Discussing New Kingdom ceramics at Kerma

Posted on January 26, 2015 by Julia Budka

Huda Magzoub, Giulia D’Ercole and me just returned to Sai from a very successful ceramic meeting in Kerma. This was actually the third time that colleagues working on New Kingdom sites in Nubia gathered for a 2-day on-site workshop to discuss fabrics, wares, vessel typologies and much more. The first meeting was held on Sai Island in 2012, followed by a meeting in Amara West in 2013 and we are very grateful to the Swiss Mission working at Dukki Gel/Kerma directed by Charles Bonnet that they hosted this year’s meeting. Philippe Ruffieux, the mission’s ceramicist, organized a splendid meeting bringing together colleague from Tombos (Stuart Tyson Smith and Bruce Williams), Amara West (Anna Garnett and Alice Salvador) and Sai Island (the three of us).
We had the great chance to look at samples and sherds from all the sites under investigation – this time the very close parallels between newly excavated material from Dukki Gel and Sai were among the prime interests.

Our joint application of petrography (OM) and iNAA shows some significant differences between “Egyptian style” and “Egyptian” vessels from Sai – work in progress!

Giulia gave a brief update of our ongoing petrographical and chemical analyses of New Kingdom fabrics and clays from Sai. We tried to explain why we do think that some of the Nile clay vessels are real imports from Egypt (especially painted wares, cooking pots and small dishes), whereas the majority was of course produced locally in “Egyptian style” on the wheel. Unfortunately we are still missing any evidence for pottery kilns datable to the 18th Dynasty on Sai.
The highlight of our 2 days at Kerma was of course the tour led by Charles Bonnet through the excavations at Dukki Gel and the visit to the site museum!

Amazing tour with Charles Bonnet through his recent findings at Dukki Gel.

Looking much forward to future meetings and a continuous fruitful exchange! I would like to express once more my gratitude to the Swiss mission hosting us during a very busy (and hot) week of their own fieldwork – very much appreciated!

More bricks, walls, finds and ceramics: end of week 3

Posted on January 22, 2015 by Julia Budka

Today was the hottest day so far in the 2015 season – unfortunately not yet hot enough to prevent the numerous nimiti-flies from being very active…

This week was extremely busy and successful – in both areas (SAV1 East and SAV1 West) new mud brick walls were discovered and the number of finds and pottery increased much. Object registration continues by Kenneth Griffin and Meg Gundlach – the database comprises already 2576 objects ranging in date from the Paleolithic Period to Ottoman times. The number of items datable to the 18th Dynasty rises with every day of fieldwork.

The cowroid fayence amulet SAV1W 723.

One of the highlights among the small finds from this season is definitely an intact, small cowroid fayence amulet depicting the goddess Taweret on its flat side. It was found close to the bottom surface of the town wall’s foundation in Square 1S.

In Square 1S, Martin Fera, Stefanie Juch and their gang of workmen have exposed some fragile street deposits in the lane running along the inner side of the town enclosure as well as in situ mud brick structures in the eastern half of the square. A particularly promising structure is located in its southeastern corner – still filled with dense mud brick debris, worked stones and pottery fragments its date remains to be clarified in the upcoming week.

Promising mud brick features in Square 1S, Southeastern corner.

At SAV1 East, Jördis Vieth, Huda Magzoub and their team of local workmen have exposed more remains of pavements and new sections of walls in Square 4. Due to the poor state of preservation, work here is very challenging – I am nevertheless very positive that we will be able to understand the stratigraphical relations of the scattered remains in the next weeks. The present working hypothesis is that there are early 18^th Dynasty structures in the southern part of Square 4 – pre-dating Building A and finding close parallels around Temple A (excavated by Michel Azim) and in Square 2 of our excavation (storage bin feature 14).

Remains in the southern part of SAV1 East, probably earlier than Building A.

Furthermore, Giulia D’Ercole joined us this week – she has already started to sample pottery vessels for iNAA analysis in Vienna. The focus of the 2015 season is on Egyptian style vessels – both imported ones from Egypt and locally produced wheel-made vessels.

Geoarchaeological research by Sayantani Neogi and Miranda Semple commenced this week as well – they successfully surveyed parts of the hinterland of the New Kingdom town. Miranda starts sampling archaeological deposits for micromorphological analysis at SAV1 West next week.

Micromorphological research at Sai will start with the sampling of street deposits at SAV1 West.

