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Grafton Elliot Smith’s lost recording cards detailing his excavations near Aswan in 1907-1912 have been discovered in an archive at the University of Cambridge, and published as part of a ten-year research project by Dr Jenny Metcalfe of the University of Manchester (see The Archaeological Survey of Nubia Season 2 (1908-9): Report on the Human Remains, published by Archaeopress). Smith excavated 151 Nubian cemeteries in an area soon to be flooded after the construction of the Aswan Low Dam, discovering 20,000 graves and 7,500 bodies and their funerary goods. Working with Douglas Derry, he made detailed records of the anatomical features of the bodies, providing a huge amount of information about disease, trauma, and anatomical variations in the communities living in this area of ancient Nubia.
