Category Archives: Fieldwork

New Open Data and Open Access of the AcrossBorders Project

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Time flies by, also during the Covid-19 crisis – one of the small advantages of cancelled archaeological fieldwork in Egypt and Sudan is that there is more time to process old data and publish these accordingly.

I am proud to announce that we just submitted a book manuscript about Tomb 26 on Sai Island which will be hopefully printed later this year. This book is the final publication of Tomb 26, its architecture and material culture, including chapters on geology, human remains, scientific analyses and a compilation of the material discovered. As part of this publication, we prepared two sets of supplementary data which are already freely available via Open Data LMU:

Furthermore, I am happy to inform that the AcrossBorders 2 volume is now available online (free open access provided via the Austrian Academy of Sciences Press). Hoping that this new access to important data from our excavations on Sai Island, including raw data, will be useful to many around the world – more will follow soon and we keep you posted.

Moving beyond AcrossBorders with a new ERC Consolidator Grant

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Wow, what a story – I still have problems to believe it but seven years after AcrossBorders I was now awarded with an ERC Consolidator Grant!

Second ERC Grant!

My second trip to Brussels on October 15 this year clearly benefited from my experiences in 2012. I chose the same hotel, felt therefore quite confident, knowing my way around and recognizing the relevant buildings. And after the interview, which was of course an ordeal in many respects, despite of the very kind panel members, I rewarded myself with a delicious, indeed heavenly pizza and a pint of enchanting Duvel. This is my insiders tip for all future invited applicants: make your trip to Brussels at least a culinary success and enjoy!

Whether my new project is a simple extension and continuation of AcrossBorders, I was asked by the panel. Well no – certainly not – within DiverseNile, we will address one of the crucial challenges about Bronze Age Nubia, the question of what lies between the known urban centres and the elite cemeteries like Sai Island. Does the concept of ‘cultural entanglement’ with its current elite bias also work for the periphery? The new grant is not only a huge chance for me to consolidate my career and to conduct another five years of cutting-edge research in Sudan, but it is also a big step forward for Giulia, Veronica, Cajetan as former AcrossBorders team members! Working as a team (and of course we will be enforced by newcomers), we will push our research in northern Sudan to a next level.

DiverseNile will be conducted within the general framework of the MUAFS project and more information will soon be available here: https://www.sudansurvey.gwi.uni-muenchen.de/index.php/erc-project-diversenile/

I would be delighted if those of you who followed the AcrossBorders blog will also take an interest in DiverseNile.

More details about the pottery from House 55

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My week here at Elephantine passed by very quickly. Despite of all the work, I also had the chance and pleasure to enjoy the beauty of this place and of the landscape at the First Cataract.

More ceramic material from House 55 is now processed – my pottery database holds currently almost 2400 pieces from the structure, including 350 Nubian sherds. Of particular interest are painted and imported wares as well as functional vessels. The latter allow a close comparison with the material we excavated in the last years within the New Kingdom town of Sai in Sudan.

In general, the functional ceramics from House 55 at Elephantine compare very well with the Sai material. Despite of close parallels regarding the general corpus and the vessel types, I have suggested that a distinct difference applies to the use of Marl or Nile clay for functional vessels (Budka 2018). This can be illustrated by spinning bowls, but also the so-called fish dishes (‘Schaelbecken’), pot stands and zir vessels.

The class of spinning bowls is quite interesting – these are dishes with two handles attached to the interior of the base. The handles are used for wetting linen fibers during spinning. Such spinning bowls are frequently attested in Egyptian settlements like Amarna and Elephantine (where also other evidence for textile working is found).

Example of a spinning bowl from House 55.

As of today, I have recorded 15 pieces of spinning bowls from House 55 in detail, some of them in a very good state of preservation. More were found in fragmented state and are not considered in my database. 50% of the recorded material was made in Marl clay, 50% in Nile clay. This proportion between Marl and Nile clays differs considerably with the evidence from Sai – although only a small number of spinning bowls were found there within the New Kingdom town, almost all of them are made from Nile clay and were most likely locally produced for demand at the site. Almost no Marl clay spining bowls were imported from Egypt.

All in all, my short stay here at Elephantine was extremely productive and important for working out further details of comparisons between the pottery corpora from Sai and Elephantine.

Reference

Julia Budka 2018. Pots & People: Ceramics from Sai Island and Elephantine, in: Julia Budka und Johannes Auenmüller (eds.), From Microcosm to Macrocosm. Individual households and cities in Ancient Egypt and Nubia, Leiden, 147‒170.

Busy with Egyptian and Nubian pottery from House 55

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As usual on excavations, time flies by. I was busy in the last days with drawings of important pottery vessels from House 55. The importance can be of different character: 1) completely preserved vessel and thus significant for the corpus of shapes and pottery types; 2) chronologically interesting piece and of significance for the ceramic phases and their fine-dating and 3) functionally relevant vessels including so-called hybrid vessels illustrating the intermingling of Nubian and Egyptian pottery making tradition on the island.

I had a bit of all three main categories during the last days, besides some very nice imports found in House 55, coming from the Levant and Cyprus, as well as a unique sherd of the famous Tell el-Yahudiya ware.

Among my favourites are the Nubian sherds from House 55. The Nubian cooking pots are mostly of Pan-Grave style with incised decoration, but a minority of the cooking vessels shows basketry impression and is very similar to pieces from Sai. Within the fine ware, Kerma Black Topped cups and beakers dominate, sometimes with the silvery band on the outside characteristic of the Kerma Classique period. Today, I made a drawing of a very nice Black Topped beaker and was able to reconstruct its complete outline.

