Almost ready to close the 2014 field season

Posted on February 27, 2014 by Julia Budka

Time is passing by – tomorrow will be the last day of our 2014 field season in the New Kingdom town of Sai Island; and it was a very fruitful, productive and pleasant season! Large amounts of material were unearthed and all working areas provided interesting results. We are currently busy packing the pottery collected as representative samples, washing the last diagnostic sherds and making final drawings of important pieces.

The database of small finds from both SAV1 West and SAV1 East now comprises 1732 pieces – and several large boxes of grind stones and pounders are still awaiting registration; one of the first tasks for 2015! The majorities of the finds from the 2014 season are worked stones and re-used pot sherds, but there are also fayence pieces (Nun bowls, beads, one ring) and a lot of clay objects. Some of the latter are nicely identifiable, e.g. rudimentary female figurines and animal figurines, but others are more obscure. One example is SAV1E 851 – a rather amorphic piece of clay with incised decoration on several sides. Its incised decoration pattern reminds us of the female figurines commonly found in the New Kingdom town of Sai, but its shape is markedly different. Its context does furthermore not allow a precise dating – it is coming from one of the mixed areas in Square 1B, in the northern area of Building A – ranging in date from the 18th Dynasty up to Christian and Ottoman times.

All in all, the finds from this season nicely complement the corpus we already know from sector SAV1 North – and its wide repertoire and remarkable diversity is very promising, processing will keep us busy in the next months!

The New Kingdom town wall at SAV1 West

Posted on February 23, 2014 by Julia Budka

During the 2014 season we successfully located the 18^th Dynasty enclosure wall of the Pharaonic town of Sai in both of our new trenches at SAV1 West. We can hereby confirm the reconstruction of our French colleagues which was based on a surface survey, the general outline of the town and the location of the Western city gate.

The western edge of the Pharaonic town of Sai: looking across the Western city gate towards the new squares in the North. To the right, the Northwestern tower of the Ottoman fortress, built above Pharaonic remains, is visible.

We were also able to identify some later additions and Post-Pharaonic construction work in our new trenches. During excavations, it was not very clear whether the later wall in Square 1W was located above a bastion and if the “front wall” we found could be of New Kingdom date after all.

Both questions have been answered in the meantime: There is no tower attached to the enclosure wall in the area of Square 1, and the “front wall” post-dates clearly the 18^th Dynasty city wall. The situation in trench 2 seems to be very similar – the outline of the 18^th Dynasty wall is now understandable, despite of the deep Post-New Kingdom pits within the brickwork, and it corresponds nicely to the presumed line drawn from the Western city gate towards the North.

Among the most important results of this season is the discovery of floor levels and occupation deposits on the inner side of the enclosure wall, both at Square 1 and trench 2 – all was covered by sand and mixed debris, but now there are really remains waiting for us which seem to be undisturbed! There are several floor levels visible, having been cut by the later pits – suggesting subsequent phases of Pharaonic presence at the site. Thus, SAV1 West will potentially add a lot of information about the inner structure, evolution and layout of the town – and will keep us busy in the next years.

The enclosure wall in Square 1 – almost completly destroyed in the northern part, damaged in the southern area but note the promising deposits towards the East.

The enigmatic “fish dishes” again

Posted on February 20, 2014 by Julia Budka

As processing of the 18th Dynasty pottery from SAV1 West, 2014 season, continues, new information comes up daily! As reported, the material is closely similar to the pottery corpus from sector SAV1 North and also SAV1 East. However, there are also some – maybe significant – differences. For example, the amount of Blue painted pottery is remarkable; as in SAV1 East, we do encounter a number of conical bread moulds, these have been largely missing at SAV1 North.

Another intriguing group of vessels are the so-called “fish dishes”! A number of Marl clay examples were found in Square 1 at SAV1 West.

