Strengthening AcrossBorders in Vienna

DSC_4467Today, Giulia d’Ercole joined us at the Austrian Academy of Sciences.  As new PostDOC researcher of AcrossBorders, she will investigate in the next three years chemical, mineralogical and petrographic properties of New Kingdom ceramics from Sai. Giulia has worked at Sai Island since 2009, focused on the local ceramic tradition of the Prehistory (within the research project directed by Dr. Elena Garcea, Cassino University, Italy). She has already conducted petrographic (MI), mineralogical (X-Ray Diffraction) and chemical (X-Ray Fluor­escence) analysis on pelitic and ceramic samples from selected sites on the island. She will now expend her exper­ience of archaeometry to apply scientific analysis on samples from New Kingdom contexts on Sai.

I hope that Giulia will very soon settle down in her new domicile Vienna – “Seervaas und herzlich Willkommen!”

Pottery from the Foundation trench of Building A

Processing of the pottery from SAV1E comes towards a closing – still not to an end, as the finds have been far too numerous and will also keep us busy at home and for next season. However, the most important data are already collected allowing some first observations.

Among the most important pottery vessels of the 2013-season are for sure the two rim sherds recovered from the foundation trench of the northern wall of Building A.

P57 in its original find position: the foundation trench of wall 31.

P57 in its original find position: the foundation trench of wall 31.

Especially relevant is the fragment of a decorated Marl clay vessel. P57 is made in a so called Marl A4 according to the Vienna System. Its mouth diameter measures 10.6 cm and 4P578 % of the rim of this nice jar thrown on the pottery wheel are preserved. An irregular band in dark brown is painted along the top part of the rounded lip; the beginning of a slightly flaring neck is partly preserved.

Such vessels are known from various contexts in Egypt from the Thutmoside era onwards (mid-late 18th Dynasty) – our example seems to be Thutmose III in date (or slightly later, maybe Amenhotep II). Its find position within the otherwise undisturbed section of the foundation trench of wall 31 is therefore very important and gives us a good dating indication for Building A!

P57 was documented by a detailed drawing in scale 1:1 and by digital photographs.

 

LOOKING THROUGH THE NUBIAN POTTERY

During the last two weeks, I had the pleasure to share the lab with Huda, our inspector, Vicky and Nicole – still very busy and concentrate on her plenty nice fire-dogs! – and to have a first look at the Nubian ceramic assemblages from both SAV 1N (excavations 2008-12) and SAV 1E (the new excavation) areas within the Pharaonic town of Sai Island.
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I am very grateful to Julia Budka to allow me to access these materials and to daily exchange with me precious remarks and ideas about pottery! Having the opportunity to study and to compare these ceramics already now, on the field, is really useful to me and also very important in order to elaborate the best sampling strategy for the future laboratory analyses (OM, XRPD, XRF, INAA)!

In these days, a preliminary macroscopic classification of the wares was realized and four different fabrics were recognized, basing on content and the typology of the main non-plastic inclusions present in the pastes.
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As a general remark, all the Nubian wares are characterized by a sandy-silt matrix and contain – in a variable amount – small (< 0,5 mm) to medium (1 < 2 mm) quartz grains, mica plus white calcareous inclusions (probably micritic calcite aggregates?). Organics (dung and/or straw and chaff remains) are also present and they seem to represent the main tempering agent used by the ancient potters.

Example of Nubian Fabric 1 - Fine ware, dung tempered

Example of Nubian Fabric 1 – Fine ware, dung tempered

Example of Nubian Fabric 3 - Coarse ware, chaff tempered

Example of Nubian Fabric 3 – Coarse ware, chaff tempered

It was a very nice ‘surprise’ to me realizing close similarities between these ceramics of the New Kingdom (c. 1500-1100 BC) and their ‘ancestors’ from the Pre-Kerma period (c. 3000- 2600 BC)!  Such a continuity observed in the selection of both raw material and tempers appears to be the result of a very ancient and durable local tradition; highly important to recognize and to understand in its cultural and social meaning!
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In the next days, I will have also the opportunity to compare this Nubian material with the Egyptian-style pottery from the same contexts!

 

A bit of cleaning and more

Intrigued by the statistical analysis of the ceramics from Square 2b, the southern extension of SAV1E, with its high percentage of early to mid 18th Dynasty pottery, I decided today to devote some more time to this area.

