Benjamin T. Pennington

University of Southampton · Geography & Environment

Although the Nile is one of the largest rivers in the world and played a central role in ancient Egyptian life, little is known about its response to climatic change during the Holocene. Here we present a framework for the evolution of the Egyptian Nile, demonstrating how climatic and environmental changes have shaped the landscape of the Egyptian...

The analysis of exceptionally well-preserved visible clastic laminations in deep alluvial sediments at Kempsey, Worcestershire (UK), allows a new high resolution analysis of late-Holocene flood-history in the largest UK catchment, as well as local human response. At the sample site over 4.5m of sandy-silt overbank-alluvium accumulated on the floodp...

The role environmental change may have played at the dawn of Egyptian history has been overlooked in comparison with other periods. Natural landscape changes taking place in the Nile Delta are argued here to have been a facilitating factor allowing, and possibly stimulating, socioeconomic changes leading to the “Lower Egyptian – Naqada Transition”...

Elemental XRF analysis carried out on an 8 m long core from the Nile Delta reveals a gradual increase in the Ca/ Ti ratio between 5000 and 4000 cal BP which is linked to the progressive development of hyper-aridity in this region. The increase results from elevated flux of aeolian material entering the Nile river system from calcareous source rock...

New Kingdom royal cult temples in Thebes (Luxor, Egypt) are all located on the lower desert edge. Kom el-Hettân (Amenhotep III: reign 1391-1353 BCE, 18th Dynasty) is an exception, as it is located in the present Nile floodplain. Its anomalous position has puzzled Egyptologists, as has the termination of its use, which traditionally has been attribu...

Elemental XRF analysis carried out on an 8 m long core from the Nile Delta reveals a gradual increase in the Ca/Ti ratio between 5000 and 4000 cal BP which is linked to the progressive development of hyper-aridity in this region. The increase results from elevated flux of aeolian material entering the Nile river system from calcareous source rock g...

Beginner arabic vocabulary for the (geo-)archaeologist in Egypt, for use alongside a regular phrasebook. Errors are entirely my own. Hopefully useful for some!

For decades, it has been unclear as to how the world's first cities, in southern Mesopotamia, not only arose in a fluvial environment but also how this environment changed. This paper seeks to understand the long-term fluvial history of the region around Uruk, a major early city, in relation to water-human interactions. This paper applies geomorpho...

This document is an extract from my PhD thesis (chapters 3, 5, 6, 7), comprising those sections pertaining to the bulk landscape evolution of the Nile Delta during the Holocene.

During the mid-Holocene, some of the world's first large-scale complex societies came into being within the lower and middle reaches of a number of large river systems. Around this time, as global sea-level stabilised, the hosting fluvial environments of Lower Mesopotamia, the Nile Delta and the North China Plain were evolving from spatially varied...

In the Theban area around modern Luxor (Egypt), the River Nile divides the temple complexes of Karnak and Luxor from New Kingdom royal cult temples on the western desert edge. Few sites have been archaeologically identified in the western flood plain, despite its presumed pivotal role in the ancient ritual landscape as the territory that both physi...

The evolution of the Nile Delta, the largest delta system in the Mediterranean Sea, has both high palaeoenvironmental and archaeological significance. A dynamic model of the landscape evolution of this delta system is presented for the period c.8000–4500 cal BP. Analysis of sedimentary data and chronostratigraphic information contained within 1640...

Report on the 2016 spring season of the Theban Harbours and Waterscapes Survey (THaWS). The article discusses the geoarchaeological and geophysical survey along a 3.2 km-long transect starting close to the front of the Temple of Millions of Years of Ay and Horemheb and stretching to the village of Geziret el-Bairat on the West Bank of the Nile.

During the mid-Holocene, the first large-scale civilizations emerged in lower alluvial systems after a marked decrease in sea-level rise at 7-6 kyr. We show that as the landscapes of deltas and lower alluvial plains adjusted to this decrease in the rate of relative sea-level rise, the abundance and location of resources available for human exploita...

Report on the 2015 season of the Theban Harbours and Waterscapes Survey (THaWS). The paper discusses the extension of geoarchaeological and geophysical investigations to the east of the Ramesseurn, the continuing work in and around the Temple of Millions of Years of Amenhotep III, and the topographic survey and geophysical survey of the western mou...

Report on the 2014 season of the Theban Harbours and Waterscapes Survey. The paper discusses topographic survey and data correction for the West Bank of Thebes and geoarchaeological investigation of the Temple of Millions of Years of Amenhotep III and the area to the east of the Ramesseum.

The 2012 season in the Theban region ran from 15 February to 4 March and from 20 March to 7 April. The team consisted of the authors of this report, with Reis Omar Farouk managing the hand augering and our local team of workmen. Our MSA inspector was Ms Warda el-Najar.