This page is designed to match up the different naming conventions for the same Eastern Desert rock art sites that have been investigated by a number of different project teams.  This is often necessary when discussing Egyptian sites that have been analyzed by a number of different teams, each adopting their own naming conventions for the same sites (e.g. the Faiyum schemes of Caton Thompson and Gardner, Wendorf and Shild and Wenke).  Two of the major surveys in the Eastern Desert have used two entirely different schemes.  Rohls (2000) gave sites names which reflect the individual within his project team that located the site (e.g. TJ for Tony Judd).  Morrow and Morrow (2002) gave sites names which reflect some information about the location in which the site was found (e.g. HAM for Wadi Hammamat).

The issue in the Eastern Desert is clearly highlighted by Morrow and Morrow (2002) who comment:  “There has been a distinct lack of consistency in the various naming standards adopted to denote Eastern Desert sites” (p.13).  They offer a site decoder of their own (Appendix V, “Composite List of Rick Art Sites in Survey Area”, with grid references, p.230-231).

The only sites listed are those which are referred to by more than one survey team with different naming conventions.  The data has been assembled from the EDS Survey (Rohls 2000) and the Desert RAT Survey (Morrow and Morrow 2002).

The issue of naming conventions for sites is one that extends throughout the Sahara and has been addressed in some detail by Gauthier, Gauthier and Le Quellec (1996).  They have considered some of the problem involved with naming sites after topographic and other features, and conclude as follows (p.1113-114):

• It is important to create and use a nomenclature that is totally independent of local place names, which are only occasionally helpful and may be misleading
• The system should be one that can be adaptable to the whole of Africa and not merely the Sahara
• It should be an open system which permits additions
• The system should use a limited number of symbols and should be easy to read

They propose instead a system which is based upon grid references.  As GPS becomes increasingly important in site recording and re-locating, this makes a lot of sense.  Grid references are adapted into a system that is easy to use and easy to read and extend (p.114-116).

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Copyright Andie Byrnes 2007