ASSESSING CONSERVATION TREATMENTS OF THE MAIN FAÇADES OF MEDINET HABU TEMPLE, LUXOR–EGYPT

تقييم علاج وصيانة الواجهات الرئيسية لمعبد مدينة هابو، الآقصر – مصر [AR] تُركز هذه الورقة على المخاطر البيئية التي تؤثر على النقوش الجدارية بالواجهات الرئيسية للمعبد الجنائزي لرمسيس الثالث بالضفة الغربية للأقصر مع اقتراح أفضل المواد لحفظ هذه النقوش. لتحقيق هذا الغرض، تمت دراسة مواد البناء المستخدمة في المعبد، ونواتج التلف، والعوامل البيئية المحيطة. تم تحديد خصائص المواد من خلال الفحص البصرى، والميكروسكوب المستقطب، والميكروسكوب الإلكترونى الماسح المزود بوحدة التحليل العنصرى للأشعة السينية، وحيود الأشعة السينية (XRD)، وقياس التغيرات اللونية، وقياس زاوية التلامس مع الماء الثابت، مع تحديد بعض الخصائص الفيزيائية والميكانيكية. أظهرت النتائج أن النقوش الجدارية على الواجهات الرئيسية للمعبد في حالة خطيرة من الحفظ، حيث تأثرت بكثير من مظاهر وأنماط التلف مثل التقشر، والانفصال، والتحول إلى مسحوق، والتغير اللونى، وأنواع متعددة من الشروخ، وتراكم رواسب سطحية، والتفتت، وتزهرالأملاح، وأنواع مختلفة من الأضرار الميكانيكية المتعمدة مثل علامات التبرك (شحذ السكين)، والفجوات على مساحات واسعة وفي الكتل السفلية، والعديد من الحلقات التي تم نحتها فى العصور الوسطى حتى القرن الماضى لتأمين الحيوانات. وأظهرت النتائج التي تم الحصول عليها من دراسة الحجر الرملي الأثري بطرق الفحص والتحليل أنه يتكون بشكل أساسي من الكوارتز وكميات قليلة من الكاولين والكالسيت والهاليت مع كمية نادرة من الفلسبار والبيوتايت والزركون وأكاسيد الحديد ومعادن معتمة. [EN] This paper focuses on the environmental hazards affecting the wall reliefs at the main facades of the mortuary temple of Ramesses III at Luxor west bank, abreast with proposing the optimum materials to conserve these inscriptions. To achieve the aforementioned purpose; the building materials used in the structure, the deterioration products, and ambient environmental factors were studied. The materials were characterized by visual observations, polarized light microscope, scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDX), X-ray diffraction (XRD), colorimetric measurements, and static water contact angle, with some physical and mechanical properties. The results revealed that the wall reliefs on the main facades of the temple are in a serious preservation state, where affected by several deterioration phenomena and patterns of damage such as scaling, flaking, powdering, discoloration, multiple types of cracks, surface deposits, fragmentation, efflorescence of salts, the different types of intentional mechanical damage such as, blessing marks (knife whetting), gaps over wide areas, and on the lower blocks, there are many loops, which were carved from the middle ages until the last century for securing animals. The results obtained from studying archeological sandstone by investigation and analytical methods revealed that it consists mainly of quartz, minor amounts of kaolinite, calcite and halite with rare amount of feldspars, biotite, zircon, iron oxides, and opaques

Geo-Environmental Estimation of Land Use Changes and Its Effects on Egyptian Temples at Luxor City.

Over the years, the Egyptian temples at Luxor city have been intensely investigated, but most of these studies just focused on the classical sides of the archaeological and historical descriptions. Many of the environmental problems are the inevitable results of the unplanned urban crawling around the monuments temples. This paper aims at assessing the environmental changes around some temples of Luxor City using remote sensing and GIS techniques. In particular, a historical database made up of Corona and Landsat TM data have been investigated along with the new acquisitions of Quickbird 2 and Sentinel 2. Results from our investigation highlighted rapid changes in urban and agricultural areas, which adversely affected the Egyptian monumental temples causing serious degradation phenomena. Using the information obtained from our RS&GIS based analysis, mitigation strategies have been also identified for supporting the preservation of the archaeological area

Open Aerial Map, Drones and Archaeology: The implications of using drones to contribute and share aerial data on an open data repository

The purpose of this research is to determine the potential benefits and challenges of volunteered aerial imagery by looking at OpenAerialMap (OAM) and by presenting how a repository like OAM may be applied in archaeological studies. The interviews and survey conducted in this research indicate that the main benefits of OAM are affordability, accessibility, rapid mapping and historic image preservation. Among the key challenges identified are concerns around data quality and privacy. Though most of the images on OAM are of high resolution, there is currently no way to guarantee the quality of images that people share on OAM. Similarly, there are no real safeguards against the misuse the openly available imagery. This is a prominent concern in archaeology, where open aerial images may increase the looting and destruction of heritage sites. Then again, OAM can aid in a number of ways in terms of archaeological research and it may even contribute to citizen engagement in archaeology. The research indicates that OAM is a positive endeavour that makes spatial data more accessible and provides drone users with the ability to engage in citizen science