Discovering, interpreting, protecting: The caves of Farafra and Gilf Kebir, Western Desert, Egypt

Safeguarding and enhancing the cultural heritage that the archaeological investigation progressively highlights, plays a strategic role in research programmes carried out in desert regions. This paper describes the programme that the Italian Archaeological Project in the Egyptian Western Desert is carrying out regarding the study and preservation of Wadi el Obeiyid Cave 1 and Boats Arch in the Farafra Oasis and the Cave of the Swimmers and the Cave of the Archers in the Gilf Kebir. The research in Farafra was conducted within the long cycle of archaeological investigation that began in the mid-1980s with the participation of Fekri A. Hassan. The conservation programme in the Gilf Kebir was launched in more recent times, as a part of the Italo-Egyptian Cooperation Programme Enhancement of the Egyptian Protected Areas and, in particular, of the Gilf Kebir National Park (GKNP). The decorated caves are a precious document of the symbolic world of the human groups who occupied the Western Desert during the middle and late Holocene. These representations are in fact the work of people who moved between the Sahara and the Nile Valley and played a key role in the development of the first North African pastoral societies. The first phase of conservation work has focused in the Gilf Kebir caves. The Cave of the Swimmers, in particular, is the one that has required the most urgent action due to its severe state of degradation. This paper summarizes some key points of the conservation work that has already been done within the framework of the broader objectives that the programme intends to achieve.