The BORDERSCAPE Project WebGIS: State Formation and Settlement Patterns near the Ancient Egyptian Southern Border

Abstract

The BORDERSCAPE Project WebGIS database and web app provide an overview of changes in the settlement pattern of the ancient Egyptian southern border during the long process of state formation and border-making. The dataset is set up in Excel and CSV formats and includes 163 archaeological sites from the First Cataract Region in southern Egypt, dating from c. 3800 to 2300 BCE. Eighty-two sites were discovered by the Aswan-Kom Ombo Archaeological Project and are mostly unpublished. The rest of the data was retrieved from originally published material. The dataset is enriched by two inundation models created for the Nile Valley north of the cataract. The WebGIS is an opportunity for data sharing and sets the base for potential data exchange.

Keywords

• archaeological sites
• egypt
• settlement patterns
• border
• state formation
• border-making