182180

Highlights on the Deterioration of Rock Art at Unfinished Obelisk Quarry in Aswan-Egypt

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Last updated: 05 Jan 2025

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Abstract

The unfinished obelisk quarry in Aswan is one of the most important archaeological sites in Egypt. This site contains very important rock art panels (paintings and inscriptions) which give the site further importance and are concerned with the activities of the quarry. Rock art panels at this site are subject to different kinds of physical, chemical and biological deterioration as a consequence of their exposure to the direct action of aggressive atmospheric agents (extreme temperature, wind, chemical weathering ,salts pressure and the rising water table from the canal at the site) and anthropogenic deterioration factors so; they suffer from different deterioration phenomena such as exfoliation, granular disintegration, detachment, salt crystallization, aesthetic disfigurement and chemical alterations. For this purpose, the chemical, physical and structural characterization were performed by means of Polarizing Microscope (PM), Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) attached with EDX, X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Infrared analysis (I.R) and microbiological study. The results have shown that these panels suffer from many crystallized salts such as sodium chloride and calcium sulphate (anhydrite or gypsum) and alteration of feldspars to clay minerals.

DOI

10.21608/ijmsac.2019.182180

Keywords

Rock Art, Rock Inscription, Unfinished Obelisk, Aswan, Granite, deterioration, Vandalism, Physical Enhancement

Authors

First Name

Abd El-Hakim

Last Name

A. El-Badry

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Affiliation

Ministry of Antiquities, Luxor, Egypt

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First Name

Mona

Last Name

F. Ali b, Nasser

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Affiliation

Department of Conservation, Faculty of Archaeology, Cairo University, Egypt

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First Name

Nasser

Last Name

G. Abd El-Ghafour

MiddleName

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Affiliation

Department of Raw Building Materials & their processing, HBRC, Cairo, Egypt

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Volume

2

Article Issue

1

Related Issue

26194

Issue Date

2019-06-01

Receive Date

2021-07-05

Publish Date

2019-06-01

Page Start

67

Page End

104

Print ISSN

2735-4407

Online ISSN

2735-4415

Link

https://ijmsac.journals.ekb.eg/article_182180.html

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https://ijmsac.journals.ekb.eg/service?article_code=182180

Order

182,180

Type

Original Article

Type Code

1,993

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

International Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies in Architecture and Cultural Heritage

Publication Link

https://ijmsac.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

Highlights on the Deterioration of Rock Art at Unfinished Obelisk Quarry in Aswan-Egypt

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Article

Created At

23 Jan 2023