Besides making drawings, I am busy with material excavated in the 26th and 27th seasons in House 55, thus more than 20 years ago. Among other interesting pieces, today I had the sixth piece of a so-called fire dog on my table. These fire dogs continue to fascinate me – especially since my work at Sai. At Elephantine, almost 50% of the ones found in 18th Dynasty levels are coming from House 55! But the small number is completely different to the large amount of fire dogs we found within the New Kingdom town of Sai Island. Research about the proper functional use of these devises thought to hold cooking pots above the fire will have to continue.

Back at Elephantine – recording of ceramics from House 55

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After finishing the successful 2019 season of the Ankh-Hor Project at Luxor, in the Asasif, I am now back in Egypt, at Aswan, working at Elephantine Island on the processing of material from House 55.

Due to a number of reasons it’s just a very short season, but I am very happy to concentrate again on the very interesting ceramics from the workshop building excavated in the last years by the Swiss Institute in close cooperation with AcrossBorders.

I will focus on the early 18th Dynasty ceramic material and here also on the Nubian wares from House 55 – this nicely ties in with my new MUAFS project and our recent discoveries between Attab and Ferka. Work will start tomorrow – very excited and an update will follow shortly!

On the move: Barcelona, Vienna, Paris

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These days are full of action, movement and travelling – having just returned from a splendid EAA 2018 in the beautiful city of Barcelona, where AcrossBorders was represented in a very interesting session on “border zones” and “mobility”, I am back in Vienna, just in time to participate in the Be Open Festival, celebrating 50 years of the FWF.

The EAA 2018 was fantastic, including a lecture hall with a slendid view of the town! (photo: Patrizia Heindl)

Yesterday’s Science Slam was great fun; I talked about the discovery of Tomb 26 on Sai with all its problems and the happy end, discovering Khnummose and his family.

All participants of yesterday’s Science Slam, including winner Miriam Unterlass. Photo: Helmut Satzinger.

Tomorrow starts the next event which will for sure also be of great inspiration – the Nubian Conference will take place in Paris; of course I’ll be talking about Sai again. My paper aims to provide a short summary of AcrossBorders work in the past years, stressing the new findings which are relevant to understand the site’s history in the 18th Dynasty.

Looking much forward to tomorrow’s travel to Paris, especially meeting all the colleagues working on ancient Sudan!

This week in Munich: Bioarchaeology in Nubia

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I am delighted that in this week AcrossBorders welcomes, jointly with the Egyptian Museum in Munich, Michaela Binder from the Austrian Archaeological Institute here in Munich. Michaela will give a public lecture about her work at cemeteries at Amara West on Thursday, April 26 at 6 pm.

Possibilities and limits of modern bioarchaeology will be discussed with material from Amara West as a case study. Michaela will also illustrate the latest insights into the living conditions during the New Kingdom in Nubia (cf. Binder 2017). This is of course highly relevant to AcrossBorders’ research focus of the past five years, comparing evidence from the New Kingdom town of Sai with the contemporaneous elite cemetery SAC5. I am therefore very much looking forward to this talk and excited to hear more about the anthropological findings at Amara West, especially from the point of view from Sai and the latest study of Andrea Stadlmayr and Marlies Wohlschlager on Tomb 26. Some pathological finds in Tomb 26 are quite remarkable, concerning Khnummose as well as other New Kingdom individuals buried in Tomb 26 – will be great to compare these findings and possible conclusions about the lifestyle of the occupants of 18th Dynasty Sai with the life histories of Ramesside officials at Amara West!

Reference

Binder 2017 = Binder, M. 2017. The New Kingdom tombs at Amara West: Funerary perspectives on Nubian-Egyptian interactions, in: Spencer, N., Stevens, A. and Binder, M. (eds.), Nubia in the New Kingdom. Lived experience, pharaonic control and indigenous traditions. British Museum Publications on Egypt and Sudan 3. Leuven: Peeters, 591-613.

 

New short film about AcrossBorders project

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A short film, available both in English and German, has just gone live!

In the film (editing and animations: hertha produziert), our new fieldwork on Sai island is presented, especially the work conducted and recently published in sector SAV1 North. 3D reconstructions by our architect Ingrid Adenstedt illustrate the recent advances in the study of the architecture of New Kingdom towns.

Various analyses of the material remains, especially the ceramics – with my personal favorites, the fire dogs, are highlighted to illustrate the new insights into Sai’s regional and trans-regional networks and its heydays.

Looking much forward to feedback for our video!

AcrossBorders monograph now freely available online

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I am delighted that the monograph AcrossBorders I, dedicated to SAV1 North, is now freely available online.
The main focus of the book published in the OREA series Contributions to the Archaeology of Egypt, Nubia and the Levant by the Austrian Academy of Science Press is the physical remains of SAV1 North: the architecture and material culture, with emphasis on the pottery and small finds.
Datable to the mid- to late 18th Dynasty, the building phase labelled as Level 3 was the heyday at sector SAV1 North, well-attested by several architectural remains with associated finds and pottery, which are all presented in the volume. A summary of thoughts on possible hints about the lifestyle and activities at SAV1 North preserved in the material remains completes AcrossBorders I. All in all, the evidence from SAV1 North underlines the important role Sai plays in understanding settlement patterns in New Kingdom Nubia.
Of course all of us are very much hoping that the openaccess version of the book will be widely used, especially by users without access to Egyptological/archaeological libraries!

Pottery, chronology and society in New Kingdom Sai, Sudan

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Some brief thoughts about what ancient ceramics tell us about life in New Kingdom Nubia, using Sai Island as a case study, have just been published.

To access the full version of the article, please visit: www.scitecheuropa.eu/new-kingdom-pots-people/84560/

Article originally published on: www.scitecheuropa.eu/new-kingdom-pots-people/84560/
Reproduced by kind permission of Pan European Networks Ltd, www.scitecheuropa.eu/

© Pan European Networks 2018