Drawing ceramics from Sai Island, New Kingdom Pharaonic town: One of the masterpieces

Posted on February 11, 2014 by Julia Budka

Additionally to processing the find from our current excavations at SAV1 East and SAV1 West, we continue, like in 2013, documenting material which was excavated in SAV1 North in the last years by Florence Doyen.

Nicole, Julia and Elke have been very busy in the last weeks and I would like to present one of the masterpieces. This unique fragment also nicely illustrates why detailed drawings of pottery vessels are simply necessary in additions to photos: technical and morphological details, the general shape and also the outline of decorative patterns can be best clarified with a drawing in 1:1.

Pencil drawing of decorated rhyton SAV1N N/C 1205.

The important piece recently documented with an accurate drawing by Nicole is a lower part of a decorated rhyton, covered in a red slip and burnished, made in a very fine Nile B (SAV1N N/C 1205). The area around the perforated bottom of this vessel is painted in black with floral elements. Just above these lotus flowers a register with figural painting is still partly visible. According to the remains it seems to be a scene in the marshes: a striding male figure is carrying something with a pole set on his shoulder. Maybe the hanging objects are large fishes? Nicole is still not completly convinced and I must admit that her nice drawing also raised some doubts for my interpretation.

As I have stressed in an earlier post, rhytons like N/C 1205 had the character of luxury items in 18^th Dynasty Egypt, the vessel shape being characteristically Aegean. Our small masterpiece from SAV1 North is an Egyptian copy in Nile clay of a Late Minoan IA rhyton.

The western part of Building A: New finds at SAV1 East

Posted on February 9, 2014 by Julia Budka

Our last week of excavation at SAV1 East for the field season 2014 has just started – and so far we are very happy with the results (not with the nimiti attacks which are back to their usual force for the month February…)! All in all, exactly like last year, we managed to trace the anomalies visible on the geophysical survey map from 2011: Our Building A is growing in size, it is getting more and more comparable to the so-called governor’s residence SAF2 in the southern part of the town.

Outlines of Building A in its eastern part, status of 2013.

As we were hoping, the further westwards we moved within the site SAV1 East, the higher the deposit gets! Thus, other then last year with our “negative walls”, we were able to find and document some remains of the foundations of substantial mud brick walls, as well as nice remains of a mud pavement between two parallel walls.

The western extension of SAV1 East, with mud pavement between two new North-South walls.

The 2014 season seems to have confirmed the alignment of Building A along the main North-South street, thus being exactly in line with Temple A and also the governor’s residence SAF2. The entrance area is located in the western part, where the structure was accessible from the street. Very striking are remains of a schist-pavement in the newly found entrance rooms at the western side of the building. Unfortunately, the pavement has been badly destroyed in ancient times, but we are positive that we will be able to reconstruct the former area covered by schist according to the clusters of broken fragments.

Disturbed area in the western part of Building A; note the schist fragments, once part of a pavement and dislocated during the destruction phase.

During this week, we will focus again on these entrance rooms and hope to get further stratigraphical information confirming our present dating of Building A to Thutmoside (mid 18^th Dynasty) times.

Sai Island 2014: Geoarchaeological investigations

Posted on February 4, 2014 by Erich Draganits

The aim of the geoarchaeological fieldwork within the framework of AcrossBorders was to expand our knowledge about the existing rock types, their relationships, Quaternary sediments, geomorphological evolution and estimations about possible Nile erosion processes at the site of the Pharaonic settlement. The scarcity of vegetation, presence of riverfront exposures as well as excellent outcrops provided by excavated graves offer great geoarchaeological working conditions.

Sai Island is situated between the 2^nd and 3^rd Nile cataracts, which are a result of a large scale east-west trending tectonic uplift zone, which forces the Nile to incise into uplifted Neoproterozoic crystalline basement and its sedimentary cover (Thurmond et al. 2004). Consequently, Sai Island comprises medium-grade metamorphic Precambrian rocks (amphibolite, dolomite, quartzite, biotite gneiss, calcite marble) in the west and southeast, dipping around 30° towards the Northwest. These rocks are commonly cross-cut by large quartz-veins. In the central and northern part of the island these meta-volcano-sedimentary rocks are overlain by subhorizontal Nubian Sandstone, mainly consisting of medium- to coarse-grained fluvial quartz sandstone, conglomerate, rare siltstone and occasional silicified wood.

Yellowish Nubian Sandstone overlying dark amphibolite in the southeast part of Sai Island

Almost all of these rocks are covered by thin layers of comparably much younger Nile sediments (in some places with Palaeolithic artefacts) and only the Nubian Sandstone of Jebel Adu raises as an Inselberg from the flat terraces surfaces (van Peer et al. 2003, Anonymous 2005).

