Thus far, More than 700 private tombs and features out of 2,000+ have been mapped currently by satelite and systematically catalogued. They are documented historically, archaeologically, and geologically, and their data is accessible through the GIS database on the World Wide Web. Ultimately, images of all the tombs and their environs will also be available through the GIS. Any person, even without knowledge of ArcGIS programming, can freely search for these tombs in the necropolis to learn their history and location, and he/she can search, select, and manipulate the data to reveal new relationships (historical, archaeological, and geological) among the tombs and the other standing monuments and features in the area. Those scholars who wish to make more complex searches of the data can download layers of the database to ArcGIS running on their own computers.

Field work has been funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities through The American Research Center in Egypt, Inc. (Cairo). GIS processing and base maps are funded by the College of Charleston Santee-Cooper GIS Laboratory and the Department of History.

• Batting the Ball, a bat-and-ball game, played by the pharaoh and priests of ancient Egypt beginning ca. 4,500 years ago, with a physical resemblance to the modern games of stickball and "pepper" and with certain thematic and cosmological parallels to American baseball:
  • Description of research (illustrated): "Batting the Ball"
  • Reprint of article, "Pharaoh at the Bat," College of Charleston Magazine 7/1 (Spring/Summer 2003): 36;
  • "Balk Like an Egyptian," by Richard Deitsch, Sports Illustrated Magazine (May 5, 2003).

• Senet, a board game of thirty squares played both for recreational and religious purposes in ancient Egypt. It was played by pharaoh and peasant alike. Analysis of its spiritual meanings, reveals its religious purposes were: (1) to communicate with the dead; (2) to enable a living person to achieve union with the sun god; (3) to permit the deceased's spirit to fly freely between heaven and earth:
  • Reprint of article, "In Search of the Meaning of Senet," Archaeology 33 (July/August l980): 55-58.
  • Abstract of forthcoming book, Gaming with the Gods: The Game of Senet and Ancient Egyptian Religious Beliefs

• Sport fencing. Analyze the methods of fencing in Egypt; identify competitors, venues, and religious reasons for ritualized combat; study the weapons, purpose of public fencing tournaments in religious festivals; connections to the ideology of Egyptian kingship and mythology of the gods;

• Mehen, the board game of the coiled serpent. Identify the purpose and spiritual meaning of the game: to enable spiritual resurrection of the dead king; identify deities involved in the process; trace a derivative theme in later Egyptian religious thought;

• Miscellaneous children's games, e.g.: "crush the grapes," tug-of-war, gymnastics, wrestling, weight-lifting, ring-toss, hoop-and-stick, and games of victimization. Identify physical aspects of the games and the contexts in which they were played; isolate religious meanings and spiritual significances; link games to rites of passage and the social initiation of boys, leading to circumcision and entrance into adult society, similar to sub-Saharan African traditions.