water systems and illegal digging causes substantial structural problems to mud brick houses. An initial survey carried out in March 2016 defined significant buildings with architectural/heritage value. Documentation of these buildings is given priority and includes building floor plans, facades and their residents’ life style (i.e. how they use the building and its different spaces and furniture). Vernacular architecture in Shutb. The project thus provides synergies with the current development of a Modern Egypt research and collecting strand at the BM. While the urban is likely to be a focus of any collecting, the proposed Asyut project will provide perspectives from a regional town, and particularly one that relates to an ancient past and collections in the BM. Heritage awareness projects have, without exception, been physically and intellectually separated from present-day inhabitants of rural areas with large numbers of low-profile sites and unlisted historic buildings and have therefore missed opportunities in engaging local communities. Local histories are little appreciated in Egypt, with the school curriculum foregrounding a national history. Local communities have therefore not benefitted from archaeological work in their country, and as a result do not function as working partners in preserving it. Rather than merely look upon archaeological sites as salvage missions or academic pursuits, the British Museum project will appeal to local interests, and support that through deploying methodologies drawn from archaeology and heritage preservation. Key components are: training and capacity building of local stakeholders (local heritage professionals, builders/craftsmen) through hands-on involvement in restoration and conservation projects, and defining values and needs important to the community, and meaningful ways of intervention to support those in order to promote community participation. Such a holistic approach has been tested in Middle and Upper Egypt, where fieldwork has traditionally focussed on the extensive rock necropolises, alongside the temples of Luxor and further south. The need for such an undertaking has never been more pressing, however, as intensification of land use by the rising population for agriculture and expanding settlements is rapidly destroying archaeological sites. For more information on this component; see section and ‘community heritage’. Selected bibliography Beck, T. 2016. Perspektivenwechsel. Eine Reflexion archäologischen Arbeitens in Ägypten: Die lokalen Grabungsarbeiter des Asyut Project. The Asyut Project 8. Wiesbaden.
water systems and illegal digging causes substantial structural problems to mud brick houses. An initial survey carried out in March 2016 defined significant buildings with architectural/heritage value. Documentation of these buildings is given priority and includes building floor plans, facades and their residents’ life style (i.e. how they use the building and its different spaces and furniture). Vernacular architecture in Shutb. The project thus provides synergies with the current development of a Modern Egypt research and collecting strand at the BM. While the urban is likely to be a focus of any collecting, the proposed Asyut project will provide perspectives from a regional town, and particularly one that relates to an ancient past and collections in the BM. Heritage awareness projects have, without exception, been physically and intellectually separated from present-day inhabitants of rural areas with large numbers of low-profile sites and unlisted historic buildings and have therefore missed opportunities in engaging local communities. Local histories are little appreciated in Egypt, with the school curriculum foregrounding a national history. Local communities have therefore not benefitted from archaeological work in their country, and as a result do not function as working partners in preserving it. Rather than merely look upon archaeological sites as salvage missions or academic pursuits, the British Museum project will appeal to local interests, and support that through deploying methodologies drawn from archaeology and heritage preservation. Key components are: training and capacity building of local stakeholders (local heritage professionals, builders/craftsmen) through hands-on involvement in restoration and conservation projects, and defining values and needs important to the community, and meaningful ways of intervention to support those in order to promote community participation. Such a holistic approach has been tested in Middle and Upper Egypt, where fieldwork has traditionally focussed on the extensive rock necropolises, alongside the temples of Luxor and further south. The need for such an undertaking has never been more pressing, however, as intensification of land use by the rising population for agriculture and expanding settlements is rapidly destroying archaeological sites. For more information on this component; see section ‘community and heritage’. Selected bibliography Beck, T. 2016. Perspektivenwechsel. Eine Reflexion archäologischen Arbeitens in Ägypten: Die lokalen Grabungsarbeiter des Asyut Project. The Asyut Project 8. Wiesbaden.