Opening UP the Environmental History of Egypt Based on Documentary Sources—Natural Environment, Agricultural Production, and Record Management

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15K12930
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Historical studies in general
• Research Institution: Waseda University (2016); The University of Tokyo (2015)
• Principal Investigator: Kumakura Wakako 早稲田大学, イスラーム地域研究機構, 研究助手 (80613570)
• Co-Investigator(Renkei-kenkyūsha): Ryosuke Takahashi 首都大学東京, 人文科学研究科, 准教授 (10708647)
• Research Collaborator: Yasuo Ozawa
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 環境史 / 社会経済史 / エジプト / 農業 / 記録管理 / 環境 / ギリシア・ローマ / イスラーム

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Environmental History that focuses on the Middle East and North Africa region has recently attracted many scholars' attention and many books and journals have been published. However, such studies do not deal with long period that crosses existing periodizations such as ‘medieval’ and ‘modern’ because most of them are done by individual scholars. So long-term environmental history of the region has been still awaited.
This study, focusing on Egypt, considered the possibility of long-term environmental history by examination of prior studies, sources, methods related to the field. As a result, it revealed that documentary sources are intermittently available in the Fayyum region, middle south of Egypt and they will enable to explore the area's long-term environmental history.

Free Research Field

中近世エジプト社会経済史・環境史