Overview of part of Square 2b, looking towards North-West showing feature 27 and its surroundings

A bit of cleaning around feature 27 (which yielded the Post-Pharaonic basket) was conducted and of the relevant ceramics 74 % are again 18th Dynasty in date, only 26 % are post-dating the New Kingdom. However, this is a small assemblage of 114 sherds in total with only 12 diagnostic pieces of the 18th Dynasty. Fine-processing of the ceramics is on-going and I am very positive that more bits and pieces of New Kingdom activities at SAV1E will be soon traceable!

The foundations of walls of Building A

Today, apart from documenting ceramics in the lab and some mapping in the field, we focused on the North-eastern corner of Building A. As reported, we have a Northern wall running almost East-West, extending beyond the eastern wall towards the Nile. Unfortunately the corner between these two walls is heavily disturbed by a later pit, probably dug in Medieval or Ottoman times. Most of the bricks are lost or broken off; only a few have remained in place. Some of the mud plaster has survived as well – between bricks, but also with negative impressions of now lost mud bricks – thus allowing us to reconstruct part of the masonry. All in all, we are therefore able to trace the alignment of the wall. The northern wall is only 75 cm wide, whereas the eastern wall is more solid with a thickness of 106 cm, thus fitting nicely to a measurement of two Egyptian cubits.

To check the alignment and the junction between the walls, we partly exposed the IMG_4817foundation trench of the northern wall. It is well visible both from above and in the section – on both sides of the wall a quite narrow pit, filled with loose gravels and some large mud bricks. Very unexpectedly, two diagnostic pottery sherds were found in this otherwise findless foundation: both seem to give a very good dating indication for Building A at last! At the first glance, both are mid 18th Dynasty in date and a painted rim sherd, shown here in its original find location south of wall 30, will be very indicative as it can most probably be tied down to Thutmose III or Amenhotep II. IMG_4806

Thus, a dating of our major New Kingdom structure at SAV1E to the reign of Thutmose III becomes more and more likely, confirming our thoughts about the development of the Pharaonic Town of Sai so far!

Fire dogs … and other adorable canines!

Nicole Mosiniak, a MA student from Humboldt University Berlin and skilled draftsperson with a lot of experience in documenting ceramics from Egypt, just started her research on the so called “fire dogs” from the Pharaonic town of Sai Island. IMG_4305DSC_6819

The nick name of these ceramic vessels (of which we found large numbers) derives from hopefully clear associations: a snout-like nose, two eye-like perforations and two long conical ear-like extensions (some archaeologists have had also connotatNC_5ions with pigs, which are not as convincing because of the long ears)! Although the functional use of these vessels is not precisely known, they are usually connected in Egyptological literature with processes involving fire and burning, most likely cooking.

Nicole aims at reassessing these ideas and will report about her recent findings herself in the near future!

As our team is full of dog-lovers apart from Nicole, we are very happy that we could extend our affection for canine creatures: from the New Kingdom “fire dogs” to another simply adorable representative of canines: Thanks to the Sudanese school holidays, the digging house became the temporary residence of our cook’s family puppy-dog – with the multi-lingual education and attention she is currently receiving, a dog with a most promising future!IMG_4289IMG_4283

Assessing Nubian Fabrics of the New Kingdom

DSC_6354This week we have the pleasure to introduce a new team member who has just joint us in the lab: Giulia d’Ercole has recently received her PhD in Prehistorian Archaeology at the Sapienza Università di Roma. She has worked on manufacture techniques of Nubian ceramic traditions in the 6th-3rd Millennia BC, focusing on Khartoum variant, Abkan and Pre-Kerma material and taking Sai Island as a sample site. Giulia will soon become a member of the core team of AcrossBorders in Vienna, extending her research into the New Kingdom, conducting in particular petrographical, mineralogical and chemical analysis of the ceramics. I am very happy that she made it to Sai island prior to her appointment!

She is currently assessing the Nubian ceramics of the New Kingdom, both from SAV1E, the new excavation site of 2013 and from SAV1N, the area to the north within the Pharaonic village, excavated in the last 5 years. Trying to establish main groupings for the fabrics and wares, it is already striking that some vessels show a close similarity to the Prehistorian wares, whereas others are distinctly different. Giulia’s first evaluation thus raises a lot of interesting questions and shows the rich potential of her line of research!

