Excavating and recording Middle Egypt

Middle Egypt is the richest and most productive part of the country. In a modem study by the Egyptian Department of Agriculture the cultivated land was divided into five classes, number one being the most productive. Not only is Class I laod the most dominant in Middle Egypt, but it is not found anywhere else in Upper or Lower Egypt? Although the topographical features of the Delta have almost certainly changed in the last five millennia, we have no reason to think that the same applies to Upper Egypt, except for minor changes to the course of the Nile. The wealth of the region is certainly reflected in the tombs of the provincial governors and other higher officials who served in the middle provinces, where architectural grandeur and magnificent decoration are common. Most of the cemeteries in middle Egypt were excavated and recorded from the end of the 19th to the mid-20th century, and the resulting publications constitute an essential part of the primary evidence on which our studies of the texts, art, architecture, administration and daily life rely. Although incomplete, particularly in details, the work of the early Egyptologists is invaluable and we will always be grateful to them since some scenes and inscriptions they recorded have been partly or totally obliterated or damaged as a result of gradual deterioration or modem vandalism.