Fragment of Marl clay “fish dish”, SAV1 West

This large fragment illustrates the geometric decorative pattern inside. In exactly the same style, but made in a local Nile clay, more than 10 fragments came up in the fillings of Building A at SAV1 East this season! Does this indicate a difference between our two current excavation areas? Or could it also be that my previous assumption, based on the comparison with Elephantine was completely wrong? I did speculate last year because there are more Nile silt “fish dishes” from Sai Island than Marl clay version that different from the situation in Egypt, the “real” Egyptian Marl B/E trays had been frequently reproduced in Nubia in local material. Are the new Marl dishes from SAV1 West just an accidental find? Or are they of chronological significance, maybe originating from a phase with the first “supply” of Egyptian functional wares? But how would this correspond to the findings of Nile “fish dishes” from SAV1 East which date to the heyday of Sai in the 18th Dynasty, the time of Thutmose III and Amenhotep II. It is especially this era when a lot of high quality material, including decorated Marl clay vessels, was brought to the temple town of Sai.

All in all, the picture deriving from the New Kingdom town of Sai Island gets more and more complex the better we understand the architectural layout, the structure of the town and especially the material culture! Every small pottery sherd potentially adds information…

Next week I will focus among other things on the large amount of incense burners, footed bowls and dishes with pigments, possible painter’s pots from the 2014 season. The pottery gives a nice glimpse into past activities at SAV1 West which we still have only touched on a superficial level.

Pottery from the 2014 season at SAV1 West

Posted on February 17, 2014 by Julia Budka

Having closed fieldwork for this year, we are currently mapping our trenches and I am happy to spend some more time in the courtyard working with the pottery! There’s still a lot to do…
Huda and Elke are helping with washing, sorting, registering and drawing the large amounts of New Kingdom pottery from the 2014 season.

As was reported already at the beginning of the 2014 season, both the quantity and the quality of the material from SAV1 West are very impressive: hundreds of diagnostic sherds are still waiting for a proper documentation – the detailed analysis will have to be postponed to next year.

The amount of painted wares is intriguing as is the large size of the fragments and the high number of complete profiles! The corpus of SAV1 West compares nicely to SAV1 North – most of the material can be dated to the period from Thutmose III to Amenhotep III.

I am aiming to finish the basic statistics (in particular assessing the proportions of wares and shapes) and to establish the preliminary dating of the material further until our departure at the end of February – with the great support I got this will insha’allah work out!

End of 2014 fieldwork in the Pharaonic town

Posted on February 13, 2014 by Julia Budka

Today was the last day of fieldwork at both SAV1 East and SAV1 West. We will continue with small scale cleaning and especially with final drawings and mapping at the site in the upcoming week – and will keep you posted!

At all trenches we were able to answer the most important questions – especially the western outline of Building A at SAV1 East was confirmed as was the outline of the enclosure wall at SAV1 West. I am really happy with the state of preservation – clearing the substantial disturbances, later pits and back fillings, we found nice 18th Dynasty floor levels and pavements still in place.

All together two more weeks will be dedicated to a post-excavation study season on Sai – this includes also the documentation of finds, finalising lists & databases, and photographs, registration of objects and ceramics as well as drawing of finds.

Fieldwork team 2014, Sai Island, Pharaonic town.

For now, special thanks go to our team of Sudanese workmen directed by Rais Imad Mohammed Shorbagi – without them the work would not have been possible in the last 6 weeks! We have been very lucky with weather and nimiti this year – the last days with heavy attacks suggest a perfect timing for closing fieldwork…

Drawing ceramics from Sai Island, New Kingdom Pharaonic town: One of the masterpieces

Posted on February 11, 2014 by Julia Budka

Additionally to processing the find from our current excavations at SAV1 East and SAV1 West, we continue, like in 2013, documenting material which was excavated in SAV1 North in the last years by Florence Doyen.

Nicole, Julia and Elke have been very busy in the last weeks and I would like to present one of the masterpieces. This unique fragment also nicely illustrates why detailed drawings of pottery vessels are simply necessary in additions to photos: technical and morphological details, the general shape and also the outline of decorative patterns can be best clarified with a drawing in 1:1.

