AcrossBorders 2016: the upcoming fieldwork season

Posted on December 22, 2015 by Julia Budka

In a few days, the first group of team members of AcrossBorders will be on the way back to Sudan. We will travel via Khartoum to Sai Island and will start our fourth season on January 1 (insha’allah). As in the previous seasons, AcrossBorders will focus on the New Kingdom remains on the large island of Sai. We plan to work in different sectors within the town area and to continue work in the New Kingdom cemetery SAC5, excavating tomb 26.

I am very happy that well-known team members will join us again – Martin Fera, Jördis Vieth and Sayantani Neogi. Other core team members, Sean Taylor, Vanessa Becker and Daniela Penzer, joined AcrossBorders in 2015 and will be travelling to Sai for the first time in the upcoming season. The object registration will be again in the hands of Kenneth Griffin and Meg Gundlach. Klara Sauter from Vienna will be working for the first time in Sudan, supporting the fieldwork in SAV1 West.

I am delighted that there are several newcomers from Munich joining AcrossBorders as student assistants: Bartlin Schöpflin, Adrian de Vries, Cajetan Geiger, Michaela Janker and Lucia Sedlakova. Furthermore, I am very happy to welcome Dietrich Klemm and Rosemarie Klemm – distinguished colleagues from Munich and well-known specialists on the geology of Egypt and Nubia.

Last but not least, the FWF START project will be again represented by Austrian physical anthropologists – Andrea Stadlmayr and Marlies Wohlschlager are more than keen on the prospects excavating the burial chamber of tomb 26.

Most important: our dear friend and colleague Huda Magzoub will join us again as inspector of NCAM – helping us in the field and gaining more experience in New Kingdom archaeology.

As in 2015, the 2016 fieldwork will focus on the continuous excavation at SAV1 East and SAV1 West, the excavation of our newly discovered tomb in cemetery SAC 5 and the documentation of already excavated material from SAV1E and SAV1W (sorting and recording of the material in the courtyard and working room).

SAV1 East

It is planned to continue and hopefully to complete fieldwork on the site SAV1 East. The remains pre-dating the Building A in the southern part of the site have to be investigated in detail, especially to establish an absolute date for them. For this we will extend our excavation trenches towards the south and especially towards the west.

SAV1 West

The interesting results from fieldwork in a site to the west of the Pharaonic town, labelled SAV1 West, from 2014 and 2015 allow us to continue focused work there. There are 3 major aims for 2016: 1) investigating the ditch in front of the enclosure wall; 2) complete excavation of the 18^th Dynasty structures in trench 1S; 3) extending trench 1 towards the east in order to investigate the building horizon within the town.

We will also continue the investigation of the ancient landscape of Sai – and plan to take several sets of sample for various types of scientific analysis.

Without doubt another busy season is waiting for us – with a team of both experienced scholars and newcomers and thanks to all of the support by our Sudanese friends and colleagues, I am more than confident that the results will be amazing and the 2016 season productive – providing more food for thoughts on the nature of the New Kingdom occupation on Sai Island.

Looking much forward to travel to Sudan and wishing all team members & friends of AcrossBorders very happy holidays and a perfect start into 2016!

End of the 2015 season on Elephantine Island

Posted on December 4, 2015 by Julia Budka

Six weeks of excavation and study season passed by very quickly – we closed the work on House 55 at Elephantine yesterday, preparing to fly back home tomorrow.

The results are very satisfying ‒ both the new information gained from the continued excavation by Cornelius von Pilgrim and the new data from the studied material ‒ and support the special importance of House 55 as extraordinary building within the New Kingdom town of Elephantine. Meg Gundlach did a great job in object registration, assisted by Mona el-Azab, Oliver Frank Stephan and Eva Hemauer managed to get more than 350 drawings of complete vessels and diagnostic pieces done!

A preliminary macroscopic classification of the Nubian wares from House 55 was conducted by Giulia D’Ercole. Four main groups of fabrics were distinguished and – other than at Sai Island – the corpus here at the border of Egypt is clearly dominated by fine-medium and medium wares dung and/or chopped straw tempered.
I personally concentrated on processing the pottery from this season and the one from last year – more than 41.000 sherds passed through my fingers in the last weeks, including over 12.500 diagnostic pieces. The latter comprised almost 2000 Nubian sherds – quite a substantial amount which will be further assessed in the next season.

In less than a month we will be already working on the other island currently under investigation by AcrossBorders – the 2016 season on Sai Island is approaching and promises similar exciting results like our work at Elephantine.

For now, many thanks to all participants and everybody involved making our work here possible – Ma’a Salama and looking much forward to the 2016 season in House 55!

