she walked me over the site. As she is working on the current project she knows the site to a great detail and was able to explain the archaeology to me extremely well. I am very grateful to her for her time and help!
Tomorrow I intent to visit the mortuary temple of Seti I at Qurna amongst other (but not too many) things. Good night!
I travelled from Cairo to Mallawi by bus which took 5 hours but was a smooth ride and the desert road provided some beautiful scenery. At Mallawi I was collected by the project's house caretaker and its driver who took me to Amarna via the car ferry.
My visit to Amarna was superb - I was welcomed by some very friendly people working on the project. Barry kemp had kindly arranged for me to stay in the excavation house and share meals with the team. There were not many people working at Amarna at the time, and the three days and four nights I spent were the more enjoyable due to a very pleasant atmosphere.
The first morning I left the house which is located in the South Suburb and walked from there all the way to the Main City, accompanied by a policeman who was very kind and jolly and tried to communicate despite my lack of Arabis communication skills. the houses, some of which have walls preserved to shoulderheight, were great to look at and to go inside and I was able to take a large amount of good pictures. The layout of the city as a whole became a great deal clearer, as did the sheer scale of the place and the climatic conditions people would have dealt with on a daily basis. It was also good to observe what obstacles the survey of the site had to overcome, as some of the structures are only visible as very shallow mounds. I ended the walk just by the Small Aten Temple and the King's House, having incorporated the Great Palace and getting more and more to terms with the scale and layout of Amarna.
After a lift back to the house on a donkey cart, I left the house with the photographer, Gwil, and we were driven to the plain to the South of the Stone Village . We had to climb up the Gebel to reach the site, where we then met Anna and Wendy who were surveying some stone features, the function of which has not yet been determined. Gwil and I walked further to the Workmen's Village and walked around this before returning to the house.
In the afternoon I was given the opportunity to look at some of the cylindrical vessels connected to the glass workshop published by Paul Nicholson in 2007, most of which were surface finds from the vicinity of the Great Palace.
The following day I went to the Stone Village with Wendy and Anna and was assigned a feature to plan, so I actually did some work at Amarna :-) Spent some hours doing this, planning most stones and the cut at 1:25 and then left them and walked over to the South Tombs. I was able to see four toms: those of Eje/Ay (No. 25), Any (No. 23), Ramose (No. 11) and Maha (No. 9).
My last full day was spent driving around the site with a car Barry Kemp had hired for me to take me to the Northern part of Amarna. I first visited the North Palace and then the Northern City with the impressive Great Gateway.
After that I was able to see some tombs in the North Cemetary: Ahmose (No. 3), Merire (No. 4), Pentu (No. 5), Panehsy (No. 6) and Huia (No.1 ), and the Boundary Stela U before ending the tour at the Royal Tomb and returning back to the House. I mapped a large portion of the drive with the OpenMoko and shall display the results as soon as I have downloaded them.
I left at 8:30 the following morning, having to catch a train from Minya station at 10:40 to get to Aswan. I am extremely grateful to all the staff at Amarna for enabling me to visit and experience this site!
The train journey took longer than expected and I did not get into Aswan until 9pm... I cannot recomment the hotel (Nubian Oasis Hotel) I stayed in, despite the low prices the level of cleanliness is not satisfactory and the staff not very friendly and too pushy. I was not feeling too well, having been hit by the curse of the Pharaohs (it had to happen at some point) and maybe my temper was a little short for that reason. I managed to wake up at a reasonable hour and took the ferry to Elephantine Island where I met up with Cornelius von Pilgrim of the Swiss Institute who works with the German team on the New Kingdom settlement levels on Elephantine . he showed me around the site and pointed out the New Kingdom remains - these were not so obvious and rather badly preserved, partly due to the fact that in most cases the New Kingdom levels had been quarried out by later phases of occupation before these were established. Most of the recently uncovered NK remains were in fact, residential in nature.