Example of small basement outcrop in the more fertile West of the island

The pre-Holocene Nile sediments mainly comprise gravely channel deposits and fine-grained floodplain sediments. The sub-rounded to rounded gravel of the pre-Holocene Nile terraces are strongly dominated by quartz clasts, followed by chert and beautiful agate and virtually free of carbonate clasts, while the fine-grained floodplain sediments commonly show soil formation processes and related calcrete (Lewis et al. 2011).

Photo showing typical composition and grain-size of gravelly terrace surfaces

The rock types occurring at the site of the Pharaonic settlement in general reflect the geological reality of the island and most of them are locally available. By far the most common rock types are quartz sandstone and amphibolite, while vein quartz, calcrete, biotite gneiss, calcite marble are comparable rare. Rock types which probably have been brought to the island include granite, diorite, gabbro and gypsum.

References:

Anonymous, Geological map of Sudan. 1 : 3,500,000, Geological Research Authority of the Sudan, Khartoum, 2005.

J. Lewis, J. Smith, & E. Garcea, Paleoenvironmental implications of the isotope geochemistry and granulometry of Quaternary alluvial sediments and paleosols from Sai Island, Sudan. GSA Annual Meeting, 9-12 October 2011, Minneapolis, abstract, 2011, 95-19.

A.K. Thurmond, R.J. Stern, M.G. Abdelsalam, K.C. Nielsen, M.M. Abdeen & E. Hinz, The Nubian Swell. Journal of African Earth Sciences, 39, 2004, 401-407.

P. Van Peer, R. Fullagar, S. Stokes, R.M. Bailey, J. Moeyersons, F. Steenhoudt, A. Geerts, T. Vanderbeken, M. de Dapper & F. Geus, The Early to Middle Stone Age Transition and the Emergence of Modern Human Behaviour at site 8-B-11, Sai Island, Sudan. Journal of Human Evolution, 45, 2003, 187-193.

Blue Painted pottery from the Pharaonic town of Sai

Posted on February 3, 2014 by Julia Budka

One of the best known pottery wares from Pharaonic Egypt is the so-called Blue painted ware, popular from the mid 18^th Dynasty until Ramesside time and thus obviously a good example for a time-specific taste regarding the decoration of ceramics. Until now, Blue painted pottery was found in rather limited numbers in Nubia, at both cemetery sites like Tombos and also at New Kingdom settlements like Sesebi, Amara West and Sai Island.

The number of Blue painted sherds coming from the fortified town of Sai was very small before this season – by now we have more than doubled it, but there are still not more than a good dozen fragments of this specific ware!

In 2014, both Marl clay and Nile silt wares with blue decoration have been unearthed at SAV1 West. The Nile clay vessels are simple beakers with linear design, the Marl clay vessels are larger in size, closed shapes and with more fancy motifs. My favourite piece is a large body sherd with a beautiful design, found east of the enclosure wall.

It is a Marl clay vessel imported from Egypt, an uncoated ware (Vienna System Marl A3 variant) with the decoration executed in blue, black and red. It finds perfect parallels in Egypt, especially in my corpus of blue painted vessels at Elephantine. It falls into the category of the very early, pre-Amarna type of Blue painted ware. Well dateable to the mid 18^th Dynasty thanks to comparisons, this corresponds to its archaeological context at Sai – the vessel belongs to the phase when the site experienced its heyday during the reigns of Thutmose III and Amenhotep II.

For now the new Blue painted sherds from Sai are very useful for dating, but in general I do hope that we will be able to contextualise them as well – using them as small indicators for what seems to have been a quite sophisticated lifestyle here in Upper Nubia during the 18^th Dynasty.

End of week 4 of fieldwork at Sai Island, New Kingdom Town

Posted on January 30, 2014 by Julia Budka

During this week, we made good progress at both sites currently under investigation of the Pharaonic town of Sai, at SAV1 West and SAV1 East.

Work in progress at SAV1 West, 30/01/2014.

The brick work at SAV1 West was cleaned of the loose debris – we now have the substantial remains of the New Kingdom fortification exposed. The subsidiary, secondary adjacent wall was also found as proceeding further towards the North – as was the so-called “front wall”. Of the latter, we just cleaned today debris towards the west – the dismantled mud bricks are presumably lying on the natural slope of the western edge of the town; giving us much hope that we will be able to clarify its date and phases of use in the upcoming week!

Overview of SAV1 West; view towards Northeast. Debris at top of western slope in foreground.

I am especially excited about work at SAV1 East – we were aiming to clarify the western extension of our Building A, a possible large administrative building of Thutmoside date.

Cleaning of western part of Square 3, SAV1 East.