Fishing for more details of 18th Dynasty contexts

Posted on November 8, 2015 by Julia Budka

We are already well into week 3 here at Elephantine. Reinforcement from Munich reached us – Giulia D’Ercole and Mona Elazab joined us yesterday. Giulia is concentrating on the petrographic assessment of the Nubian fabrics in comparison to Sai Island. Mona is assisting Meg Gundlach in the object registration while Eva Hemauer and Oliver Frank Stephan are still busy drawing ceramic vessels.

Two groups of vessels are of special interest besides the Nubian wares. First, the intriguing fire dogs – with a recent find from today, we are now up to 4 pieces directly associated with house 55. Compared to Sai Island, this is of course an almost ridiculous small amount. However, the total number of fire dogs from all early-mid 18^th dynasty levels at Elephantine only comes up to 9! So actually the amount of fire dogs found in our building is quite significant within the local context. And since excavation of house 55 continues, there might even be more fire dogs waiting for us!

The second group of vessels are the so called “fish dishes” which kept us busy both at Sai and here at Elephantine in the past years. One of my first ideas was that the preference for Nile silt “fish dishes” on Sai Island compared to Marl clay version indicate that the “real” Egyptian Marl B/E trays were frequently reproduced in Nubia – and for this local material (Nile silt) was used. However, already last year things got more complicated: from site SAV1 West, a large number of Marl “fish dishes” were unearthed falling into exactly the same types as known at Elephantine, currently being studied for house 55.

Today, I just a very nice fragment of a Nile “fish dish” on my desk – coming from house 55 and closely resembling the Sai pieces – in ware, technique, shape and decorative pattern. Checking the pottery database, it surprised me a bit that from 19 “fish dishes” documented so far in house 55, 6 are made in Nile clay. For all 18th Dynasty layers and a total of 33 “fish dishes” only 9 were made in Nile clay. Thus, if one checks the proportions between Nile and Marl “fish dishes” not just on Elephantine, but takes the specific example of house 55 it becomes clear that the Nile versions were also quite frequent (31 %). The general preference for Marl clay is of course persistent for “fish dishes” at Egyptian sites (see e.g. https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/museums/2014/03/21/pottery-project-guest-blog-the-enigmatic-fish-dishes-of-the-petrie-museum/).

All in all, the current study of the material from house 55 nicely illustrates the rich potential of a focused analysis of finds from one specific context, especially if these data are at a later stage compared to other contexts on the site-level and, if possible, even on a more regional scale like we are aiming for with our study.

Linking and differentiating Sai and Elephantine further

Posted on October 29, 2015 by Julia Budka

The first week of our season on Elephantine just flew by! There are also many things and tasks keeping us busy, besides the glorious surroundings and wonderful setting.

As announced earlier on this blog, the 2015 season on Elephantine, concentrates on the material excavated by the Swiss Institute from House 55. The presence of Nubian ceramics is highly relevant, especially for establishing links between the region of the First Cataract and Sai Island.

While my assistants are busy with drawing Egyptian type vessels, I was mainly focusing on Nubian pottery this week. A set of 35 Nubian sherds was studied in detail and drawn. There are striking similarities between the Nubian pottery corpus from Elephantine and Sai – especially regarding the fabrics, both the black topped fine ware and cooking pots with basketry impressions. But there are also certain differences, suggesting maybe a more “local” Lower Nubian tradition here on Elephantine like a preference for incised decoration.

The percentage of Nubian ceramics within House 55 very nicely compares to both SAV1 North and SAV1 West – from 4119 sherds studied in this first week, 140 were Nubian pieces. 3.4 % equals our findings in Sai Island where the average was 3-5 % during the early to mid-18^th Dynasty.

Among others, Egyptian water jars, so-called zir vessels, are common features here on Elephantine. A considerable number of them are present in House 55.

Typical early to mid-18th Dynasty Marl zir vessels from Elephantine (after Budka 2005).

Although the typical Nile clay versions of this vessel group are also known, most of these large jars are made in a very typical Marl clay variant. And here another difference to Sai can be observed – at Sai, the Nile clay vessels dominate, the Marl clay vessels are present, but only in small numbers.

Typical Nile clay zir-like vessel from Sai (after Budka 2011).

Whether this indicates a different system of water storage or the Nile clay variants simply replaced the Marl clay jars in Sai (produced locally “on demand” once the imported ones were no longer functionable/out of stock), will be considered further, taking related pottery types like drinking cups and beakers into account.

References

Budka, J. 2005 XII. Zur Keramik des Neuen Reiches – erste Beobachtungen anhand des Materials aus der Oststraße B II, in G. Dreyer et al., Stadt und Tempel von Elephantine, 31./32. Grabungsbericht, Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Abteilung Kairo 61, 90–116.