I left for Luxor by train the same afternoon and fortunately this journey only took 3 hours and I got to my hotel on the west bank at c. 7pm. This morning I left for Malkata , the palace and temple city of Amenhotep III on the west bank. I met Ginger, a PhD student at Chicago, and she walked me over the site. As she is working on the current project she knows the site to a great detail and was able to explain the archaeology to me extremely well. I am very grateful to her for her time and help!
Tomorrow I intent to visit the mortuary temple of Seti I at Qurna amongst other (but not too many) things. Good night!
Sunday, 22 March 2009
Egypt!!!
I flew to Cairo from London Heathrow on Sunday, March 15, in fact exactly one week ago. Arriving rather late in the afternoon, there was not much time left to do lots, so I went to my Pension , relaxed, got something to eat and had an early night. That was necessary, as the following morning I had to be at the Austrian Archaeological Institute at 6:30 for a trip to Tell el-Dab'a. The objective of the current (and some previous) season is the 15th dynasty palace . I gained some insight in the archaeological conditions and the complex as a whole, was able to talk to Manfred Bietak and take a thorough look around the excavation house.
The first thing I did the following morning (17 March) was to pack my stuff together and move it to the Austrian Archaeological Institute on Zamalek where I was kindly permitted to stay for a couple of nights. The rest of that day I spent walking round Cairo, getting organised, getting lost - the usual sort of thing.
After a good night's sleep I left early and took a succession of several vehicles to reach the city of Tanis, near San el-Hagar in the Eastern Delta. I had to leave from Cairo's Aboud Station (for buses), take a Peugeot Taxi to Faqus, a microbus to Huseynia and then another bus to San el-Hagar...at which point I was so confused that I asked for help, as I was not sure how to reach the site itself. Thus I ended up following a friendly local who had been on the same bus to his workplace – a school, where I sat in the headmaster's office for about an hour, talking and drinking coffee. Talking mostly in English, mind you, as my Arabic is unfortunately still rather abysmal.
At Tanis, which I reached after being driven there by a member of staff at the aforementioned school, I took about 400 photographs with the lovely new camera I bought a short while ago. I managed to get a good feeling for the site, which I had entirely to myself, wandered far and got a decent overview over the amount of material from Piramesse-Qantir which had been brought there after the Piramesse was abandoned after the 20th dynasty.
The trip back to Cairo took a very long time - I managed to board the wrong Peugeot taxi at Faqus which had a bus station well outside Cairo as its final destination... I met a helpful guy there who travelled into Cairo with me, but managed somehow to lead me through some rather dark suburban streets. I was happy to finally take a taxi which took me to the closest Metro station from which I reached Zamalek and then the Austrian Institute rather late that evening.
The next day I went to Bubastis, a site which is on the outskirts of the city of Zagazig in the south-eastern Delta. The journey was unproblematic – a Peugeout from Aboud took me straight to Zagazig from where a cheap (£E 2) taxi took me to the site. Some friends from university in Berlin work there, now for the University of Postdam, and it was good to see them again. Apart from the temple and I was able to see the New Kingdom necropolis and Middle Kingdom palace with a policeman, and also the current excavations.
I was very lucky on the 20th – my plan had been to visit Memphis that day, as one of the key-sites for my PhD this site had some priority, but I was also aware that this trip was rather expensive. An American tourist who had been waiting for a taxi at my hotel and was only in Cairo for the day had already booked a car for the day and he kindly let me come along. He wanted to see more than just Memphis, so we first went to the Citadel in Islamic Cairo which was very enjoyable. We then went to Giza, where he even paid for a horse and carriage ride round the plateau, before we moved on to Saqqara, stopped briefly at Abusir and then went to Memphis. He gained some egyptological insight from me whilst all I had to pay for were my entrance fees. In Memphis, we visited the museum, but I was rather disappointed, as the site of Kom Rabi'a was closed to the public. Even begging did not work and I was only able to take some pictures through the fence. Finally I managed to find a way into a different part of the site and take some pictures of some mudbrick and limestone structures.
