Mersa/Wadi Gawasis, Mission 2007-2008 - Kathryn A. Bard and Rodolfo Fattovich et alii

Introduction

In December 2007-January 2008 the Archaeological Expedition of the University of Naples "l'Orientale" (UNO), Naples, and the Italian Institute for Africa and Orient (IsIAO), Rome, in collaboration with Boston University (BU), Boston (USA) conducted the seventh field season at the site of Mersa/Wadi Gawasis, Red Sea (Egypt), under the direction of Prof. Rodolfo Fattovich (UNO/IsIAO) and Prof. Kathryn Bard (BU). The team in the field included Italian, American, Egyptian, British, German, Austrian, and Dutch personnel with different areas of specializations (archaeology, nautical archaeology, epigraphy, geoarchaeology, geology, paleoethnobotany, malacology, and topography). [1] Mr. Ayman Hendy Amin represented the Supreme Council of Antiquities in the field, and greatly supported our fieldwork.
The site of Mersa/Wadi Gawasis is located 23 km to the south of the modern port of Safaga, on the top and along the slopes of a fossil coral terrace, which delimits the lower Wadi Gawasis to north. Former excavations along the western slope of the terrace provided evidence of the use of Mersa Gawasis as the pharaonic port used for voyages to Punt from the early Middle Kingdom to the early New Kingdom (see Bard and Fattovich 2007, Fattovich and Bard 2007).

In 2007-08 investigations were conducted only in the western sector of the site (Wadi Gawasis), and focused on the western slope of the coral terrace and the so-called "harbor area" between the wadi and the southeastern slope of the terrace.

Ten samples of charcoal, wood and shells were collected to be submitted to the IFAO Radiocarbon Laboratory, Cairo, for a radiometric dating, which is in progress.

Pleases find attached .pdf files with the full report and the related figures