Budka, J. 2011 The early New Kingdom at Sai Island: Preliminary results based on the pottery analysis (4^th Season 2010), Sudan & Nubia 15, 23–33.

Making progress – post and pre-excavation working steps

Posted on October 14, 2015 by Julia Budka

Another jour fixe brought most of AcrossBorders’ team members together yesterday – after a very intense summer full of excavations in Egypt (Asasif, Abydos…), lab work (geoarchaeological samples, strontium isotope analysis, mollusks…), data base updates (pottery) & conferences (Florence, Vienna, Athens)!

Currently travelling back and forth between Vienna and Munich, I am very happy that the planned publications by Ingrid Adenstedt (reconstruction of SAV1; architectural report) and Florence Doyen (SAV1 North) are well in time and almost completed. Furthermore, nice first results came up from the strontium isotope analysis!

Within the framework of my FWF START-project, a first set of samples from Sai Island (soil, water, recent and ancient animal bones) were processed, thanks to a cooperation with Thomas Prohaska, at the Department of Chemistry – VIRIS Laboratory of the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences. Anika Retzmann presented these data at the 3rd Doc Day 2015 in Tulln, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences on Oct. 13. The poster was entitled “Human mobility along the Nile: Preliminary strontium isotope analyses for migration studies in ancient Nubia” and illustrated the Sr isotope ratio of the environmental samples from Sai Island. Very exciting already and I am looking much forward to the next field season and further sampling!

Besides lab work and databases, we are currently also getting ready for the upcoming season on Elephantine! Work will again focus on the pottery and small finds from House 55 and is scheduled for late October until early December. With the new discovery of feature 15 and its contents at SAV1 East, I am excited to conduct a fresh comparison of aspects of the material culture from Sai and Elephantine during the early to mid-18^th Dynasty. Now off to Vienna, we’ll keep you posted!

Reinforcement for the study of the New Kingdom prosopography of Sai

Posted on October 3, 2015 by Julia Budka

With a few days delay – having just returned from Egypt – it’s my great pleasure to introduce a new team member of AcrossBorders: Johannes Auenmüller joined the project with October 1. I am especially delighted, knowing him since many years from Berlin and because Johannes brings much experience in settlement archaeology, having been a member of the mission at Elephantine Island and currently working also at Amara West.

Johannes will soon introduce his work on this blog, but here are some brief information about his vita: he studied Egyptology, Classical Archaeology and Proto- and Prehistoric Archaeology at Free University Berlin. Johannes obtained his master’s degree with a study about the sociology of Egyptian elite tomb imagery in the Old Kingdom. He was then awarded a scholarship of the Berlin Cluster of Excellence TOPOI for his doctoral dissertation that aims at describing and understanding the territoriality and space-related identity of the Egyptian elite of the New Kingdom. Afterwards he conducted archaeological and archaeometric research funded by the Fritz-Thyssen-Stiftung on a unique object ensemble of casting moulds for producing god’s figures of bronze at the Egyptian Museum of Bonn University. Since April 2015 he is Research Associate at the Institute of Egyptology and Coptology of Münster University where he is responsible for the coordination of the research centre ‘Old Sudan‘. In the context of his position within AcrossBorders he will be working on the New Kingdom prosopography of Sai and environs.

Johannes also held several lectureships at the universities of Berlin, Leipzig and Bonn. Alongside his long-run archaeological work in Austria, he was moreover member of the excavation teams at Elephantine Island and Dahshur in Egypt. At present, his archaeological work focuses on the pharaonic town Amara West in Sudan where he is member of the excavation project of the British Museum London.

We are all delighted to welcome Johannes as new team member of AcrossBorders in Munich and are much looking forward to a fruitful collaboration.

Down and up again – impressions from the shaft of tomb 26 on Sai

Posted on September 18, 2015 by Julia Budka

Having just submitted a paper about our new discovery of tomb 26 in cemetery SAC5, Sai Island, for Sokar (focusing on the pyramidion of the deputy of Kush Hornakht), I got to review the entire documentation of the excavation of the shaft in March 2015.

As a reminder: the rectangular shaft (2.6 x 1.8 m) of tomb 26 is a bit more than 5.2 m deep – it has several interesting features and revealed some significant finds. I would like to share some of them in the following photographic time line:

March 3: The outline of the shaft is discovered, hurray!

March 4: First foot holes appear on the lateral sides! Current depth: 1.7 m!

March 5: Down at 2 m! Work gets more difficult!

March 5: A schist slab appears along the southern side.