The following day I needed some rest and spent the day in the hotel, working on my GIS project, georeferencing the maps from Amarna which I had recently scanned. I was halfway successful but shall continue working on this.
Today, I am leaving Cairo and will take a bus to Mellawi in Middle Egypt, from where I will take a car to the site of Amarna . Barry Kemp kindly agreed for me to arrive a day earlier than intended and I am looking forward to getting there very much!
Photos to follow - the internet connection is not fast enough at the moment.
The first thing I did the following morning (17 March) was to pack my stuff together and move it to the Austrian Archaeological Institute on Zamalek where I was kindly permitted to stay for a couple of nights. The rest of that day I spent walking round Cairo, getting organised, getting lost - the usual sort of thing.
After a good night's sleep I left early and took a succession of several vehicles to reach the city of Tanis, near San el-Hagar in the Eastern Delta. I had to leave from Cairo's Aboud Station (for buses), take a Peugeot Taxi to Faqus, a microbus to Huseynia and then another bus to San el-Hagar...at which point I was so confused that I asked for help, as I was not sure how to reach the site itself. Thus I ended up following a friendly local who had been on the same bus to his workplace – a school, where I sat in the headmaster's office for about an hour, talking and drinking coffee. Talking mostly in English, mind you, as my Arabic is unfortunately still rather abysmal.
At Tanis, which I reached after being driven there by a member of staff at the aforementioned school, I took about 400 photographs with the lovely new camera I bought a short while ago. I managed to get a good feeling for the site, which I had entirely to myself, wandered far and got a decent overview over the amount of material from Piramesse-Qantir which had been brought there after the Piramesse was abandoned after the 20th dynasty.
The trip back to Cairo took a very long time - I managed to board the wrong Peugeot taxi at Faqus which had a bus station well outside Cairo as its final destination... I met a helpful guy there who travelled into Cairo with me, but managed somehow to lead me through some rather dark suburban streets. I was happy to finally take a taxi which took me to the closest Metro station from which I reached Zamalek and then the Austrian Institute rather late that evening.
The next day I went to Bubastis, a site which is on the outskirts of the city of Zagazig in the south-eastern Delta. The journey was unproblematic – a Peugeout from Aboud took me straight to Zagazig from where a cheap (£E 2) taxi took me to the site. Some friends from university in Berlin work there, now for the University of Postdam, and it was good to see them again. Apart from the temple and I was able to see the New Kingdom necropolis and Middle Kingdom palace with a policeman, and also the current excavations.
I was very lucky on the 20th – my plan had been to visit Memphis that day, as one of the key-sites for my PhD this site had some priority, but I was also aware that this trip was rather expensive. An American tourist who had been waiting for a taxi at my hotel and was only in Cairo for the day had already booked a car for the day and he kindly let me come along. He wanted to see more than just Memphis, so we first went to the Citadel in Islamic Cairo which was very enjoyable. We then went to Giza, where he even paid for a horse and carriage ride round the plateau, before we moved on to Saqqara, stopped briefly at Abusir and then went to Memphis. He gained some egyptological insight from me whilst all I had to pay for were my entrance fees. In Memphis, we visited the museum, but I was rather disappointed, as the site of Kom Rabi'a was closed to the public. Even begging did not work and I was only able to take some pictures through the fence. Finally I managed to find a way into a different part of the site and take some pictures of some mudbrick and limestone structures.
The following day I needed some rest and spent the day in the hotel, working on my GIS project, georeferencing the maps from Amarna which I had recently scanned. I was halfway successful but shall continue working on this.
Today, I am leaving Cairo and will take a bus to Mellawi in Middle Egypt, from where I will take a car to the site of Amarna . Barry Kemp kindly agreed for me to arrive a day earlier than intended and I am looking forward to getting there very much!
Photos to follow - the internet connection is not fast enough at the moment.