Some data from the on-going ceramic analysis

Simultaneously with the 2013 excavation in SAV1E, the East sector within the Pharaonic town of Sai Island, the processing of the ceramic material was being carried out and will continue in the next weeks. Especially the New Kingdom material still has to be recorded in detail, with entries in the database and by drawings. But some basic characteristics of the material can already be outlined as follows: 279 find numbers of sherds (counting between just a few sherds and 10 baskets full of fragments) were sorted and processed – a total of 29.178 pieces comprised 16.972 sherds of Post-New Kingdom origin (58 %), mostly of Post-Meroitic, Medieval and Ottoman date. This large percentage of Post-Pharaonic material is changing from one square to another: following the sloping landscape of SAV1E, the shallow deposits in Square 1a to the North are mostly Post-Pharaonic, whereas the material from the deep depression south of Building A, especially in Square 2b to the South contained 60 % of 18th Dynasty ceramics!

Overview of part of SAV1E with labels of squares; note the slope towards the South and East

Overview of part of SAV1E with labels of squares; note the slope towards the South and East

The general distribution of the ceramics within SAV1E can be illustrated as:
Square 1a (10 x 2 m)    22 %
Square 1 (10 x 10 m)    27 %
Square 2 (10 x 10 m)    10 %
Square 2a (2.5 x 6 m)    8 %
Square 2b (10 x 2 m)    33 %

The squares with the least preserved features – square 2, and here especially its northern part, and square 2a – are together just responsible for 18 % of the material, whereas the small square 2b (10 x 2 m) yielded 33 % of the material. Although the material retrieved from this square 2b was mixed until the lowest level excavated so far, it comprised a total of 5.786 New Kingdom sherds, counting up to 60 % of the pottery from the square and to 47 % of all of the New Kingdom material from SAV1E!

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Overview of Southern part of SAV1E, showing square 2b during the course of excavating dense dump deposits

I would like to associate this fact with the nature of the archaeological deposit in square 2b as massive dump layer comprising obviously rubbish from both Building A as well as from the adjacent area to the South, just north of temple A. This zone north of Temple A yielded interesting mud brick features, recently published by M. Azim in CRIPEL 29, and obviously datable to the very early history of New Kingdom activity on Sai Island.

Summing up, the percentage of New Kingdom material increases towards the South of SAV1E, closer to Temple A and decreases towards the North (Square 1a and Square 1). Except for a small number of Ramesside sherds, all of the New Kingdom pottery from SAV1E can be dated to the early to mid 18th Dynasty. Further analysis will focus on the question whether there is any functional difference within this New Kingdom corpus according to find positions – be it in respect to shapes and forms or to wares and fabrics.

 

 

Washing & drawing pot sherds

Simultaneously with our fieldwork, processing of finds continues in the DSC_0501courtyard and the magazine of the dig house. The present focus is on the New Kingdom material coming from SAV1E, especially the pottery associated with Building A. The sherds arrive from the field at the house in baskets, arranged according to their archaeological context (square, level and location). The contents of each basket are separated in a first step into the Pharaonic and Post-Pharaonic material.

Diagnostic pieces are selected for further documentation (drawing and photographing), but prior to this they have to be washed and cleaned.DSC_4942

Our pottery team around Nicole and NM 1002Vicky was strengthened today by Mohammed and Shazeli as the amounts of sherds to be documented have increased considerably in the last weeks. The pottery willVG 1002 keep us busy in the next weeks!

 

Broken Nubian Vessels at SAV1E

Sometimes archaeologists just need luck – and lucky we were today: at the very edge of our gravel deposit in Square 2, just next to the newly discovered feature 18, a small pile of pot sherds was found.

Nubian sherds feature 18

Interestingly, they belong mostly to a large Nubian storage vessel – which we started to reconstruct in the afternoon as soon as the sherds have been cleaned.

progress fixing sherdsThere was also Nubian fine ware of the Kerma culture present, together with small fragments of Egyptian beer jars and dishes. All in all, the recent evidence from SAV1E confirms the appearance of both Nubian and Egyptian wares in the early occupation phases of the New Kingdom. It compares perfectly with our findings in SAV1N.

That Sai Island was an important northern stronghold of the Kerma Kingdom is already well known, but the detailed relations between the indigenous inhabitants and the Egyptians at the beginning of the 18th Dynasty is still poorly understood. With finds like ours today, we are making small steps forward in assessing what seems to have been a complex coexistence of cultures with a lot of interactions.