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This chapter examines the role of Islamic temporal cosmology in villagers’ lives. It focuses on how moments of daily prayer, fasting, and worship are entwined with the materials of temporal textures, in particular in their calendric and time-measuring forms. These entwinements co-constitute villagers’ religious experience, and offer improvised techniques for making meaning and organizing social life. This chapter argues that any study of secular temporal orientations needs to be viewed in parallel with the modes of temporal reasoning and practice that are derived from Islamic temporal conceptions.

This chapter gives a general description of Egypt and the Nile. It talks about the length and breadth of the valley of Egypt and of the plain of Lower Egypt. It gives a detailed account of the cultivable land and the extent of the land cultivated at present. It further remarks upon the Nile, the climate of Egypt, and Egyptian agriculture. It describes the machines used for the purpose of irrigating the land; and the manner of irrigating. Furthermore, the amazing fertility of Egypt appears from the account of its principal vegetable productions. To complete this sketch of the natural history of Egypt, a few words are also added respecting the principal domestic and wild animals. Finally, this chapter concludes with a physical and agricultural calendar of Egypt.

Over the last two decades the concept of applied archaeology has been used increasingly to refer to how archaeology can contribute more broadly to society at large. Depending on the intellectual and geographical context there are many different ways that applied archaeology is understood. One important set of approaches builds on the standard definition of applied science as the application of scientific knowledge in creative problem-solving. Many archaeologists find that evidence which sheds light on resource exploitation strategies in the past is particularly rewarding in this regard, arguing that the insights gained from archaeological research can guide land use planning and resource management and make a positive impact on local livelihoods for people today and in the future (Costanza et al. 2007a; Hayashida 2005). This kind of applied archaeology is usually associated with rural livelihood development, but there is also an emerging applied archaeology of land use planning in predominantly urban sectors (Smith 2010). Some of the most prolific projects of applied agro-archaeology for rural development are those engaging in rejuvenating prehistoric agricultural features that have fallen into disuse or are being mismanaged. Groundbreaking applied agro-archaeology in the Andean region demonstrates considerable advances in this field, reconstructing abandoned raised fields, irrigation canals, and cultivation terraces in order to understand pre-Hispanic agricultural systems and long-term land-use dynamics and to re-apply ancient technologies for contemporary use (Chepstow-Lusty and Winfield 2000; Erickson 1985, 1994, 1998; Kendall 1997b, 2005, Chapter 9 this volume). The Andes are exceptionally rich in archaeological remains of pre-Hispanic agriculture and demonstrate considerable diversity in peoples’ approaches in the past in addressing the many different managerial issues associated with sustaining a farming livelihood in these environments (Denevan 2001; Donkin 1979). Linking the broad scope of applied agro-archaeology to the theoretical framework of historical ecology (Balée 1998, 2006; Balée and Erickson 2006; Crumley 1994, 2000, 2007), the motive of this contribution is to discuss some of the problems and opportunities facing an on-going applied agro-archaeological project in the Yungas of the Bolivian Andes (Isendahl 2008).