In the last days, Jördis worked with her team in the very difficult deposit of Square 3: within backfilling of late pits and disturbances, they were able to trace the foundations of a very large mud brick wall! Its alignment matches our East wall of Building A’s courtyard – and it is in line with the main North-South street of the town, running from the Southern gate, the Governor’s residence and Temple A towards our area SAV1 East.

Foundations of substantial mud brick wall at SAV1 East.

Despite the pitting, we do have traces of the floor levels preserved and some smaller East-West walls, possibly of entrance rooms similar to the ones in the Governor’s residence SAF2. The challenge will be to reconstruct the complete outline of our building from these largely destroyed and dismanteled remains!

Overview of western part of Square 3, 30/01/2014: the main North-South wall, remains of pavements and a smaller East-West wall.

As yet, both the New Kingdom ceramics from SAV1 West and SAV1 East associated with our mud brick structures do not predate the reign of Thutmose III – stressing that we are currently working in areas which belong to the main building phase of the Upper Nubian temple town at Sai which flourished during the time of Thutmose III and Amenhotep II.

An Update: The Enclosure Wall at SAV1 West

Posted on January 24, 2014 by Julia Budka

It is a well-established fact that the Pharaonic town of Sai with its fortified town, temple and administrative buildings falls into the category of so-called Egyptian “temple towns”, built during the New Kingdom in Nubia. The substantial mud brick enclosure wall of Sai with a width of more than 4.20 m has been investigated by the late Michel Azim (Azim 1975) in the South and Florence Doyen in the North (cf. Doyen 2009). As was confirmed in both sectors, the wall is equipped with bastions in regular distances. Our current work at SAV1 West aims to deepen the understanding of the layout, outline and construction of the enclosure wall as well as its building phases and periods of destruction.

At the moment – and this is all work in progress! – we were able to expose the outline of the western enclosure wall in the trenches 1 and 2. Its location fits perfectly to what Azim reconstructed as the western border of the Pharaonic town. However, there are still a lot of open questions – especially because of later disturbances and pits, but also due to several building phases within the brick work. In trench 2 we might have encountered a late sub-circular structure of possible Ottoman date, set into the 18^th Dynasty enclosure wall. We will try to clarify this next week.

Western half of Square 1 (left) and Square 1W (right) at SAV1 West – overview towards South (Photo: Martin Fera).

In the southwestern corner of Square 1, the upper part of the enclosure wall as we exposed it so far is still covered with debris; a large pit filled with mostly Christian pottery was cutting into this area. Similar holes have been dug into the brick work of the enclosure wall at SAV1 North (see Doyen 2009). As was already observed by Azim in the 1970s, the Sai New Kingdom fortification suffered from several destructions, but also restoration phases during its use-life (Azim 1975, 122). A good example of a restoration is the tower construction N2 at SAV1 North which is maybe of Ramesside date (Doyen 2009).

View of the enclosure wall at SAV1West in the front; the other brick walls in the back (looking West).

View of the enclosure wall at SAV1West in the front; other brick walls in the back (looking West).

A later addition to the western outline of the 18^th Dynasty wall is now also traceable with our extension towards the west, Square 1W. Within this trench we also located a possible “front wall”, of which we as yet only reached the upper part. It seems as if a secondary construction was set between the New Kingdom brick work – spanning the area from the presumed front wall and the enclosure wall. A layer holding much organic material, charcoal and pottery of a domestic character may indicate that we have found here a small occupation spot, maybe a modest hut or shelter. Its date remains to be established but the pottery points to a Late Christian origin. However, it is intriguing that we also have some Ramesside sherds coming from Square 1W and the western half of Square 1 – comparing nicely to the findings around the tower at SAV1 North. At present, we cannot rule out that our squares are set above one of the bastions of the enclosure wall, maybe following complex building phases – all of this remains to be investigated during the upcoming three weeks of fieldwork at SAV1 West.

References:

Azim 1975 = M. Azim, Quatre campagnes de fouilles sur la Forteresse de Saï, 1970-1973. 1ère partie: l’installation pharaonique, CRIPEL 3, 1975, 1–125.

Doyen 2009 = F. Doyen, The New Kingdom Town on Sai Island (Northern Sudan), Sudan & Nubia 13, 2009, 17–20.

SAV1 West: New extension towards the West

Posted on January 15, 2014 by Julia Budka

As we have successfully located the mud brick enclosure wall of the New Kingdom town of Sai in our new trenches at SAV1 West, it proofed necessary to add an extension to Square 1.This extension, Square 1W, includes the high slope towards the West of our excavation area, thus reaching outside of the walled New Kingdom settlement – this will enable us not only to understand the Post-New Kingdom depositional processes affecting the town wall better, but eventually also allow some observations on its original construction and composition.

