Monthly Archives: February 2016

End of week 5 at SAV1 West and SAV1 East

Posted on by
Reply

Today, fieldwork officially ended in the New Kingdom town of Sai – five very successful weeks came to an end at both SAV1 East and SAV1 West. Other than last year, timing was excellent (no unexpected cellars…): at SAV1 West everything was achieved and at SAV1 East small scale excavation is waiting – exactly as planned – for me and just a small group of workmen next week.

This is therefore the perfect opportunity to thank all of our Sudanese workmen: Like in the last years, the gang, this time directed by Hassan Dawd, did a marvelous job – despite weeks of really cold weather, days of nimiti-fly attacks and stormy periods, they always did their best; all of our excavations results (a summary of the most important finds will soon follow!) depend on their hard work and expertise they gained over the last years. And, of course, the help and friendship of our colleague Huda Magzoub from NCAM are essential for a successful season and much appreciated.

The AcrossBorders town fieldwork team 2016.

The AcrossBorders town fieldwork team 2016.

Many many thanks to all team members, Sudanese and international, and looking much forward to the second half of AcrossBorders’ fieldwork – 5 weeks of documentation in the field, small scale excavation, landscape survey and work in the cemetery SAC5!

Tracing cooking and baking activities at SAV1 East

Posted on by
Reply

Among other aspects of daily life activities, AcrossBorders aims at studying in detail the craft specialisation of functional ceramics associated with cooking and baking and various aspects of food preparation. Here, the co-existence of Egyptian style (wheel-made) and Nubian (hand-made) cooking pots as well as the import of real Egyptian cooking pots are of particular interest. Today, a large fragment of a cooking pot produced in Egypt was documented at SAV1East in Square 4B – obviously in situ, set into an ashy deposit next to a wall and still filled with some ashy material and charcoal.

Another really interesting in situ situation with a functional ceramic type was found in Square 4C: a large baking plate is still in place – close to a mud brick wall, sitting on a very ashy deposit.

Luckily a good portion of this 18th Dynasty baking plate was left in place despite the pitting of the area in Medieval/Ottoman times.

Luckily a good portion of this 18th Dynasty baking plate was left in place despite the pitting of the area in Medieval/Ottoman times.

Until now, we only had small fragments of these plates from SAV1 East and otherwise hundreds of conical bread moulds (probably associated with the nearby Temple A). The new baking plate and its find context are therefore of particular interest – therefore we decided to take a micromorphological sample from the ashy deposit associated with this area (and nicely “sealed” by the baking plate on top) which might have functioned as temporary “kitchen”.

Quite a challenge, but managed without problems: samples taken at SAV1 East.

Quite a challenge, but managed without problems: samples taken at SAV1 East.

These new data from SAV1 East – ceramics, archaeological context and micromorphology – will contribute to a better understanding of  some aspect of food preparation within the New Kingdom town of Sai.