Pencil drawing of decorated rhyton SAV1N N/C 1205.

The important piece recently documented with an accurate drawing by Nicole is a lower part of a decorated rhyton, covered in a red slip and burnished, made in a very fine Nile B (SAV1N N/C 1205). The area around the perforated bottom of this vessel is painted in black with floral elements. Just above these lotus flowers a register with figural painting is still partly visible. According to the remains it seems to be a scene in the marshes: a striding male figure is carrying something with a pole set on his shoulder. Maybe the hanging objects are large fishes? Nicole is still not completly convinced and I must admit that her nice drawing also raised some doubts for my interpretation.

As I have stressed in an earlier post, rhytons like N/C 1205 had the character of luxury items in 18^th Dynasty Egypt, the vessel shape being characteristically Aegean. Our small masterpiece from SAV1 North is an Egyptian copy in Nile clay of a Late Minoan IA rhyton.

The western part of Building A: New finds at SAV1 East

Posted on February 9, 2014 by Julia Budka

Our last week of excavation at SAV1 East for the field season 2014 has just started – and so far we are very happy with the results (not with the nimiti attacks which are back to their usual force for the month February…)! All in all, exactly like last year, we managed to trace the anomalies visible on the geophysical survey map from 2011: Our Building A is growing in size, it is getting more and more comparable to the so-called governor’s residence SAF2 in the southern part of the town.

Outlines of Building A in its eastern part, status of 2013.

As we were hoping, the further westwards we moved within the site SAV1 East, the higher the deposit gets! Thus, other then last year with our “negative walls”, we were able to find and document some remains of the foundations of substantial mud brick walls, as well as nice remains of a mud pavement between two parallel walls.

The western extension of SAV1 East, with mud pavement between two new North-South walls.

The 2014 season seems to have confirmed the alignment of Building A along the main North-South street, thus being exactly in line with Temple A and also the governor’s residence SAF2. The entrance area is located in the western part, where the structure was accessible from the street. Very striking are remains of a schist-pavement in the newly found entrance rooms at the western side of the building. Unfortunately, the pavement has been badly destroyed in ancient times, but we are positive that we will be able to reconstruct the former area covered by schist according to the clusters of broken fragments.

Disturbed area in the western part of Building A; note the schist fragments, once part of a pavement and dislocated during the destruction phase.

During this week, we will focus again on these entrance rooms and hope to get further stratigraphical information confirming our present dating of Building A to Thutmoside (mid 18^th Dynasty) times.

Sai Island 2014: Geoarchaeological investigations

Posted on February 4, 2014 by Erich Draganits

The aim of the geoarchaeological fieldwork within the framework of AcrossBorders was to expand our knowledge about the existing rock types, their relationships, Quaternary sediments, geomorphological evolution and estimations about possible Nile erosion processes at the site of the Pharaonic settlement. The scarcity of vegetation, presence of riverfront exposures as well as excellent outcrops provided by excavated graves offer great geoarchaeological working conditions.

Sai Island is situated between the 2^nd and 3^rd Nile cataracts, which are a result of a large scale east-west trending tectonic uplift zone, which forces the Nile to incise into uplifted Neoproterozoic crystalline basement and its sedimentary cover (Thurmond et al. 2004). Consequently, Sai Island comprises medium-grade metamorphic Precambrian rocks (amphibolite, dolomite, quartzite, biotite gneiss, calcite marble) in the west and southeast, dipping around 30° towards the Northwest. These rocks are commonly cross-cut by large quartz-veins. In the central and northern part of the island these meta-volcano-sedimentary rocks are overlain by subhorizontal Nubian Sandstone, mainly consisting of medium- to coarse-grained fluvial quartz sandstone, conglomerate, rare siltstone and occasional silicified wood.

Yellowish Nubian Sandstone overlying dark amphibolite in the southeast part of Sai Island

Almost all of these rocks are covered by thin layers of comparably much younger Nile sediments (in some places with Palaeolithic artefacts) and only the Nubian Sandstone of Jebel Adu raises as an Inselberg from the flat terraces surfaces (van Peer et al. 2003, Anonymous 2005).

