Edited by Jochem Kahl, Ursula Verhoeven-van Elsbergen, Andrea Kilian, and Mahmoud El-Khadragy
Located approximately 375 kilometers to the south of Cairo, in the middle of Egypt, the city of Asyut underwent different fortunes as a city of culture, as a border town, and as a city that was destroyed again and again. Asyut’s history as a major population center and as a regional capital stretches back over more than 4,200 years. The ancient city and its temples are almost completely buried and lost under the alluvial plain of the river Nile and the modern city. The only site currently accessible for exploration is the necropolis situated in the western mountains (Gebel Asyut al-gharbi).
Fieldwork on Gebel Asyut al-gharbi, archival research, and object studies in various museums provide a wealth of material from which a specifically regional history of Asyut can be reconstructed. Its position between residential influence and regional traditions will be examined, as well as particular archaeological questions and topics on today’s Asyut. The results of this research (conducted by scholars from Freie Universität Berlin, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, and Sohag University, Egypt) have been published in the series The Asyut Project since 2007.