All in all, everything worked out according to schedule with more than satisfying results so far – and with two weeks of fieldwork in the town waiting for us!

First impressions of the 18th Dynasty ceramics from SAV1 West

Posted on January 19, 2015 by Julia Budka

While during the first two weeks the pottery coming from SAV1 West was not as abundant as last season, this has changed since we are working in the lower debris of the east part of Square 1South.

The sherds arrive in large baskets in the digging house.

This corresponds exactly to the findings in the respective area of Square 1: not only is the amount very large, but also the size of the sherds and the high number of complete profiles (especially of dishes and pot stands) is striking. Thanks to two of our workmen washing and sorting the sherds, the statistical analysis of the wares and vessel types is conducted. A detailed study and drawing of selected pieces will happen later in the season.

A selection of sherds gets washed for further processing.

Large diagnostic pieces have survived from SAV1 West.

Remarkable are the considerable number of Nubian cooking pots, so-called fire dogs, fish dishes and painted wares. Furthermore, a group of fragmented incense burners was found. These show traces of use, are smoked, with remains of resin in the interior and very often they are covered with a thin white wash. Painter’s pots were also discovered in the last days – the most frequent pigments are yellow, red and blue.

The pottery from the debris level we are currently working on is still partially mixed with Post-New Kingdom wares (c. 5-10 % of the material, especially Christian pottery), but the New Kingdom material is clearly late 18^th Dynasty in date. A considerable amount of Thutmoside material is also present. All in all, the good state of preservation of the 18^th Dynasty ceramics support our hope that some nice remains of possible multiple-phases of use are waiting for us in the eastern part of the squares at SAV1 West.

End of week 2: more bricks and finds

Posted on January 15, 2015 by Julia Budka

Time flies by even faster during excavations… we just closed the second week of fieldwork in Pharaonic town of Sai in the sectors SAV1 West and SAV1 East – after some ice-cold days at the beginning of the week, the conditions are now perfect and still almost completly nimiti-free.

According to our time plan, we managed to verify the state of preservation of the town enclosure wall in the western part of our new trench at SAV1 West.

Trench 1 South, SAV1 West on day 1 of the 2015 season.

The picture has markedly changed since work started: the outline of both the original brick work and the later destruction/pitting are now clearly visible.

Trench 1 South at the end of week 2 of the 2015 season.

Work will focus on the eastern half of Trench 1 South in the upcoming week – very promising in situ remains of mud brick buildings are already visible.

At SAV1 East, we are concentrating on Building A. Good progress was made in finding the continuation of already known walls as well as new sections of the western part of the building.

Work at SAV1 East concentrates on the foundations of Building A.

Registration, processing and recording of pottery, stone tools and other finds also continued – the amount of finds is considerable and will keep us very busy in the upcoming weeks!

Sand, debris and bricks: New sections of negative walls from SAV1 East

Posted on January 14, 2015 by Julia Budka

At SAV1 East, excavation of the large building complex, Building A, is ongoing, supervised by Jördis Vieth and Huda Magzoub. Previous work has enabled us to make comparisons of this complex with the governor’s residence in the southern part of the town. Building A dates to the mid-18th Dynasty.

Like last year, we are currently finding large numbers of schist (amphibolite) fragments in the western part of SAV1 East. Because many of these fragments are still coated with gypsum/plaster we think that this part of Building A was once equipped with a nice schist pavement.

Plan of SAV1 East with Building A highlighted. The arrow marks our present working area.

Most exciting about this week’s work in Square 4 is the confirmation of traces visible on the geophysical survey map from 2011: we have located another “negative” wall of Building A – obviously the continuation of its major wall in the south, running roughly east-west. Some of the bricks are still left in place, but most of the material has been taken out as it was the case with the other walls of the structure. However, the remains are sufficient to confirm once again the dating and they will enable us to reconstruct the ground plan of Building A in its southwestern corner.

Newly exposed area of Building A: note the sandy trench marking the “negative wall” and the bricks still in situ.

End of week 1

Posted on January 8, 2015 by Julia Budka

There's a Gebel somewhere on this picture...

There’s a Gebel somewhere in this picture…

When Gebel Abri, the dominant feature of the river bank east of Sai Island, is not clearly visible, it’s never a good sign… We had to close our fieldwork earlier today, a very strong wind prevented us from continuing in our two areas, SAV1 West and SAV1 East.

Even if this may not be the best end of the first week in the field, there is much on the bright side: lots of new mud bricks, more of the enclosure wall, more floor remains at SAV1 East and only five lonely nimiti in week 1!