Thursday, 29 January 2009
My Advent 4211C - a brief review
I bought this netbook in November 2008 and I must say that I am very impressed with it! In fact, I am writing this little text on it right now.
The specifications are as follows:
- Intel Atom processor N270 (energy efficient)
(1.6GHz, 533MHz FSB, 512MB cache)
- 1024MB DDR2 RAM
- 120GB Hard drive
- 10" Widescreen Display
- Wireless enabled
- Bluetooth
- Built-in Webcam, microphone and speakers
With a weight of only 1.12KG the computer is very light and handy. But instead of being flimsy, it has a good feel to it - just like a small laptop. My back was aching quite a bit from carrying around my Dell Inspiron 1300. The Advent 4211c fits into its little padded pouch, which takes up the space and weight of a medium-size book in my rucksack.
The screen is large enough and comfortable to work with. Admittedly it is smaller than most laptops', but not as tiny as those found on common netbooks and does not make my eyes hurt at all. I prefer larger screens and often work on my old laptop at home, but that is often a simple case of convenience, as the Dell is usually plugged in and ready to go.
The keyboard is just slightly smaller than full-size and takes a bit of getting used to. I have small hands, so I can almost say I prefer this size to the usual. There is a Windows-key though...Who still needs a Windows-key these days??? The annoying thing is that this pointless key is sitting right next to the Ctrl key and thus gets in the way all the time...
The operating system it comes with is Windows XP Home, but I installed Ubuntu 8.10 on my Netbook a week after purchase. Due to the fact that it lacks a DVD drive I had to create a bootable usb-stick first. I created a dual-boot due to the fact that I was not sure at first about how well Ubuntu would run on the computer, as it might require a special version. In addition I sometimes use a couple of open source GIS applications only available for Windows. Therefore I keep all my files on the Windows partition and access them from Ubuntu (Windows cannot read the Linux file structure whilst it works the other way round).
Fazit: Ubuntu 8.10, the full version, not the mobile one, works perfectly fine on this computer. The only flaws I have come across so far are
a) the lack of a driver for the microphone - I cannot use the softphone on Ubuntu and have to switch to Windows to use it. If anyone has managed to get the microphone working, please let me know.
b) the low screen resolution does not allow Google Earth to display properly. I use other GIS applications, such as gvSIG and QGIS all the time and do not encounter any difficulties.
c) I have not worked out how to use the webcam, but this might not be a problem - merely the fact that I have not tried...
I have furthermore installed PostgreSQL on my Netbook for learning, and PhD purposes and have not encountered any issues.
Apart from the missing DVD drive, this little Netbook has entirely replaced my old laptop. I will take this netbook to Egypt in March and my back will be most grateful :-)
The specifications are as follows:
- Intel Atom processor N270 (energy efficient)
(1.6GHz, 533MHz FSB, 512MB cache)
- 1024MB DDR2 RAM
- 120GB Hard drive
- 10" Widescreen Display
- Wireless enabled
- Bluetooth
- Built-in Webcam, microphone and speakers
With a weight of only 1.12KG the computer is very light and handy. But instead of being flimsy, it has a good feel to it - just like a small laptop. My back was aching quite a bit from carrying around my Dell Inspiron 1300. The Advent 4211c fits into its little padded pouch, which takes up the space and weight of a medium-size book in my rucksack.
The screen is large enough and comfortable to work with. Admittedly it is smaller than most laptops', but not as tiny as those found on common netbooks and does not make my eyes hurt at all. I prefer larger screens and often work on my old laptop at home, but that is often a simple case of convenience, as the Dell is usually plugged in and ready to go.
The keyboard is just slightly smaller than full-size and takes a bit of getting used to. I have small hands, so I can almost say I prefer this size to the usual. There is a Windows-key though...Who still needs a Windows-key these days??? The annoying thing is that this pointless key is sitting right next to the Ctrl key and thus gets in the way all the time...
