In the spotlight: Khnummose and other finds

Posted on July 24, 2017 by Julia Budka

Summer has definitely arrived in Munich, the teaching term has almost ended and our AcrossBorders conference is quickly approaching.

In the last weeks, Khnummose and his tomb at Sai has received quite some attention, see e.g. an article by Owen Jarus on Life Science (https://www.livescience.com/59534-ancient-nubia-tomb-of-gold-worker-found.html). Interestingly, most articles focused on the question whether the people buried in Tomb 26 were mummified or not – I will discuss this issue as well as other aspects at the upcoming Sudantag of the Staatliches Museum für Ägyptische Kunst, July 29.

Some of the general aims and preliminary results by the AcrossBorders project are presented today on the LMU website. With a small photo gallery, the most important aspects of our work on Sai Island are addressed, focusing on the complex relations between Egyptian and Nubians in the New Kingdom.

LMU website https://www.uni-muenchen.de/index.html, July 24 (screenshot).

Being very proud of and grateful for all the attention paid to Khnummose and other discoveries by AcrossBorders, I am very much looking forward to our upcoming international conference.

AcrossBorders’ closing conference “From Microcosm to Macrocosm”

Posted on June 29, 2017 by Julia Budka

It is my great pleasure to announce the conference “From Microcosm to Macrocosm: Individual households and cities in Ancient Egypt and Nubia”, to be held from 1–3 September, 2017 in Munich, hosted by Ludwig-Maximilians-University. Thanks to the kindness of the Egyptian Museum and my colleagues there, the venue of the conference is the lecture hall of the Museum. It is the closing event of the ERC project AcrossBorders and will highlight our recent fieldwork on New Kingdom Sai.

The AcrossBorders project has concentrated in the last five years on settlement patterns in Egypt and Upper Nubia in the 2^nd Millennium BC: various interactions and mutual influences are attested for these regions which are situated across ancient (Pharaonic Egypt and Kingdom of Kush) and modern (Egypt and Sudan) borders with diverse environmental and cultural preconditions. Much progress has been made in Egyptian and Nubian settlement archaeology in recent years, but further research addressing general aspects of living conditions and the specific coexistence of Egyptians and Nubians is required. Of chief interest are the architecture and structure of the Egyptian towns established in Upper Nubia during the New Kingdom, their social stratification, the local relations of Nubians and Egyptians and the specific material culture.

The conference focuses therefore on 1) individual households of selected sites in Egypt and Nubia. In addition to this microapproach, introducing microhistories of individual sites according to recent fieldwork and archaeometric applications, the event also discusses 2) general patterns and regional developments –thus, the macrocosm of New Kingdom Nubia.

I am extremely delighted that so many colleagues have accepted our invitation – the program covers a large variety of case studies from Egypt and Nubia. Among others, we will welcome as our distinguished guests Abdelrahman Ali (Director General of NCAM), Manfred Bietak (Prof. em. Vienna and PI of the ERC Advanced Grant “The Hyksos Enigma”), Charles Bonnet (Director of the excavations at Kerma/Doukki Gel), Cornelius von Pilgrim (Director of the Swiss Institute Cairo) and Neal Spencer (Keeper of the Department Ancient Egypt and Sudan at the British Museum and Director of the Amara West excavations).

Looking very much forward to this closing event here in Munich!

On the move – to and from Sai

Posted on June 8, 2017 by Julia Budka

An upcoming workshop organized within the framework of the program “LMU – UCB Research in Humanities” brings together researchers from LMU Munich and the UC Berkeley to discuss phenomena of “Archaeologies of human mobility and migration”. I am very happy to be able to participate and much looking forward to this event with a rich variety of archaeological case studies.

AcrossBorders, its aims and results are of course highly relevant for understanding people and things “on the move”, migration between Egypt and Nubia, but also aspects of appropriation and the entanglement of cultures. The location of Sai Island in a territory of strategic value with changing boundaries and alternating ruling powers in the Second Millennium BC (Egypt and Nubia) allows the addressing of questions of ancient lives across borders and cultures.

