HUMAN-INDUCED DETERIORATION
TO SEDIMENTARY ANCIENT MONUMENTS...
EIGHTH STUDY ON ENVIRONMENTAL GEOEGYPTOLOGY
SOLIMAN M. SOLIMAN
Dept. Geology, Fac. Sciences, Ain Shams Univ., Cairo, Egypt
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CHAIRMAN 'S ADDRESS
Balance... Equilibrium... and slow balanced changes are Nature's general discipline in the Ecosystem or Geosystem, and grossly in the Cosmic system. Man's (or Nature's)
hasty departure off this balance, causes serious damage in both Earth (or human) systems... That is what I occasionally convey to my geology students for decades.
PREAMBLE
.. A scene of a Common genuine Egyptian family during a World War II air raid... With a Cairo refreshing October evening in a dark room, ... a strip of moonlight through an opened blue-painted glass window, covered part of the floor carpet... The brothers and sister on an Egyptian "canape" (couch), closely embraced by their father and mother who solemnly praying for the safety of their four children...
Respecting the mood, the Nile Primary School child paid quick awesome glances to the thrilling view of flashes of artillary bombs and the powerful search lights sweeping the sky for the attacking planes. Restlessly, he hesitatingly interrupted the endless scene... "The bombs destroy what we built"... Reluctantly, pausing the spiritual meditation, the passionate comforting parental whisper came with a sigh... "Some humans are made sometimes to destroy intentionally or not their social, spiritual, technical... good achievements... Surprisingly, our forefathers the Ancient Egyptians in their society seemingly had another general balanced approach ... They preserved tire highest esteem to
GOD..., and respect and love to the nature of their country, beliefs, customs, doings, principles, themselves and other beings... therefore they established a balanced radiating sustainable civilization for thousands of years... even up till now"... and ended... "Wars generally solve no problems, rather complicate them". In a similar occasion 1956, I repeated this last sentence to a Palo Alto newspaper during my Ph.D. studies at the School of Earth Sciences, Stanford Univ., U.S.A.
Such destruction or deterioration caused directly or indirectly by "military or civil attacks" is the result of misfiguring the losses and gains of such deeds.
Quite recently, the Ancient Egyptian monuments and their premises have witnessed an increasing unprecedented "civil attack" through dense nearby human activities which disturb directly or indirectly the balanced sensitive landscape, and consequently its indirect damaging effect on the monuments. This partially augments the irreversible impairment to these irreplaceable authentic structures, and thus lessening their longevity and complicating restoration.
Around this core problem I've tried to clarify its mangnitude and consequences through this first guiding treatment on the topic This actually is an offshoot of the main work started 1977 and intending to have an idea about the nature, factors and extent of sand accumulation, for the longest time span, on Ancient monuments particularly in 3 main open areas of Giza, Saqqara, Dahshur (and Meidum) under the prevailing common natural conditions. Here, the study is concentrated mainly on Giza Pyramids area especially the Second Great Pyramid, KhafRa Pyramid (IV Dynasty)... (Fig. 1).
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