The archaeological activity in Egypt in the last decades has been decisively conditioned first by the construction of the new Aswān dam, which submerged the antiquities upstream, and then by the war situation that excluded foreign missions from most of the Egyptian soil . There are positive results that have come from a situation that is not in itself happy: Nubia has been explored by numerous missions and in a certain functional connection between them, and the problem of scientific exploration of the Delta has been tackled, an area that has so far been neglected. of various technical difficulties, where culture has already destroyed much in the past. For Egypt 2014, please check thesciencetutor.org.

Leaving Nubia aside, we give news of the most important archaeological innovations. In addition to the excavations in Roman Alexandria and Athens by the Poles, who continue ancient research, there are the English works in Buto (Tell Farā‛in) and the American ones in Mendes, which investigate two particularly important centers in Egyptian religious history and that they should be able to give very new information on the origins of the northern Egyptian culture, hitherto known above all for allusions of the texts. In truth, not much has been found so far, and the real innovations are rather of a methodical order, in the application of that stratigraphic excavation often neglected in the excavations of Egypt southern. A third exemplary excavation in the Delta, conducted by the Austrians at Qantīr, showed that here (and not in Tanis) was the capital of the Hyksos, Avari, and later the capital built by Ramessese II, Pi Ramesse. The need for rescue from future irrigation and from urban planning has also led to excavations in the Middle Egypt, in Antinoe, where numerous remains of the Roman and Late Antiquity period have been brought to light in sufficiently complete connections to provide typological examples and precious elements for the history of art of Egypt late classical.

The state of war with Israel since 1969 has determined the concentration of foreign excavation missions in the few areas left open to traffic: they are that of the Memphite necropolis, that of Theban, that of Aswān, where the results of new remarkable knowledge have thus been reached.. In the Memphite necropolis of Gīza and Saqqara monuments already known in ancient times have been reexamined: but, in the second of these particular importance, the excavations of Emery in the proto-dynastic sector, where archaic mastabas in unfired bricks with the names of protohistoric rulers have been identified. Tombs of the same kings had long been discovered in Abydos, but the fact that the monuments of Saqqara are more grandiose than their Abidean counterparts suggests that the former represent actual tombs, the others cenotaphs.

The exploration in Thebes mainly concerned the necropolis, where the tombs of the princes of the XVII dyn were studied more closely. (the Antef) and et-Tarif, the monument of Mentuhotpe of the XI dyn. in Deir el-Baḥrī by the Germanic archaeological institute. Significant discoveries were made in Deir el-Baḥrī itself, during the restoration of the XVIII dyn. Complex. by the Poles: a new temple of Thutmose III has been identified at the bottom of the terrace. The neighboring Asasif has been explored by Germans, who have found Middle Kingdom tombs with singular military paintings, and by Belgians, Austrians, Italians to whom we owe the identification of large Saitic funerary monuments that allow us to define a whole local architectural tradition for that era.

In addition to the revisions of older excavations in the cataract area (necropolis by the Germans, Ptolemaic temple of Aswān by the Italians) are added the new German excavations of Elefantina, which are identifying and ordering the remains at the southern end of the island. of the oldest city, which dates back to the Memphite age. This quick list of the archaeological innovations that took place in Egypt must be increased by the news of the birth of some local museums, among which the most important is that of Luqsor. To these it can be hoped that the antiquities that will be recovered from here on will lead to a better and more organic scientific use of them. And at the same time, the tendency of the Egyptian administration to give priority to the rescue work is to be greeted with satisfaction, of restoration and critical arrangement of the monumental material already known with respect to the excavation generally aimed at acquiring new material.