Book Description

It is well-established that the ancient Egyptian civilization is water-based and derives its core cultural heritage assets from the country's natural heritage constructs. Despites the scholarly studies on the Egyptian Natural Lakes (herein referred to as ENLs), from both natural and cultural perspectives, 1) these studies lack integration between the natural and cultural components of the ENLs, 2) the environmental studies do not provide continuous evolution of the ENLs, and 3) the cultural studies hardly touch on the role of the ENLs in the Egyptian civilization, which has not been thoroughly understood. This study investigates how far the ENLs were of high significance in a dynamic natural-cultural aquatic eco-scape overtime. The study developed a basic semi-applied, pragmatic, inductive, qualitative, and exploratory-descriptive research. The study adopted methods that fit its local heritage and interdisciplinary leaning-scholarly schools with an integration approach. Through secondary data, the study analysed content of available literature on 1) the natural heritage of the ENLs, i.e. physiographic features, and 2) six lakes-highly related cultural heritage topics, i.e. settlements, harbours, routes, boats, quarries, and the naval battle of Ramses III. Through primary data, the study 1) analysed historic textual and cartographic sources from the Pharaonic time through Graeco-Roman to Medieval and Modern Time, and 2) interpreted fieldwork data on one of the six-cultural heritage topics, i.e. the boats of the ENLs. The findings of the study represent in 1) setting a complete sequence of the ENLs’ evolution, mainly since Eocene to Present day, and 2) reaching new interpretations on the six ENLs’-related cultural heritage topics. The findings conclude a great impact of the natural heritage of the ENLs, through its changing environmental configurations and aquatic ecosystem services, on the lakes’ related tangible and intangible cultural heritage, whether on land or maritime, overtime. This impact participated in shaping the civilization of ancient Egypt. The study put forward a plea for heritage scholars, including Egyptologists, to conduct more hybrid heritage studies on the ENLs to find out their significant role as a basic stratum in the developmental sequence of the ancient Egyptian civilization.