www.aeraweb.org Introduction <strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Egypt</strong> <strong>Research</strong> <strong>Associates</strong> (AERA)’s 2008 fieldwork included projects at three of <strong>Egypt</strong>’s most famous archaeological sites: Giza, Saqqara, and Luxor. We carried out the Salvage Archaeological Field School (SAFS) in Luxor with the American <strong>Research</strong> Center in <strong>Egypt</strong> (ARCE) and <strong>Egypt</strong>’s Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) in order to both train SCA archaeologists in the realworld tension between urban development and archaeology, and to work with them to save as much archaeological information as possible in excavations on the Avenue of the Sphinxes in the site of the Khaled Ibn el-Waleed Garden as part of a broader project for urban and tourist development. <strong>The</strong> SAFS worked from January through March, with up to 150 archaeologists, students, workers, and support staff. During March, AERA directed major excavations and archaeological mapping projects in both Upper and Lower <strong>Egypt</strong> as the SAFS overlapped with our work at Giza. At Giza, AERA worked in the <strong>Khentkawes</strong> <strong>Town</strong> (<strong>KKT</strong>) and at the site of the Menkaure (Third Pyramid) Valley Temple from March 1 until April 24, 2008. Because of a high water table, AERA did not excavate in our flagship Lost City site south of the Wall of the Crow (which we refer to in short as HeG, after Heit el-Ghurab, Wall of the Crow in Arabic). But we launched our Archaeological Science Program, where up to 30 specialists in ceramics, botany, zoology, lithics, and artifacts analyzed material culture from our excavations in the Lost City as a coordinated team focused on specific areas in line for final publication. At Saqqara, AERA collaborated with the SCA and a Japanese consortium that included Osaka University, the Tokyo Institute of Technology, and the <strong>Ancient</strong> Orient Museum to survey and map the entire Djoser Step Pyramid using laser scanning and three-dimensional modeling between late May and early June. We helped produce this highly detailed and accurate record of <strong>Egypt</strong>’s oldest pyramid ahead of major SCA restoration work that necessarily changed and masked large parts of the original fabric of this world heritage monument. In May and June, AERA established at our Giza headquarters the Report Writing Tutorial for senior <strong>Egypt</strong>ian supervisors of the SAFS. <strong>The</strong>se graduates of the AERA/ARCE field schools worked with AERA field school instructors James Taylor and Freya Sadarangani to produce from the SAFS/Luxor excavation records a report for publication as a special supplement to the official SCA archaeological journal, Annales du Service des Antiquités de l’Égypt (ASAE). In Giza Occasional Papers 4 we summarize the 2008 work at Giza and Saqqara. We present new discoveries at the <strong>Khentkawes</strong> <strong>Town</strong> and the Menkaure Valley Temple, a preliminary scientific analysis of the osteological material from the <strong>Khentkawes</strong> <strong>Town</strong>, and a report on the Saqqara Laser Scanning Survey, which included a unique method of “capturing” all the complexities and detail of a gigantic monument and mapping the whole in three dimensions. Giza Occasional Papers 4 7
www.aeraweb.org <strong>Khentkawes</strong> <strong>Town</strong> MUSLIM CEMETERY COPTIC CEMETERY Gebel el-Qibli Figure 1. Area map showing proximity between the <strong>Khentkawes</strong> Monument and <strong>Town</strong> (<strong>KKT</strong>) and the Heit el-Ghurab site. Modern city of Nazlet es-Samman Heit el-Ghurab (HeG) Wall of the Crow 0 50 M 8 Giza Plateau Mapping Project Season 2008 Preliminary Report
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