As we mentioned in the last article, heritage has four dimensions, and we talked extensively about the first dimension, which is the historical one. Now we are going to cover the second dimension, which is the geographic one. If we talk simply about the distribution of one of the aspects of cultural heritage, which is the archeological sites, we will find that these sites are scattered all over Egypt; in the Delta, Upper Egypt, the Western desert, and the Eastern desert and also in Sinai. However, as we will see, the sites are of different nature depending on the geographical area.
For example, the sites of Upper Egypt are, in general, of monumental nature, examples are, the pyramids of Giza and Saqqara, the temples of Luxor and the temples between Luxor and Aswan as well as those of Nubia.
In the Delta, because it is an inhabited agricultural land, most of the monuments disappeared and most of the sites are now small ruins. For example, there are more than hundred such sites in the governorate of Sharqya but only two of them are known to visitors because they have standing structures. Those are San el Haggar and Bobastis or Tel Basta near Zagazig.
In the Western Desert, the sites are combination between temples and tombs like Hebis temple in Kharga and the Golden Mummy’s Tombs in Baharya. In addition, there are some pre-historic caves in the heart of the Western Desert like those of Maghara and Elmasy.
In the Eastern Desert, the main sites are related to mining activities. Finally, the Sinai Peninsula is a very special land. The northern part of Sinai was considered throughout history the entrance to Egypt. Remember that until a few hundred years ago, a branch of the Nile was reaching to the middle of north Sinai near Pelusium area, and that is why it was called the Pelusium branch. Since this region was considered the real entrance to Egypt, most of the invasions to Egypt came from this side, such as the Hiksos, the Hittites…etc
That is why most of the sites in North Sinai are in the form of fortifications like the citadel of Pelusium and of military roads such as Horus road, which conects Arish to Qantara.
In South Sinai, where the huge mountains are located, most sites are related again, like in the case of the Eastern Desert, to mining activities. The most famous site is Sarabit el Khadem by which has a sanctuary containing tens of stele from the different Pharaonic periods dating back to as early as the first dynasties of the Pharaonic period. The group of workers that was mining for turquoise implemented these steles.
As we can see, the archeological sites gained different characteristics according to their geographical locations throughout the country. We can understand how this applies to all other parts of the cultural heritage. For example, if we look at costumes, we will see that there is also a large variety going from Upper Egypt to Lower Egypt to the different parts of the deserts and Sinai. Similarly, every aspect of cultural heritage will have a diversity of characteristics according to its geographical location among many other variables.