In general, we know that mobility of administrative staff and officials was common in New Kingdom Egypt – examples from Sai include the viceroy of Kush Nehi and other officials. Nehi’s monuments in Egypt and Nubia (incl. door jambs, lintels, statues, stelae etc.) illustrate that high officials had temporary living quarters in different parts of Egypt as well as in Nubia.

My paper will present results of the AcrossBorders project based on the study of the material culture, here especially of ceramics including data from iNAA. In addition to the analysis of finds and architecture from the settlement, the mortuary evidence helps investigating the coexistence of Egyptians and Nubians on the island. The latest results from Tomb 26 will be discussed, highlightening also the potential of ongoing strontium isotope analysis for exploring the origin of the occupants of New Kingdom Sai.

Piecing the town layout further together

Posted on May 17, 2017 by Julia Budka

As posted recently, some new observations about the town layout of the New Kingdom Sai are possible thanks to AcrossBorders’ archaeological fieldwork on Sai Island from 2013 until 2017. In a short summary, now available for free online, I stressed that our archaeological excavations were complemented with kite aerial photography, structure from motion approaches, terrestrial 3D laser scans, geoarchaeological surveys, micormorphological soil sampling and various archaeometric analyses of diverse materials. Naturallly, much potential derives from this combination of methods and approaches.

The recent 2017 field season on Sai Island provided some answers to both general research questions, e.g. about the occupation of Sai during the 18^th Dynasty, but also to more detailed questions like building phases within individual sectors. Excavations in sector SAV1 East resulted in particular in new insights on the layout and function of the New Kingdom town.

Large subterranean storage rooms were unearthed in rooms with schist floors, stressing the role of Sai as Egyptian administrative center during the mid-18th Dynasty. The new cellars (Feature 83 and 85) and corresponding rooms are comparable to the southern sector of the town, excavated by a French Mission in the 1970s and recently re-studied by Ingrid Adenstedt.

Feature 83 and 85 are probably related to the Egyptian stone temple, Temple A, close by. With our new fieldwork, the town map can therefore be updated and fresh remarks on the internal structure are possible.

Presenting Tomb 26 and other highlights

Posted on May 11, 2017 by Julia Budka

Almost 2 months have passed since we successfully closed our final season on Sai!

This week is quite busy with presenting our results to different audiences – the SARS Day on Monday in London was great as always, I am really happy about various and mostly very positive feedback!

Tonight, I am going to present the highlights of the 2017 season here in Munich.

This lecture is part of the rich programme organized by the friends of the institute, the Collegium Aegyptium. I will give a brief summary of work in the town and will then focus on Tomb 26. With Chamber 6, the burial of Khnummes and his wife, and especially with the “hidden” Chamber 5 and its 18th Dynasty burials rich of jewelry there is quite something to talk about!

Chamber 5 during the process of excavation; note that, like Chamber 6, it was completly sealed by flood levels.

Looking much forward to this occasion, also because so many team members will be present!

Off to London – SARS meeting 2017

Posted on May 7, 2017 by Julia Budka

The annual one-day international colloquium of the Sudan Archaeological Research Society (SARS) will take place at the British Museum in London tomorrow. As usual the programme is very promising, highlighting the current work of British but also international teams in Sudan at different types of sites, dating to diverse periods.

I am honoured to have the possibility to present AcrossBorders’ 2017 season on Sai to the audience – I will start with summarising the work in the town, focusing on the important new data concerning the evolution of the town and its layout. In the second half of my talk I will present our work in Tomb 26 – busy with post-excavation work in the last weeks, I am now able to propose a first preliminary reconstruction of the main phases of use of the tomb. Looking much forward to this opportunity, to meet all of the colleagues and friends and of course hoping for some feedback!

New thoughts on layout and planning of New Kingdom town of Sai

Posted on April 15, 2017 by Julia Budka

My paper with the title “Crossing Borders: Settlement Archaeology in Egypt and Sudan” has just been published in the latest volume of Near Eastern Archaeology (Vol. 80, No. 1, March 2017, pp. 14-21), see https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5615/neareastarch.80.1.0014?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents.

Based on the fresh data from AcrossBorders’ excavations on Sai Island between 2013 and 2017, this paper presents the current state of knowledge regarding the evolution of the New Kingdom town of Sai. Its potential for general aspects of settlement archaeology in New Kingdom Egypt and Kush are highlighted. New evidence for a landing place in the early Eighteenth Dynasty as well as fresh information about the Thutmoside temple town are presented.

