The Lost City and the New AERA Blog
When Mark Lehner first travelled to Egypt in 1973 with the hope of discovering the fabled ‘Hall of Records’ thought to be located beneath the paws of the Sphinx he probably didn’t imagine he’d end up staying for over a decade and finding a ‘Lost City’. 
Lehner, who has become one of the leading figures of Egyptology, began his five-year project of mapping the Sphinx in 1979. Soon after that in 1985 he founded the Giza Mapping Project with the much grander goal of mapping the entire plateau and the AERA was borne out of the necessity to fund and facilitate the project.
Lost City
For the past decade the Giza Mapping Project has been focused on the ‘Lost City’ of the pyramid builders at Giza. The AERA website has an interactive map of the Lost City, an overview of the use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) as well as highlights of some of the artifacts discovered. Other resources offered on the website include free document downloads of the Giza Occasional Papers, the official newsletter of Ancient Egypt Research Associates, and articles from Journals written by Mark Lehner.
Visit the Lost City at Giza
The Giza Occasional Papers 
The Giza Occasional Papers are the preliminary reports on AERA’s field seasons at Giza and the second edition is now out. You can visit the AERA website to read or download the 90 page PDF to read later.
Here are some details of what’s in the Winter 2009 edition:
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Introduction
Area Clearing and Mapping
Excavations in 2005
Mapping Late Period Burials
Conservation
There is a lot of good reading here and definately a must for anyone interested in Giza. It has great detailed information and news on the Wall fo the Crows, and the maps and diagrams are fascinating.
You can find them here: Giza Occasional Papers
The AERAgram
You can read AERAgram online or download the latest edition as well as the other eight previous editions. Volume 9 has some interesting news on the flooding of the Lost City site.
Here is a list of contents:
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Fall 2008
Impressions of the Past
Lost City Site, Flooded
AERA Membership Program
Digging Old Luxor
Rescue Dig, SAFS
You can find them here: AERAgram
Download these, get yourself a warm drink and put aside the next few hours.
The New AERA Blog
As I tweeted earlier this week, AERA has recently launched their own WordPress blog which can be found here: Ancient Egyptian Reseach Center – A blog of field activity in Egypt:
Welcome to AERA’s 2009 field season. This is the 20th field season of the Giza Plateau Mapping Project under Mark Lehner. It is also the 10th anniversary of our Marathon challenge, sponsored by longtime supporter, Ann Lurie. Just this past weekend, our workers began the heavy lifting to uncover the dig site.
Most of AERA’s field seasons have been conducted at the site of the Lost City of the pyramid builders at Giza, just south of the Wall of the Crow (a few hundred meters south of the Sphinx). Among the challenges facing us in recent seasons has been a dramatic rise in ground water that flooded the ancient site. Thankfully we have recently recorded a lowering of the water level.
Sources:
Visit the interactive website.
AERA Blog: Ancient Egyptian Reseach Center – A blog of field activity in Egypt
Visit the Giza Mapping Project website.
Related posts:
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- How Were the Egyptian Pyramids Built? – Part 6 ‘They Were Not Slaves’ – Mark Lehner Marking the end...
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