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The Fayum Fieldschool is a project to provide training for inspectors of the Supreme Council of Antiquities in the latest archaeological techniques. All participants have a thorough university training and many of them have an impressive record of years of experience in the field. The 'field school', therefore, is not really a 'school', but a 'master class': an opportunity to work together with an international team of archaeologists in order to keep their knowledge up to date.
Since the Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Dr. Zahi Hawass, supports and advocates the use of information technology, the field school publishes a report for the general public on its activities on this web site. The Fayum Fieldschool is a project of the Egyptian Antiquities Project (EAP), financed by USAID and administered by the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE). The director of the field school is Dr. Willeke Wendrich, Assistant Professor of Egyptian Archaeology at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA). The field school forms part of a larger research project, the UCLA / RUG (Groningen University, The Netherlands) Fayum project, under direction of Dr. Willeke Wendrich and Dr. René Cappers. The UCLA / RUG Fayum research effort has the overarching title The Fayum as an Agricultural Landscape: settlements, field systems and shore lines from the prehistory to the present. Within the larger research program, there are several specific projects, such as the proposed project from the RUG -- "Provisions from the Fayum: agriculture as a source of sustenance and power in the Neolithic and Greco-Roman periods." The research of the field school forms an important part of the work of the project and results generated by the field school will be part of the publication.
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