February 7th 2026 Event:

Presented by: Rolland Long, PhD Graduate Student, University of Pennsylvania 

Time: 7:30 pm -9:00 pm 

Location:
Southern Methodist University
Fondren Science Building - Room 123
3215 Daniel Avenue, Dallas, TX 75205

Zoom Link: (shared prior to event start)

Sponsored by: Southern Methodist University’s Clements Department of History

Reconstructing Presently Submerged Landscapes of Lower Nubia:

CORONA-derived Topography and Spatial Analyses of Middle Kingdom Fort Environments

Soon after the declassification of satellite imagery from the CORONA satellite spy-mission in the mid-1990s, archaeologists working around the world quickly recognized their value. The spy mission, which had originally been designed to provide intelligence on Soviet bomber and missile capabilities during the Cold War, also recorded the appearance of archaeological sites and landscapes heavily altered or destroyed by recent urban development.

This talk focuses on a burgeoning new application of CORONA imagery: the generation of historical Digital Elevation Models (DEM) from such images, which can yield important quantitative insights about terrain no longer in existence. Generating DEM’s from CORONA imagery has necessitated the development of specialized techniques to address unique distortions from its capture process.

This talk focuses on several DEM’s produced over Lower Nubia, which has been subject to flooding and rising water levels since the establishment of the Aswan High Dam about half a century ago. Much of the ancient history of the area has been swept away forever, despite a heroic international effort to salvage as much archaeological information as possible prior to the dam’s construction. These DEM’s will situate the Egyptian forts of several areas, including Semna and Askut, within their larger geographical context. Certain physical features of these fortresses, such as intervisibility between forts and their proximity to overland routes, can now be verified quantitatively.

About the Presenter Rolland Long

Rolland is a PhD Candidate in Egyptian Archaeology at the University of Pennsylvania. He graduated from the University of Chicago in 2017 with an undergraduate degree from the department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. His research focuses on the continued post-Middle Kingdom habitation of Wah-sut in South Abydos, where he has worked 8 seasons as a field archaeologist.

His major focus is on the urbanism of ancient Egypt, as well as the problem of defining urbanism in the ancient world at large. Much like the study of urbanism in the modern world, ancient urbanism is sufficiently broad, complex and diverse in its iterations to make its study inherently interdisciplinary; he finds the prospect of scholars from disparate fields collaborating to investigate the phenomenon of ancient urbanism extremely exciting.

He is also interested in the integration of new digital technology in archaeological operations, namely photogrammetry and 3D modeling, as well as the grammar and development of the ancient Egyptian language.