The operating system it comes with is Windows XP Home, but I installed Ubuntu 8.10 on my Netbook a week after purchase. Due to the fact that it lacks a DVD drive I had to create a bootable usb-stick first. I created a dual-boot due to the fact that I was not sure at first about how well Ubuntu would run on the computer, as it might require a special version. In addition I sometimes use a couple of open source GIS applications only available for Windows. Therefore I keep all my files on the Windows partition and access them from Ubuntu (Windows cannot read the Linux file structure whilst it works the other way round).
Fazit: Ubuntu 8.10, the full version, not the mobile one, works perfectly fine on this computer. The only flaws I have come across so far are
a) the lack of a driver for the microphone - I cannot use the softphone on Ubuntu and have to switch to Windows to use it. If anyone has managed to get the microphone working, please let me know.
b) the low screen resolution does not allow Google Earth to display properly. I use other GIS applications, such as gvSIG and QGIS all the time and do not encounter any difficulties.
c) I have not worked out how to use the webcam, but this might not be a problem - merely the fact that I have not tried...
I have furthermore installed PostgreSQL on my Netbook for learning, and PhD purposes and have not encountered any issues.
Apart from the missing DVD drive, this little Netbook has entirely replaced my old laptop. I will take this netbook to Egypt in March and my back will be most grateful :-)
Sunday, 7 December 2008
Pre - x-mas update
I am keeping busy as ever. Cannot wait for x-mas, going home to Peine on the 23rd, flying to Hannover, where - hopefully - someone will come and pick me up!
Need some rest, proper food, some time for me and some time to get some more work done! Beforehand I shall be presenting my research at a work-in-progress seminar on Thursday which I find rather scary as I have never really spoken about it. Presentation's almost done, though, so could be worse. Once that's done I will have to prepare another presentation for the following Thursday, the essay for which I will have to write over x-mas. The topic for that one is 'Bubastis until the end of the Middle Kingdom' which I find rather nice, as I have visited the site before, in 2003, when I was working at Qantir, also in the north-eastern Delta.
The topic for my presentation this Thursday is "Mass-Production in New Kingdom Egypt - Capital Cities of the New Kingdom and their industries", and I shall introduce my research, which is still in its youth, talk about my intentions and then focus on the larger industries at Amarna and Piramesse, trying to find some conclusions in how far mass-production can be identified and how these related to the city and then contributed to its development and status. Check out The Amarna Project website for some more information.
I was working all day yesterday, sitting at my desk at home. When I first looked out of my window I had a nice surprise: There's an empty site opposite my (third) house, which had been cleared recently - for a new building, I thought, and some strange metal frames had been set up - Turn out they're using it to see x-mas trees! :-)
Enjoy the view I had yesterday: The busy Smithdown Road can be seen in the background.
This morning, whilst waiting for and on the bus, I had a good laugh - loads and loads of Santas were driving, walking through the city. On the bus I realised that they were all on their way to a charity event, running through Liverpool!
...the best picture I could get - sneakily shot from the back of the bus!
The Liverpool Museum's New Egyptian Gallery has opened!
My department has a christmas tree in its lobby - reminds me that it's not actually that long to go and I should better stop writing and get some more work done!
All the best!
Need some rest, proper food, some time for me and some time to get some more work done! Beforehand I shall be presenting my research at a work-in-progress seminar on Thursday which I find rather scary as I have never really spoken about it. Presentation's almost done, though, so could be worse. Once that's done I will have to prepare another presentation for the following Thursday, the essay for which I will have to write over x-mas. The topic for that one is 'Bubastis until the end of the Middle Kingdom' which I find rather nice, as I have visited the site before, in 2003, when I was working at Qantir, also in the north-eastern Delta.
The topic for my presentation this Thursday is "Mass-Production in New Kingdom Egypt - Capital Cities of the New Kingdom and their industries", and I shall introduce my research, which is still in its youth, talk about my intentions and then focus on the larger industries at Amarna and Piramesse, trying to find some conclusions in how far mass-production can be identified and how these related to the city and then contributed to its development and status. Check out The Amarna Project website for some more information.