Screenshot of 3D model of the New Kingdom town of Sai, overbuilt by the Ottoman fortress in the south. View from the south. Illustration by Martin Fera.

Furthermore, I try to argue that AcrossBorders’ excavation results suggest some new thoughts about the development of this town with its orthogonal city map: despite of its obvious urban planning as a royal foundation, the site of Sai also illustrates dynamic aspects of Egyptian towns which must have been very common. These aspects reflect local microhistories and show common deviations from what we consider as “standard types” in both architecture and material culture.

These first thoughts highlighted in the NEA paper will be followed further by still ongoing archaeometric, micromorphological and other analyses of various materials as well as the final assessment of the excavation results in sectors SAV1 East and SAV1 West.

Reconstructing the use-life of Tomb 26

Posted on April 12, 2017 by Julia Budka

Back in Munich, all of us are busy with post-excavation tasks – updating databases and lists, finalizing reports, maps and 3D models as well as digitalizing original drawings. The latter currently keeps Oliver and Daniela busy – they are digitalizing the pottery drawings from Tomb 26.

The amount of complete pots found in the tomb in 2017 is striking – particularly interesting is a deposit of six so-called flower pots and three dishes in the southeastern corner of Chamber 5. Situated at the feet of the presumed earliest burial within this chamber, these ceramic vessels also include a stone vessel.

Deposit of pottery vessels in Chamber 5.

Flower pots – conical deep bowls with perforated bases – are very common New Kingdom types known from Egypt and Nubia (see, for example, Holthoer 1977, pl. 18; Minault-Gout/Thill 2012, vol. II, pl. 132). Their function is still unclear and was much debated. In Sai, they are both attested in the Egyptian town and cemetery SAC5. The best parallels from a funerary context on the island for our new deposit come from the neighboring Tomb 7, excavated by the French Mission. In the main burial chamber of this tomb, a cluster of vessels was found in the south-east corner, including five flower pots (Minault-Gout/Thill 2012, vol. I, 49).

Datable to the early-mid 18^th Dynasty, these ceramic vessels are key markers to reconstruct the phases of use within Tomb 26. The current task for understanding its complete use-life is to collect all available information (objects, pottery, stratigraphical information, human remains, C14 dates etc.) and process these data with reference to each other.

References

Holthoer 1977 = Holthoer, Rostislav, New Kingdom Pharaonic Sites. The Pottery, The Scandinavian Joint Expedition to Sudanese Nubia Vol. 5:1, Lund 1977.

Minault-Gout/Thill 2012 = Minault-Gout, Ann / Thill, Florence, Saï II. Le cimetière des tombes hypogées du Nouvel Empire (SAC5), Fouilles de l’Institut français d’archéologie orientale du Caire 69, 2 vols., Cairo 2012.

Highlights of the 2017 season: the New Kingdom town

Posted on March 22, 2017 by Julia Budka

Besides our very successful work in Tomb 26 with the undisturbed burials from the 18^th Dynasty, our final season in the New Kingdom town, excavating both at SAV1 West and SAV1 East, was also very successful.

Another storage installation at SAV1 West… featuring a royal inscription on a re-used stone block!

Excavating the storage pit and cleaning surface area for another cellar – located in the northeastern corner of our excavation square…

Sieving the material from the bottom of the storage pit: undisturbed mid-18th Dynasty context!

New mud brick structures and loads of ceramics from SAV1 West.

Taking micromorphological samples in the “wall street” during “nimiti happy hour”…

Starting work at SAV1 East – aiming to clarify the dimensions of in situ-schist pavement.

Finding more schist – and: one large cellar!

And discovering another large cellar with its vault still in situ…

Fighting against nimiti and time pressure!

Finishing up what was the highlight of all 5 seasons in the Egyptian town on Sai!

Thanks again to all team members – has been a great season!

Highlights of the 2017 season: Tomb 26

Posted on March 21, 2017 by Julia Budka

Starting with post-excavation analyses and organizing all data collected during our weeks on Sai Island, the many highlights and working steps in Tomb 26 can be nicely illustrated by a selection of photos: