AcrossBorders on the move…

Posted on March 31, 2015 by Julia Budka

One of the big advantages of ERC starting grants is their portability – in case the grant holder is offered a higher position or better career perspectives, his/her project moves also to the new host institution. This now applies to AcrossBorders – having been appointed as Professor for Egyptian Archaeology and Art, my project will be transferred from the Austrian Academy of Sciences to the Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU) Munich by April 1. I am very proud and happy that AcrossBorders will be embedded in one of Europe’s leading research universities.

In the field of Egyptology, Munich has with the Institute for Egyptology and Coptic Studies a long tradition of archaeological fieldwork in Egypt. The State Museum of Egyptian Art Munich holds not only splendid objects from both Egypt and Sudan, but also one of the most important concessions for excavations in Sudan (Naga) – AcrossBorders fits in perfectly in these fieldwork projects and will help to strengthen the importance of Munich as one of the main centres for Sudan archaeology in Germany.

Up to now, AcrossBorders has made very good progress according to schedule. We conducted fieldwork in Egypt and Sudan, had several workshops and meetings and a number of publications were submitted respectively published. Above all, we had a really good time in Vienna!

AcrossBorders’ core team 2014 in Vienna.

Our Sudanese friend and colleague Huda Magzoub visited us in Vienna (workshop summer 2014).

AcrossBorders participated in the Junior Science Club 2014.

Arvi explaining the technical drawing of pottery to pupils (Vienna 2014).

I am very grateful for all the support of the administration and the personnel management of the Academy and of course to all persons involved of OREA. Special thanks go to Dagmar Melman for all her patience in the last 2.5 years!

Due to various reasons, not all of AcrossBorders’ team members will be able to come to Munich – I am very happy that Giulia, Jördis and Miranda will accompany me to my new institution! Florence, Arvi, Daniela and Elke who unfortunately will not go for the Bavarian experience deserve special thanks for their participation and contribution – was great working with all of you! New team members will join us shortly and will be introduced on this blog.

Finally, thanks to my Austrian START prize and the kind agreement of both the Academy and the LMU, research will continue at OREA and I will remain the PI of this FWF funded and Austria-based project – moving between Vienna and Munich will for sure provide interesting results and stimulate fresh ideas in the next years. Looking much forward to this new challenge!

AcrossBorders 2015: looking back at a fruitful season

Posted on March 16, 2015 by Julia Budka

Thanks to the great help and support by our Sudanese colleagues, everything was arranged in the last days here in Khartoum and a set of samples is waiting to be exported; Martin and me are flying out early tomorrow morning – as the last team members of AcrossBorders’ 2015 field season.

Looking back, it’s a challenge to summarize these ten weeks in the field on Sai Island. The 2015 field season resulted in various important insights and added valuable information about the evolution of the Pharaonic town of Sai Island and its development from the early 18^th Dynasty to the Ramesside era. The four most important results can be briefly summarized as follows:

(1) The features unearthed in the southern part of SAV1 East pre-date “Building A” and probably belong to the early 18^th Dynasty. With feature 57, a terrace wall set against the natural gravel deposit, affinities to the building technique of the Kerma culture – dry-stone walls with galus/earth– can be noted. All in all, these southern remains mirror our findings in 2013 and can be interpreted as the northern extensions of the area excavated by Michel Azim around temple A. A dating to the very early New Kingdom (Ahmose? Amenhotep I?) is most likely.

Early 18th Dynasty remains along the southern edge of SAV1 East; including the terracing wall feature 57.

(2) “Building A” at SAV1 East provides a close parallel to the so-called residence SAF2 in the southern part of the Pharaonic town, probably also regarding its function. For the first time, large sets of seal impressions were discovered in the Pharaonic town of Sai, allowing reconstructing patterns of the Egyptian administration in Upper Nubia. The recent finds illustrate very well the importance of Sai as administrative centre during the time of Thutmose III, but probably already during the reign of Hatshepsut.

(3) The earliest phase of occupation within the town enclosure at SAV1 West is contemporaneous to the building of the town wall and dates to the mid-18^th Dynasty. There is clear negative evidence for an early 18^th Dynasty presence at the site. It has to be highlighted that we also have hints for Ramesside activities at SAV1 West.

Nothing predating the town enclosure was found in SAV1 West – the earliest exposed structures are contemporaneous to the town wall.

(4) More New Kingdom tombs are still unexcavated in the southern part of the major pyramid cemetery SAC5 – this is clearly illustrated by tomb 26. The findings in tomb 26 testify that there were burials during the 19^th Dynasty – of high officials like the jdnw of Kush Hornakht. This is of great importance for understanding the relationship between Sai and Amara West in this era and might be of historical significance for Upper Nubia in a broader sense.

The shaft of tomb 26 yielded a lot of interesting finds attesting to a multiple use!