I was working all day yesterday, sitting at my desk at home. When I first looked out of my window I had a nice surprise: There's an empty site opposite my (third) house, which had been cleared recently - for a new building, I thought, and some strange metal frames had been set up - Turn out they're using it to see x-mas trees! :-)
Enjoy the view I had yesterday: The busy Smithdown Road can be seen in the background.This morning, whilst waiting for and on the bus, I had a good laugh - loads and loads of Santas were driving, walking through the city. On the bus I realised that they were all on their way to a charity event, running through Liverpool!
...the best picture I could get - sneakily shot from the back of the bus!The Liverpool Museum's New Egyptian Gallery has opened!
My department has a christmas tree in its lobby - reminds me that it's not actually that long to go and I should better stop writing and get some more work done!
All the best!
Wednesday, 15 October 2008
No Papercuts!
Not with digital maps, anyway!
I have begun my GIS project which will (hopefully) form a large part of my PhD, aid me with my observations and conclusions and - as an additional feature - look rather pretty ;-)
The software I use for this is none lesser than the renowned gvSIG which has been used by OA for a while now, and has undergone some development by the IT crowd. The version I use is the newly released OA Digital Edition, all nice, polished and open source. You can download it here. It certainly is my recommendation when picking open source GIS tools for any use! It even comes with a userguide - enjoy!
Enough advertising. I commenced my project by downloading the maps from the Digital Egypt website for the purpose of basemapping.
My initial problem during the georeferencing was the projection. In the end I decided that WGS 84 would be the best choice, as the info provided on these maps was given in lat/long. This worked well enough until I realised that some of the co-ordinates which should have been on the corners are missing. Oh well, some maps worked through guessing, many will (hopefully not) have to stay unreferenced for the time being...
Here's an impression of the Delta:
Some of the margins so not fit properly and it would take some time getting them all to match...
I decided to look elsewhere:
Maproom has a nice collection of data from all over the world. An abundance of information, especially in terms of administrative boundaries, is available - not all necessary, but free and nice to have. Problematic is the fact that the data comes in ArcInfo format, which is old and not very nice to use at all. Furthermore it is proprietary to ESRI and it can be a hassle to convert it. Please read here to see how the nasty route via ArcGIS and the likes can be avoided! ;-)
Maplibrary is also very useful. I like the georeferenced satellite images in particular, but the other data, boundaries mostly, is very nice. It comes in ESRI shapefile format (not only, but in my opinion the most sensible) and can be added to one's GIS project easily.
Last but not least, the CGIAR-CSI provide free SRTM 90m Digital Elevation Data for the whole of Egypt, which I used as well.
Here's an initial shot of SRTM data with Maproom on top. Funky stuff, but rather simple for now:
The current "state of affairs" - The cropped satellite image with a shapefile I made - sites of special interest to my research. The metadata is contained in the .dbf file:
I have played with contour line creation and the like but have not come very far yet. Please be patient, further updates on this front are to follow soon!
I have begun my GIS project which will (hopefully) form a large part of my PhD, aid me with my observations and conclusions and - as an additional feature - look rather pretty ;-)
The software I use for this is none lesser than the renowned gvSIG which has been used by OA for a while now, and has undergone some development by the IT crowd. The version I use is the newly released OA Digital Edition, all nice, polished and open source. You can download it here. It certainly is my recommendation when picking open source GIS tools for any use! It even comes with a userguide - enjoy!
Enough advertising. I commenced my project by downloading the maps from the Digital Egypt website for the purpose of basemapping.
My initial problem during the georeferencing was the projection. In the end I decided that WGS 84 would be the best choice, as the info provided on these maps was given in lat/long. This worked well enough until I realised that some of the co-ordinates which should have been on the corners are missing. Oh well, some maps worked through guessing, many will (hopefully not) have to stay unreferenced for the time being...
