The Archaeology of the Egyptian Revolution and Counterrevolution. An Archaeology that Has Never Occurred

Abstract

At the beginning of 2011, thousands of demonstrators filled the streets in the cities and villages of different countries in North Africa and West Asia, demanding the demise of the ruling authoritarian regimes. In Egypt, people forced Egypt’s president Hosni Mubarak to resign after 18 days of mass protests. Shortly after these events, many teams of foreign archaeologists were back in Egypt to continue their work on the distant past (el-Aref 2011). (Archaeological) Business as usual. This was also true for us: PhD students carrying out their research in the eastern Nile delta at that time. As archaeologists, we reflect in this essay on how we could have taken and still could take a stance in the political events that occurred in Egypt from the 2011 revolution onwards.