Report on the fourth field season in the Sodmein area, autumn 2014 (Eastern Desert, Egypt)

Abstract

The fourth field season of the joint research project “Sodmein Cave”, conducted by
the German University of Cologne and the Belgian University of Leuven, took place in
autumn 2014 between the 30th of November and the 12th of December. The field work was
carried out under the aegis of the Collaborative Research Centre 806, which was established
in 2009 by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Research Funding Organisation).
During the first field campaign in 2010 the archaeological excavations in Sodmein
Cave could be resumed as a kind of continuation of the 1990’s activities of the Belgian
Middle Egypt Prehistoric Project (BMEPP). On the contrary, the focus during the second
season was on the analysis of the archaeological material from the former Belgian
excavations in the magazine of Quft. Whereas the third campaign during spring 2012
concentrated anew on the archaeological excavation of the Middle Palaeolithic cave layers
and the documentation of Sodmein Cave with a 3D laser scanner.
The 2014 field campaign started with a short visit at Sodmein Cave to document the
actual situation of the former archaeological trenches in the cave and to discuss possible
further measures of the site preservation. During the 2010 and 2012 field seasons the
modern limestone mining nearby the cave was documented by photographs and described
in detail in the SCA field reports. Although the modern limestone quarrying is still going on,
the actual situation seems to be quite stable and relatively satisfying. During the last two
years no greater harm and threat was done on Sodmein Cave and its former archaeological
excavations.
The main research focus of our current archaeological field work in autumn 2014 was
concentrated on the nearer surrounding of Sodmein Cave, where during the 2012 field work
archaeological material from the Middle Stone Age (MSA) had been observed on terraces
south of Sodmein Cave. During this season a new open air site in the Wadi Sodmein basin,
about 3 km upstream from the cave site, was discovered (fig. 1). Hence, the objectives of our
last research season have been mainly to the
- archaeological surveys on the terraces in the surrounding of Sodmein Cave,
- excavation as well as to the documentation of the newly discovered site 14/01
“Sodmein Playa”.

Resources

• Report_Sodmein_Playa_SCA_2014.pdf

Bibliography

Kindermann, K., van Peer, P., Henselowsky, F. (2014): Report on the fourth field season in the Sodmein area, autumn 2014 (Eastern Desert, Egypt). University of Cologne and University of Leuven