Here's an impression of the Delta:
Some of the margins so not fit properly and it would take some time getting them all to match...
I decided to look elsewhere:
Maproom has a nice collection of data from all over the world. An abundance of information, especially in terms of administrative boundaries, is available - not all necessary, but free and nice to have. Problematic is the fact that the data comes in ArcInfo format, which is old and not very nice to use at all. Furthermore it is proprietary to ESRI and it can be a hassle to convert it. Please read here to see how the nasty route via ArcGIS and the likes can be avoided! ;-)
Maplibrary is also very useful. I like the georeferenced satellite images in particular, but the other data, boundaries mostly, is very nice. It comes in ESRI shapefile format (not only, but in my opinion the most sensible) and can be added to one's GIS project easily.
Last but not least, the CGIAR-CSI provide free SRTM 90m Digital Elevation Data for the whole of Egypt, which I used as well.
Here's an initial shot of SRTM data with Maproom on top. Funky stuff, but rather simple for now:
The current "state of affairs" - The cropped satellite image with a shapefile I made - sites of special interest to my research. The metadata is contained in the .dbf file:
I have played with contour line creation and the like but have not come very far yet. Please be patient, further updates on this front are to follow soon!
Sunday, 7 September 2008
Liverpool - The first impressions
I have just "survived" a rather stressful week with several trips to Lancaster to OA North whose lovely unit is located in an old mill building. Working from home proved to be a disaster on Wednesday, but through considering various options we have come to the conclusion that it is not quite impossible after all. Sleep was a rarity throughout the week and had to be caught up on. The collapse of my clothes rail was another factor of annoyance but even this has been resolved now...!
No, I feel I have started settling into Liverpool, my new house and Lancaster and am, in general, happy.
Yesterday I had the rare opportunity to visit Liverpool's City Centre. I had to do some shopping and wanted to be able to claim at least the knowledge of the High Street shops' whereabouts... Ended up bumping into a giant spider and getting covered in
foamy snow!
This hydraulic spider operated by a minimum of six people, is a performance by the French group LaMachine within Liverpool's European Capital of Culture 2008 program of events.
No, I feel I have started settling into Liverpool, my new house and Lancaster and am, in general, happy.
Yesterday I had the rare opportunity to visit Liverpool's City Centre. I had to do some shopping and wanted to be able to claim at least the knowledge of the High Street shops' whereabouts... Ended up bumping into a giant spider and getting covered in
foamy snow!This hydraulic spider operated by a minimum of six people, is a performance by the French group LaMachine within Liverpool's European Capital of Culture 2008 program of events.
Thursday, 21 August 2008
ETANA Core Texts
Thank you, Chuck, for your comment!
here's a link to the full list of texts currently available on ETANA:
http://ancientworldbloggers.blogspot.com/2008/06/awol-ancient-world-online-6.html
here's a link to the full list of texts currently available on ETANA:
http://ancientworldbloggers.
Sunday, 17 August 2008
ETANA - a tool for ANE research
ETANA stands for Electronic tools and Ancient Near Eastern Archives. It is an incredibly useful resource run by the following bodies:
The purpose of this website is the online publication of archaeological monographs and journals, either as excerpts or whole publications. In addition to this a number of archaeological projects in the ANE have added in-depth information on their projects.
Originally intended for Ancient Near Eastern studies, it contains a good number of Egyptological publications. (e.g. see my link to Petrie's Memphis I on the left).
I find the website slightly confusing as the listing and the interlinking is not very neat, but the sheer amount of resources more than makes up for this.
The purpose of this website is the online publication of archaeological monographs and journals, either as excerpts or whole publications. In addition to this a number of archaeological projects in the ANE have added in-depth information on their projects.
Originally intended for Ancient Near Eastern studies, it contains a good number of Egyptological publications. (e.g. see my link to Petrie's Memphis I on the left).
I find the website slightly confusing as the listing and the interlinking is not very neat, but the sheer amount of resources more than makes up for this.
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