We managed to locate the enclsoure wall also in the new square in SAV1 West.

Contemporaneously with the excavations, processing of the pottery, stone tools and all other categories of finds is conducted in the digging house. There are already a number of new fragments of firedogs, net weights, female figurines and of course grindstones, hammers and pounders. The ceramics complement nicely my assessment of last season: especially noteworthy is the abundant presence of mid- to late 18^th Dynasty pottery from the east side of SAV1 West, thus coming from structures within the town, enclosed by the town wall. I am especially excited that there is one hieratic docket on a Nile clay storage vessel coming from this area – hoping for some quiet moments on Friday to check this important find (inscribed finds and texts are still rare from our excavation) in more detail!

Negative walls and foundation trenches of Building A

Posted on January 6, 2015 by Julia Budka

Work was resumed at sector SAV1 East – this season we are focusing on Square 4. The aim is to understand the respective part of Building A, especially the wall 34, its foundation bed 33 and the adjacent floor pavements.

Today, work continued in the foundation trench 33, exposing more of 18^th Dynasty mud bricks. However, most of the bricks were removed in antiquity. The filling material of the trench mainly contains pottery from Late Christian times and also some Ottoman sherds. The 18^th Dynasty ceramics can be dated to Thutmoside times, corresponding to our previous assessments of the dating of Building A.

SAV1 East, Square 4. In the front the newly exposed bricks in foundation bed 33.

As observed in the last years, SAV1 East yielded already after a few days of excavation a considerable number of bread moulds. This is one of the distinctive features of this sector within the New Kingdom town – markedly different from SAV1 North and also SAV1 West.

Back at SAV1 West: more mud bricks!

Posted on January 3, 2015 by Julia Budka

Today was the first day in the field with our gang of workmen headed by Rais Imad Mohammed Shorbagi – and it was already very successful and promising! We just cleaned the surface of a southern extension to Square 1 at SAV1 West and faint traces of mud bricks are already visible. They are perfectly in line with the enclosure wall and should represent the same monument. And we hope that in this section the wall will be better preserved than in our original trench from 2014.

The surface of the southern extension of Square 1 after the first cleaning.

The pottery from the surface cleaning was processed today as well – 24 baskets of sherds illustrate how rich in sherd material this sector of the Pharaonic town is! And already the surface material is to 40% 18^th Dynasty in date – the other 60% percent are mostly Christian, but also some Post-Meroitic material is present.

As far as the New Kingdom material is concerned, our results from 2014 and the preliminary dating of the enclosure wall are supported by the first baskets of this year’s fieldwork: the pottery dates to Thutmose III and later.

Looking much forward to making more progress at SAV1 West in the upcoming weeks!

AcrossBorders 2015: the fieldwork season approaches

Posted on December 23, 2014 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 third season on January 1 (insha’allah). As in the previous seasons, AcrossBorders will focus on the New Kingdom on the large island of Sai. We plan to work in different sectors within the town area and to renew work in the New Kingdom cemetery SAC5.

The 2015 fieldwork will concentrate on the continuous excavation at SAV1E and SAV1W in the New Kingdom town, the new excavation of presumed tombs in cemetery SAC 5 and the documentation of already excavated material from SAV1N, SAV1E and SAV1W (sorting and recording of the material in the courtyard and working room).

One of the main goals of the project is to improve our understanding of the population on the island and to explore the nature of the coexistence of Egyptians and Nubians. A comparison between the material culture from the Egyptian style cemetery and the Egyptian town will be highly relevant in this respect; human remains will offer multiple aspects for analytical research, especially for studies of biological identities.

SAV1 East

Continued fieldwork in the site to the east of the Pharaonic town, labelled SAV1E, investigated for the first time in 2013, is planned for 2015. The orthogonal structure called “Building A” was largely exposed; we aim to finish the complete excavation of this important complex of the mid-18^th Dynasty. Contemporaneous to the excavations, the pottery will be studied.

SAV1 West

New fieldwork in a site to the west of the Pharaonic town, labelled SAV1W, was started in 2014. The western enclosure wall was traced in two squares and brick work datable to the 18^th Dynasty exposed. Very promising New Kingdom deposits have been noticed within the town, to the east of the enclosure wall – several phases for these structures are visible in sections of Post-Pharaonic pits. This interesting area of 18^th Dynasty occupation will be the focus of the 2015 season. Contemporaneous to the excavations, the pottery will be studied. Work will also focus on a detailed study of the stone tools from SAV1W by Silvia Prell.