Once again I would like to thank everybody who contributed to this very successful 2015 season – all international team members, all colleagues from NCAM and especially our inspector Huda Magzoub who did a fantastic job as usual, all of the house staff (Sidahmed, Abdelfatah, Osama, Moatez and Ahmed), the field staff and of course the local communities on Sai. Looking much forward to the post-excavation processing of this rich set of data, samples and finds and of course to the next season 2016!

The success of the 2015 season was only possibly with great team work!

End of excavation in the cemetery SAC5

Posted on March 11, 2015 by Julia Budka

AcrossBorders’ excavations on Sai Island have come to an end for 2015. It feels strange at the moment, especially that almost 3 weeks of work in area 2 in SAC5 disappeared under sand again – today we backfilled tomb 26 in order to continue excavating its chamber in the next year.

Backfilling of the shaft of tomb 26.

The shaft of our new tomb yielded a number of interesting finds – inscribed pieces of Hornakht, a complete stone vessel, two scarabs and a number of complete vessels, among them nicely decorated Ramesside Marl clay pilgrim flasks. The rock-cut chamber off to the north was obviously looted and we only cleaned its uppermost debris.

While the next two days will be busy with final recording, packing, storing materials and traveling to Khartoum, I wish to thank already today all of the local fieldwork staff – as in the last years, they coped with sand, wind, nimiti-flies and especially in the last days with a quite remarkable heat wave.

Without their skills and partly painstaking efforts, the results of this very successful 2015 season would not have been possible – the last days in the shaft and chamber were especially hard and a big “thank you” goes here to Mohammed, Hassan, Samir, Farah and Osman! Looking much forward to continue working with all of them next year insha’allah!

Tracing Ramesside burials in SAC 5

Posted on March 9, 2015 by Julia Budka

Since a few days we have the confirmation that the burial chamber of tomb 26 opens to the north. Today, the excavation of the shaft was completed, reaching a depth of more than 5.20 m.

Cleaning remains on top of the shaft base of tomb 26.

The filling material of the shaft was highly interesting – especially in the lowest level just above the shaft base, two scarabs, a number of complete vessels as well as some stones (pieces of architecture) were found. Three nicely decorated, complete Marl clay pilgrim flasks are especially noteworthy, found together with other pottery vessels (especially storage vessels) and one complete stone vessel.

Three almost complete Pilgrim flasks were found together against the east wall of the shaft.

Since these finds were clustering along the eastern wall of the shaft and in particular in the southeastern corner, the most likely explanation is that remains of a burial were removed from the chamber in the north and left in the shaft during one of the phases of reuse (or possibly plundering?).

Probably the most important finds so far are two sandstone fragments with the name and title of the jdnw of Kush Hornakht. This official of the Egyptian administration in Upper Nubia is already well attested from Sai Island and was active during the reign of Ramesses II. Several of the vessels from the shaft of tomb 26 are datable to the 19^th Dynasty, suggesting that the inscribed pieces actually belonged to one of the burial phases. Of course everything has to wait until we checked also the burial chamber and understand the complete picture of tomb 26 and its complex use life, but for now it is possible to say that we found traces of early Ramesside burials in SAC 5. This is extremely exciting and opens much room for new thoughts about the importance of Sai during the Nineteenth Dynasty and its relation to the now flourishing site of Amara West.

First finds in the shaft of tomb 26 at the end of week 9

Posted on March 5, 2015 by Julia Budka

After the discovery of the shaft of tomb 26 on Tuesday, the cleaning of the shaft kept us busy in the last days and is still ongoing.

It is a roughly rectangular shaft, orientated north-south – we have currently reached a depth of 3.2 m. The filling was in the upper 2.5 m a sequence of windblown and very fine sand with several traces of flood levels between. Obviously the upper part of the shaft was refilled over a long time. It contained a good number of pottery sherds – ranging in date from the mid-late 18^th Dynasty, Late New Kingdom to Napatan times – , small fragments of bones and several types of beads.

Mohammed carefully cleaning remains of a flood deposit in the upper filling of the shaft.

Today we reached a level with a number of stone fragments in 2.5 m depth, large fragments of pottery vessels and a large quantity of scattered bone. The most dominant feature was a large schist slab set against the Northwestern corner, extending along the west wall of the shaft. Obviously it was one of the original closing stones of the shaft during the 18^th Dynasty, but fell into the shaft at a later stage. The ceramics from this debris layer suggest a date after the 25^th Dynasty – so possibly during the last phase of plundering before the shaft was left open for some time.

One of the original closing stones of the shaft mouth was found collapsed in 2.5 m depth.

All in all, this collapsed schist seems important for understanding the use life of tomb 26 – Martin Fera documented its position with SFM.

SFM documentation of today’s situation in the shaft.