March 5: Martin Fera documents the situation with the fully exposed schist slab with SFM – down at 2.5 m.

March 5: Getting ready to get the slab out…

March 5: Done – mabrouk to all!

March 5, afternoon: Uuuups… really a challenge to measure this deep shaft…

March 7: Work continues, worked stone blocks appear!

March 7: Space is limited down at the shaft, but the foot holes are perfect for climbing up and down.

March 7: Standing safely in the foot holes, I could shoot photos in both directions.

March 8: The entrance of the burial chamber appears on the northern side!

March 8: Together with other worked stone, sitting on complete pottery vessels, the pyramidion of Hornakht is discovered and cleaned!

March 9: The situation below the pyramidion – lots of nice pots!

March 10: Shaft base reached, entrance of burial chamber cleared!

March 10: Martin using the ancient foot holes during the final SFM documentation.

March 11: Shaft backfilled again – secure to wait for the 2016 season!

Last steps in recording Faience vessels from Sai Island, New Kingdom town

Posted on September 8, 2015 by Julia Budka

Time flies by – only some months ago, we were working in the magazine of Sai Island documenting the different groups of objects. Sabine Tschorn had the special task to focus on faience vessels form the New Kingdom town. Most of the vessels within this group represent Nun- or marsh-bowls, frequently depicting marsh scenes with fishes, lotus plants and other motifs.

Sabine just came for a few days to Munich – in order to discuss things, to finalise small details of the drawings and records. We are in particular focusing on the distribution of the faience vessels – most of them were found in SAV1 North and SAV1 West and seem to be of late 18th Dynasty date. Adding the stratigraphical information and context as well as the data from the associated pottery will hopefully allow Sabine the fine-dating of some of the fragments.

Looking much forward to the outcome of these days of checking and adding post-excavation data!

Fire dogs and food preparation on Sai

Posted on September 7, 2015 by Julia Budka

Among the most interesting functional vessel types found in the New Kingdom town of Sai are so-called fire dogs, currently studied by Nicole Mosiniak.

The common assumption is that these vessels were used to hold a cooking pot over a fire. In 2014, thanks to the cooperation and help of the University of Vienna and the NHM, we conducted one experimental project on fire dogs at the “MAMUZ” open-air Museum in Asparn (Lower Austria).

We had several questions we wanted to investigate, first of all the way of manufacture of the fire dogs and their possible function(s). All in all, our experiments showed that cooking is possible with copies of the Ancient Egyptian devices – but it is still not a very convincing way of preparing food, thus Nicole is still taking into consideration also other possible uses respectively a multi-functional use.

Our modern copies of ancient fire dogs holding a cooking pot above the fire place in Asparn.

This year, an interesting new find came up in SAV1 East. From this sector, until 2014 only five fire dogs were documented – except for one all from surface layers and thus without proper context. This should change during the 2015 season while excavating feature 15.

Feature 15 is a subterranean room located in the central courtyard of Building A. It is of rectangular shape and once had a vaulted roof. Feature 15 is lined with red bricks and red bricks also form the pavement of the structure.

Ashy deposits, large amounts of charcoal, hundreds of dome-palm fruits and abundant animal bones with traces of burning, suggest that feature 15 might have been used as a room for food preparation. Among more than 80 almost intact vessels, mostly plates and dishes, beakers, storage jars and pot stands, there was also a fragment of a fire dog.

Drawing of fire dog fragment from feature 15 (Oliver Frank Stephan).

SAV1W P163 has a rim diameter of c. 16 cm and shows traces of burning on several spots. It is the first fire dog found on Sai from a sealed context dating to the early-mid 18^th Dynasty. Although its function is not explicit, the associated finds from feature 15 might point towards a use within food preparation and here as support for cooking pots. However, it should be noted that only one cooking pot was found in feature 15.

All in all, the fresh finds from feature 15 stress that the large number of fire dogs from Sai might result from a quite complex use of these devices which is still not completely understood.

New administrative support for AcrossBorders

Posted on September 1, 2015 by Julia Budka

I am very happy to introduce a new team member of AcrossBorders: Stephanie Plank started today her new job as team assistant. Her responsibilities include providing administrative support to the PI, planning and scheduling team meetings and helping with communication and correspondence. First of all, Stephanie will be busy with the accounts and financial management, helping me to prepare financial reports to the ERCEA.

We are all were thankful – financial and administrative tasks need much time and require special knowledge we as scientists cannot offer at a very high level! But first of all, we are happy to have found among more than 35 applicants a new team member who is not only interested in numbers, but also in the scientific aspects of the project and its international team! Looking much forward to a fruitful collaboration!

AcrossBorders

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

Author Archives: Julia Budka