Sector SAV1 West.

SAC 5

In 2011, a geophysical survey was conducted in the area of the most important New Kingdom cemetery of Sai, SAC5 to the South of the Pharaonic town. We plan to excavate unexplored tombs visible on the magnetometric map of the cemetery, starting with the surroundings of tombs 14 and 15 in the southern part of the cemetery. Our work will include besides the study of the architecture, finds and human remains Structure-From-Motion techniques to create a 3D model of the cemetery and especially of the newly exposed tombs.

The New Kingdom cemetery SAC 5 to the south of the Pharaonic town (view from the north).

I am especially happy that Florence Thill (Lille University) will join us during the excavations in the cemetery and will offer her expertise based on her previous work in SAC 5.

Other tasks

This year, the team will be strengthened by two geoarchaeologists, Miranda Semple and Sayantani Neogi. They will build upon the geological survey conducted in 2014 and will focus on questions of the location and nature of the ancient harbour and the ancient stone quarries. Furthermore, they will collect samples to investigate the micromorphology of the Pharaonic town, focusing on formation processes and cultural activities. It is planned that they will compare the different excavation areas (SAV1N, SAV1W and SAV1E as well as SAV1) to each other. Environmental and climatic settings and changes during the New Kingdom will be focal points in the next years – being investigated by surveying, drilling and test pits.

Furthermore, I am very happy to welcome Frits Heinrich (archaeobotanist) and Jaime van der Heul from Groningen University as external experts – they will conduct archaeobotanical research and will take relevant samples in different areas of the town.

Without doubt another busy season is waiting for us – with renewed work in the cemetery, there will be fresh challenges and for sure a lot of new material. Thanks to all of the support by our Sudanese friends and colleagues and of course due to the joint efforts of all team members, I am more than confident that the results will be amazing and the 2015 season again very productive and highly interesting.

Looking much forward to travel to Sudan and wishing all team members & friends of AcrossBorders very happy holidays and a perfect start into 2015!

Kick-off: Year 3 and new perspectives in micro- and geoarchaeology

Posted on December 10, 2014 by Julia Budka

Time flies by: AcrossBorders is by now already in its third year! Having just returned from a very successful season at Elephantine (thanks to our good cooperation with the Swiss Institute Cairo), I am more than happy that we just held a kick-off meeting in Vienna (Dec 8-9): Our new colleagues from the Charles McBurney Laboratory for Geoarchaeology in Cambrigde, Sayantani Neogi and Miranda Semple, joined us for two days of sharing information, ideas and thoughts about possible applications of micromorphology and geoarchaeology on Sai Island.

Microarchaeology, commonly applied to investigate formation processes on sites in Britain, Turkey and Syria (and very successfully by our colleagues working at Amara West), can provide astonishing results in uncovering human activities in seemingly insignificant traces within archaeological sections. Micromorphology and geochemistry will therefore be applied to investigate formation processes and cultural activities within the town site of Sai. Both anthropogenic activities and natural processes will be investigated by chemical analyses, petrographical studies and thin sections of archaeological deposits. There will be a particular focus on floors, walls and archaeological deposits within open areas.

Miranda explaining some of her previous studies at sites in Syria.

Miranda is our new specialist for investigating activity areas and more in the different sectors of the Pharaonic town – the focus of her research will be on sampling contexts from our current excavation in SAV1 West.

Sayantani has conducted landscape archaeology in different parts of the world, e.g. in India and Spain.

Sayantani will concentrate on the landscape archaeology and the environmental setting of Sai Island during the 2^nd millennium BC. For the upcoming season, sampling of relevant sections, drilling and test pits are planned as well as a detailed geoarchaeological survey in the area of the Pharaonic town and the New Kingdom cemeteries.

All of this will happen of course in close exchange with us working on the architecture, pottery, faunal remains and other finds.

Giulia explaining some of her observations on the petrography of our ceramics.

Giulia sharing some of her observations on the petrography of our ceramics.

I am much looking forward to our 2015 season and I am delighted that thanks to the strong interdisciplinary approach of AcrossBorders, the project is now applying multiple methods, including micro- and geoarchaeology with physical and chemical analyses of samples. This would not be possible without the support of several colleagues and here I am especially grateful to Charles French and his lab in Cambridge (Charles McBurney Laboratory for Geoarchaeology).

AcrossBorders

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

Author Archives: Julia Budka