With our move from Vienna to Munich and all the logistic and administrative things of the last weeks, Sai Island seems like ages ago, but in reality only 5 weeks have passed since we left Sudan! Especially because of this sensed long distance, I am very happy that Sudan and archaeological work there is the focus of an upcoming event here in Munich. Tomorrow’s lecture event dedicated to Sudan in the Egyptian Museum Munich is also the perfect opportunity to present AcrossBorders’ most recent results to an audience in our new German home. I am very grateful for this chance to introduce my project and to talk about latest findings, new questions and planned tasks. Fieldwork within the New Kingdom town of Sai in 2014 and 2015 will be the focus, but I will also mention our newly discovered tomb in cemetery SAC5.

To illustrate the potential of tomb 26, I will show some of the nice complete pottery vessels from the shaft bottom. Together with the marl clay pilgrim flasks and amphorae, one almost complete stone vessel, SAC5 212, was found in the southeastern corner.

Stone vessel SAC5 212 found at the bottom of the shaft of tomb 26.

This clustering opposite of the entrance to the burial chamber already suggested that the finds are remains of a burial which was removed from the chamber and left in the shaft during one of the phases of reuse (or possibly plundering?). One finding from the burial chamber supports the assumption that the remains on the shaft bottom were originally deposited in the chamber: A small rim fragment of the almost complete stone vessel SAC5 212 was discovered in the debris just inside the burial chamber.

Post-excavation processing was unfortunately slowed down because of the transfer of the project, but I am positive that we will soon have results from the ongoing studies of the ceramics, small finds, landscape and micromorphology!