Preservation and restoration of the Wadi Sura caves in the framework of the ‘Gilf Kebir National Park’, Egypt

the preservation of the caves with prehistoric rock art located in the Gilf Kebir plateau in southwestern Egypt. The project was part of the cooperation program developed to establish the Egyptian Gilf Kebir National Park (GKNP) protected area. Given their bad state of preservation, the Italian conservation project focused on the Caves of Swimmers and Archers, located along the Wadi Sura. Although only very few studies of this kind have been carried out in the Saharan region, our work in the Gilf Kebir can be considered a pilot study, the results of which should be evaluated in the long term. Results obtained to date and reported in this paper provide analytical petrographic studies of the bedrock, a complete photographic and geodetic survey of the two sites, data from climate monitoring, along with a preliminary consolidation of some of the most at-risk areas of the two caves. Finally, laboratory experimentation led us to select the most suitable materials for the consolidation of the rock, shifting in the direction of nano-technology instead of ethyl silicate use because of the longer cross-linking process of the latter in hyper-arid environments; the use of the latter can in fact result in extremely long and expensive field seasons. These results will be valuable for the continuation and extension of the project, which is currently suspended due to safety concerns in the region.