Searching for the Venice of the Nile

[Kevininabydos]

"I'M KNEELING in a narrow strip of green fields that separates the Nile river from Egypt's western desert, watching Angus Graham and his team hammer what look like huge metal tent pegs into the ground. A few fields away, the ruined columns of the Ramesseum, mortuary temple of Pharaoh Ramesses II, rise above the wheat, overlooked by the amber cliffs that hide the royal tombs of the Valley of the Kings.

This area is dotted with some of the world's most impressive ancient remains, including the awesome Colossi of Memnon (pictured). But Graham, a field director for the Egypt Exploration Society in London, is interested in what's still hidden underground.

His tent pegs are actually probes that send weak electrical pulses into the ground to measure the earth's resistance. Called electrical resistivity tomography, the method can distinguish between bedrock (very resistant), waterlogged sediments (low resistance) and archaeological deposits (somewhere in between).

The hope is that by repeating the measurements throughout the Luxor area the team will see how Egypt's pharaohs engineered this landscape on a breathtaking scale, turning their capital, Thebes, into an ancient Venice."

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