Another very interesting feature is an incised rectangular shape on the north wall, starting just a little bit above the slab – it resembles an opening to a chamber! Whether it was a trial and remained unfinished/was abandoned, or whether there is still a chamber below will become clear after this weekend! I am personally convinced that the chamber will open towards the north.

Thanks to the organizational skills of our rais Imad Shorbagi and the generous support of the local ferryboat crew we were able to get the equipment to remove the slab from the shaft – hopefully this was also a good training for dealing with more finds to come!

Ready for a well deserved weekend: successfully removed the slab from the shaft!

A new tomb in SAC 5

Posted on March 3, 2015 by Julia Budka

This year’s goal for the resumed work in the large New Kingdom cemetery SAC 5 was of course the identification of more tomb monuments – yesterday the first outlines of a shaft in our area 2 came to light, today we managed to clean the surroundings and to verify that we have found a previously unknown tomb!

Location of new tomb 26 (looking from pyramid tomb 6 towards the west).

The new structure, christened as tomb 26 of SAC 5, of which we found very faint traces of mud bricks and the shaft, is located between tombs 8 and 7 in the area dug by the French Mission (see Minault-Gout/Thill 2012). In this southeastern part of the cemetery, already 13 New Kingdom tombs have been excavated – and more are probably still to be discovered!

For now, it is still unclear whether we will be able to reconstruct the superstructure of the new tomb – similar to the neighbouring tombs 2, 3, 4 and 5, the shaft is the main feature preserved. With reference to the named tombs, I do expect a rather short shaft of maybe 4-5 meters depth and only one burial chamber.

Upper part of the shaft of newly discovered tomb 26.

The material we found so far in the sandy filling covers the mid to late 18^th Dynasty, the Late New Kingdom and the 25^th Dynasty/Napatan Period. It will be exciting to explore the different phases of use of tomb 26 further – and of course we do hope for some glue about the original owner of this burial place in ancient Sai.

Reference:

Minault-Gout, A./Thill, F. 2012: Saï II. Le cimetière des tombes hypogées du Nouvel Empire (SAC5), FIFAO 69, Cairo.

Pregnancy on New Kingdom Sai: A Cowroid of Taweret

Posted on March 1, 2015 by Kenneth Griffin Meg Gundlach

Cowroid bead SAV1W 723.

One of the highlights of this season’s excavation within the town area at Sai was the discovery of a beautiful cowroid bead (SAV1W 723) containing an image of the Egyptian goddess Taweret. The object was uncovered in SAV1 West within the first few weeks of the excavation (17 Jan). It measures 17x9x5 mm, is made of a glazed composite material, and is longitudinally pierced to enable suspension. While the object was found in a mixed area, it is likely that it dates to the New Kingdom—and specifically to the Eighteenth Dynasty—based on examples known from elsewhere (e.g. BM EA 3737).

Cowroid BM EA3727.

The cowroid is a popular form of scaraboid with a circular or elongated oval base with markings on its back, which show that it was based on the cowrie shell. The cowrie shell was believed to have amuletic significance because of the resemblance to the female genitalia. These shells are even found in graves dating to as early as the Predynastic Period. However, from the late Old Kingdom onwards they were being imitated in blue-glazed composition and other semi-precious stones, with gold and silver examples known from the Middle Kingdom (e.g. BM EA 3077). Usually part of a woman’s girdle, the cowroids would have been in exactly the right place to ward off evil influences from the relevant bodily part of the wearer, especially if she were pregnant.

BM EA 3077.

Taweret, whose name means “the great one”, was one of the most popular female deities throughout the Dynastic Period. She is mainly depicted in composite form: the head of a hippopotamus, the legs and arms of a lion, and the tail of a crocodile. Perhaps the most well-known representation of her is the stunning schist statue, dating to the Saite Period, which is now in the Cairo Museum (CG 39194). Taweret is often shown next to a s3-sign, the symbol of “protection”, as can be seen with the cowroid in question. Despite her ferocious appearance, Taweret was invoked as protector of pregnant women and childbirth. In fact, Taweret is depicted with pendulous breasts and a large belly, thus imitating the appearance of a pregnant woman. On the cowroid from Sai Taweret can be seen wielding a knife, an iconography commonly attested on Middle Kingdom apotropaic wands, such as the one discussed here (Met 30.8.218).

The mixed symbolism of a cowrie shell and the representation of Taweret would seem the prefect remedy to protect a pregnant woman during this vulnerable period. The fact that the cowroid is pierced longitudinally would suggest that it was worn across the pelvic region as part of a girdle. While it will never be known if the cowroid had the desired effect, or if it was worn by an Egyptian or Nubian inhabitant, objects such as this provide us with a small glimpse into the private and religious lives of the ancient population on Sai.

AcrossBorders

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

Monthly Archives: March 2015