You will receive a Zoom link and calendar invite upon registration. This lecture will begin at 9AM BST (London)/6PM AEST (Sydney). Additional time zone conversions can be found below. The lecture will be via Zoom; as a reminder, it will not be recorded.
Prehistoric Eastern Sudan: The Atbai Enclosure Burial phenomenon: The archaeology of Eastern Sudan, the area between the Nile and the Red Sea, is still in its infancy. The cultures of the region have yet to be formally described with the same resolution as the Nile Valley, and whole regions are proverbial blanks on the map from the perspective of archaeology. For prehistory, the archaeological corollary of the A-Group or Naqada is missing from the Atbai (the Fourth Millennium BCE).
Undertaking extensive remote sensing prospections across the region, we have identified a new and widespread funerary tradition across the desert, "Atbai Enclosure Burials". These are large communal burials for people and livestock, extending from the border of Eritrea to the deserts of Upper Egypt. This presentation will give an insight into the satellite remote sensing of desert environments, and elucidate how this burial type defines the prehistory of this under-studied region.
Julien Cooper is an Egyptologist, Nubiologist and archaeologist, with a focus on the archaeology of the Eastern Desert (Atbai) and the history of its nomadic peoples. He is the director of the 'Atbai Survey Project', a fieldwork program surveying the vast deserts between the Nile and the Red Sea. These surveys aim to shed new light on the varied heritage of this desert, from neolithic rock art to ancient Egyptian trade routes and medieval goldmines. Julien is recently a recipient of an ARC Future Fellowship "Rescuing Pharaoh’s Gold Mines: Archaeological conservation in Eastern Sudan".
Time zone conversion:
London - 9:00 am BST
Rome - 10:00 am CEST
Melbourne - 6:00 pm AEST
New York - 4:00 am EDT