With cleaning the surface of the new trench today, we got already interesting information – whereas the material covering Square 1 was 75% 18^th Dynasty in date, the immediately adjacent extension revealed only 8% at its western half and 15% at the eastern half. The majority of the ceramics are rather Post-Meroitic and especially Christian and Ottoman. This nicely seems to illustrate that Square 1W is situated outside the Pharaonic town, whereas Square 1 is located directly above the 18^th Dynasty enclosure and comprises occupation deposits from the interior of the town.

First Results: Mud bricks, ceramics and much more

Posted on January 11, 2014 by Julia Budka

Week 2 at SAV1 East and SAV1 West has just started – our first week of fieldwork passed very quickly, with promising first results! Both sites are keeping us really busy, but already at this early stage some findings are worth mentioning:

At SAV1 East we are actually following up our work of last year – the western extensions to our first squares at this site mirror the discoveries from 2013. We were already able to trace mud brick remains just below the surface – according to their alignment they could very well represent the western part of Building A – possibly with some entrance rooms and a substantial wall enclosing the large courtyard. Like in the eastern trenches, we are facing the problem of many pits and disturbances dug into the Pharaonic remains – nevertheless we are very optimistic to come up with a more complete understanding of the 18^th Dynasty building activity in this area in the next weeks.

In both trenches at SAV1 West in situ remains of the enclosure wall have been unearthed. Associated small finds and the ceramics support its dating to the 18^th Dynasty. Especially at Square 1 the amounts of New Kingdom pottery are huge – east of the wall we have large assemblages of mid 18^th Dynasty ceramics, comparing well to SAV1 North and also in some respects to SAV1 East. Especially remarkable are a considerable number of Nubian cooking pots, of so-called Fire dogs, of fish dishes and painted wares! One of my favorite pieces which just came out today is a Blue painted sherd – until now this particular type of decorated ware was very rare at Sai – will our current excavations modify this picture?

We also started to register the small finds and tools – some of the highlights are net weights, Nun bowls and female figurines – all very well known from other Egyptian sites and also within the Pharaonic town of Sai.

All in all, we are more than happy with the outcome of the first week and very keen to continue the investigation of life at Sai Island during the New Kingdom! Lots of questions are still open…

New Perspectives: The western edge of the Pharaonic town

Posted on January 5, 2014 by Julia Budka

One of our goals this season is to investigate the enclosure wall of the fortified New Kingdom town of Sai on its western side, just north of the main city gate. We opened two squares at a new site labelled SAV1 West.

Both trenches comprise mud bricks visible on the surface – according to their alignment they should belong to the enclosure wall of the town and maybe to one of its towers. Therefore it was no surprise that a large amount of 18^th Dynasty pottery came to light already during surface cleaning – however, the precise quantities and proportions are quite interesting. Square 1 (10 x 10 m) yielded 26 baskets of pottery and 75 % are datable to the 18^th Dynasty! The remaining 25 % include Post-Meroitic material, but most of it is Christian and Ottoman ceramic.

Trench 2 (15 x 5 m) is set above a shallow depression further south and only 9 baskets of pottery were collected from the surface – out of these sherds, just 24 % are of New Kingdom date. The majority belongs to material of Post-Pharaonic times, in particular the Christian/Medieval period. Thus, the relations of the ceramics are completely opposite than in Square 1. An interesting starting point for the upcoming weeks – does it reflect the neighborhood of the Ottoman fortress which is closer to Square 2 than to Square 1 and/or a disturbance in ancient time? Or can it be explained differently? We’ll keep you posted as work at SAV1 West continues!

Back at SAV1East, Sai Island

Posted on January 4, 2014 by Julia Budka

As scheduled, we started today the 2014 field season with our team of workmen, supervised by Rais Imad Mohammed Farah and our NCAM inspector Huda Magzoub. It’s very good to be back at SAV1East – we extended our excavation area towards the North and West aiming to cover more of Building A.

Especially the Western part proved already very interesting after the first surface cleaning – almost 50 % of the ceramics are 18^th Dynasty in date! They can be well dated to Thutmoside time respectively the mid 18^th Dynasty. Like we observed in 2013, the amount of beer jars and bread moulds is striking! Especially conical bread moulds increase in quantity the further south we get in our new squares – mirroring the results of last year and probably reflecting the nearness to Temple A, the local Amun-Re temple of the 18^th Dynasty.

Just today, I had already fragments of 30 bread moulds among the surface material, always associated with 18th Dynasty beer jars and flower pots. Hopefully we will be able to contextualize these findings this year more precisely!

AcrossBorders

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

Category Archives: Fieldwork