A discovery of the buried Egyptian remains has been made by using satellite SAR data. L-band (HH) signal of SIR-C (Shuttle imaging Radar Mission-C), which was very similar to the characteristics of the existing Egyptian pyramids, was detected on a hilltop of Saqqara where nothing has been reported so far. As the result of the ground truth, some artificial lime stone blocks and significant fragments were found. The area is situated approximately 200m west of the pyramid of Merenre. This is a preliminary report of the study for satellite SAR application in Egypt.

抄録全体を表示

The Old Kingdom (ca. 2687-2191BC: 3-6 Dynasties) saw the emergence of large-scale private mortuary cults for the first time in Egypt. This can be observed in the textual attestations of private funerary domains and in the legal documentation pertaining to the administration of mortuary cults. It is however unknown for how long these cults continued to be perpetuated after the death of the tomb owner, nor are the processes of maintenance and abandonment of private mortuary cults during the Old Kingdom well understood. This paper will explore these issues, concentrating primarily on the evidence for architectural modifications to existing cult spaces, the material remains of ritual practice and the archaeological contexts in which such ritual objects have been found. The results of a study of these categories of evidence from five private mortuary cults in the Memphite area are presented in this paper. It is contested that in all cases, the cult continued to be practiced for at least ca. 50-100 years after the death of the beneficiary of the cult. In some cases, the scale of the cult was expanded, possibly due to the integration of additional mortuary cults belonging to individuals buried nearby into a collective cult. Abandonment of the ritual activity is shown not merely to have possibly been a result of the passing of time, but also to have been closely linked to the possible decline of the royal cemeteries at the end of the Old Kingdom.

抄録全体を表示

Previously unknown subsurface remains considered to be the Egyptian New Kingdom period were detected in the desert of western Saqqara by the utilization of JERS-1/SAR. A joint research team of Tokai University and Waseda University has been carrying out archaeological investigations using remote sensing technology to establish a new method of detecting remains. In 1995, the first preliminary survey of this study using Landsat/TM, SPOT/ Panchromatic, and JERS-1/SAR was done in the desert of Memphite necropolis, and remains covered with thin sand layer were pinpointed by the image interpretation of JERS-1/SAR. It is commonly called Site No. 29, and the surface features and backscattering coefficients at the site suggest us the existence of subsurface structures of the dynastic period.
The detection of the Site No. 29 is extremely noteworthy, because there are some papers describing about subsurface imaging ability of L band SAR in the desert of hyperarid regions, but there is no example that subsurface remains of the dynastic period were actually detected by JERS-1/SAR in Egypt. This is the latest report studying about the relationship between JERS-1/SAR and the Site No. 29.

抄録全体を表示