This article presents a comparative analysis of three Late Roman sites located at the northern outskirts of the Kharga Oasis in Egypt's Western Desert: Umm al-Dabadib, Ayn al-Labakha, and the Gib/Sumayra Complex. These were part of the district of the Oasis Magna, which included the oases of Dakhla and Kharga. An analysis of their layout, including both shape and extent, is followed by an evaluation of their absolute and relative positions. These data are then compared to the administrative and historical contexts within which the three sites flourished. Both administrative and economic aspects are considered, as well as the presence of the army. The complex picture that emerges suggests that these three sites played several roles at the same time and were part of a large-scale strategic design that encompassed not only the Kharga Oasis but the entire Western Desert.
The paper presented here focuses on the idea of interpreting the digital culture as an image of the material culture rather than a mere copy of it. First of all, we should ask ourselves what an image really is; it is in investigating its deep meaning, which is often devalued due to the enormous dissemination of void images, that we can overcome the superficial concept of the digital as a digitalised copy. The description of an archaeological artifact cannot prescind from its physical and material appearance, but has to go further towards its profound nature and meaning. Considering the so-called aura of archaeological and artistic objects as an engagement between the hic et nunc of the object and the hic et nunc of the observer it will be possible to go beyond in the comprehension of the agency of the objects. Moreover, it is necessary to consider technology as a way through which objects could reveal themselves in a process of ἀλήθεια and not just a tool with the only scope of showing itself and its capacities. Considering digital copies as images could yield compelling challenges: every archaeological object, at any scale from the very little to the very big, has its own lost Umwelt: a way of being entangled in the world in which it was created. Probably, no answer will be provided within this paper, but suggestions to move towards an ontology of digital objects and their relationship with virtual realm.
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