Second Workshop of the EGYLandscape Project
Second Workshop of the EGYLandscape Project
Next Steps: A Virtual Gathering 8-9 June 2020
The second workshop of the EGYLandscape project was initially planned to be held at the French Archaeological Institute in Cairo, Egypt. However, given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the EGYLandscape project moved the workshop to a virtual platform. Using the open-source platform TheBigBlueButton, EGYLandscape’s second workshop was held on 8-9 June 2020.
Like the first meeting in Marburg in September 2019, the virtual gathering offered an opportunity to have updates from the project’s participants and contributors regarding the state of their research projects. While not as ideal as an in-person meeting, thirteen team members discussed their research projects; and at various points, between twenty and twenty-five participants and guests joined in for the talks and subsequent discussions. The projects surveyed were from EGYLandscape’s historians as the format was not as conducive to the archaeological presentations and seminars that had been planned for Cairo. This was the real limitation of the virtual platform.
On the afternoon of the second day of the virtual gathering, there were several sessions devoted to discussing the current state of the project as well as next steps. The team also heard from Nicolas Michel about the ongoing GIS mapping project. Anthony Quickel gave updates about the team’s mid-project publication – a special issue of the Mamluk Studies Review, the project’s working papers and website, as well as other new news. The virtual workshop concluded with a roundtable discussion hosted by project leaders Nicolas Michel and Albrecht Fuess to share and gather thoughts about what the EGYLandscape Project is doing well and how it might continue to advance.
The next EGYLandscape Project workshop is planned for the beginning of June 2021 in Alexandria, Egypt.