Example of small basement outcrop in the more fertile West of the island

The pre-Holocene Nile sediments mainly comprise gravely channel deposits and fine-grained floodplain sediments. The sub-rounded to rounded gravel of the pre-Holocene Nile terraces are strongly dominated by quartz clasts, followed by chert and beautiful agate and virtually free of carbonate clasts, while the fine-grained floodplain sediments commonly show soil formation processes and related calcrete (Lewis et al. 2011).

Photo showing typical composition and grain-size of gravelly terrace surfaces

The rock types occurring at the site of the Pharaonic settlement in general reflect the geological reality of the island and most of them are locally available. By far the most common rock types are quartz sandstone and amphibolite, while vein quartz, calcrete, biotite gneiss, calcite marble are comparable rare. Rock types which probably have been brought to the island include granite, diorite, gabbro and gypsum.

References:

Anonymous, Geological map of Sudan. 1 : 3,500,000, Geological Research Authority of the Sudan, Khartoum, 2005.

J. Lewis, J. Smith, & E. Garcea, Paleoenvironmental implications of the isotope geochemistry and granulometry of Quaternary alluvial sediments and paleosols from Sai Island, Sudan. GSA Annual Meeting, 9-12 October 2011, Minneapolis, abstract, 2011, 95-19.

A.K. Thurmond, R.J. Stern, M.G. Abdelsalam, K.C. Nielsen, M.M. Abdeen & E. Hinz, The Nubian Swell. Journal of African Earth Sciences, 39, 2004, 401-407.

P. Van Peer, R. Fullagar, S. Stokes, R.M. Bailey, J. Moeyersons, F. Steenhoudt, A. Geerts, T. Vanderbeken, M. de Dapper & F. Geus, The Early to Middle Stone Age Transition and the Emergence of Modern Human Behaviour at site 8-B-11, Sai Island, Sudan. Journal of Human Evolution, 45, 2003, 187-193.

Blue Painted pottery from the Pharaonic town of Sai

Posted on February 3, 2014 by Julia Budka

One of the best known pottery wares from Pharaonic Egypt is the so-called Blue painted ware, popular from the mid 18^th Dynasty until Ramesside time and thus obviously a good example for a time-specific taste regarding the decoration of ceramics. Until now, Blue painted pottery was found in rather limited numbers in Nubia, at both cemetery sites like Tombos and also at New Kingdom settlements like Sesebi, Amara West and Sai Island.

The number of Blue painted sherds coming from the fortified town of Sai was very small before this season – by now we have more than doubled it, but there are still not more than a good dozen fragments of this specific ware!

In 2014, both Marl clay and Nile silt wares with blue decoration have been unearthed at SAV1 West. The Nile clay vessels are simple beakers with linear design, the Marl clay vessels are larger in size, closed shapes and with more fancy motifs. My favourite piece is a large body sherd with a beautiful design, found east of the enclosure wall.

It is a Marl clay vessel imported from Egypt, an uncoated ware (Vienna System Marl A3 variant) with the decoration executed in blue, black and red. It finds perfect parallels in Egypt, especially in my corpus of blue painted vessels at Elephantine. It falls into the category of the very early, pre-Amarna type of Blue painted ware. Well dateable to the mid 18^th Dynasty thanks to comparisons, this corresponds to its archaeological context at Sai – the vessel belongs to the phase when the site experienced its heyday during the reigns of Thutmose III and Amenhotep II.

For now the new Blue painted sherds from Sai are very useful for dating, but in general I do hope that we will be able to contextualise them as well – using them as small indicators for what seems to have been a quite sophisticated lifestyle here in Upper Nubia during the 18^th Dynasty.

AcrossBorders

This is the blog of the ERC starting grant project AcrossBorders (ERC grant agreement n° 313668)

Monthly Archives: February 2014