Summary of week 5 at Sai Island, Pharaonic town

As planned, excavations at SAV1 West have come to an end after 5 weeks. At SAV1 East, there are still small things to do – first of all, the final cleaning in feature 15, the large cellar which yielded numerous clay sealings and complete pottery vessels in 2015. The westernmost part of the structure was left unexcavated last year.

At SAV1 West, work focused during this week on feature 123, a very interesting, but still obscure structure with several building phases. In the surroundings of feature 123, remains of occupation deposits and some pavements were documented.

Feature 123 had several building phases and experienced modifications during its lifespan.

Feature 123 had several building phases and experienced modifications during its lifespan.

We also returned to Square 1NW – located in the norther western part of SAV1 West, first opened in 2014 and covering an area in front of the enclosure wall, outside of the Pharaonic town. Interesting remains of mud brick structures and floor levels were observed and will be documented in the upcoming week – hopefully we will be able to add information to the layout of the western façade of the 18th Dynasty enclosure wall – and the later reuse of this area outside of the town.

With the arrival of Sean Taylor and Sayantani Neogi, some micromorphologial samples were taken in SAV1 West and SAV1 East. Complementing our digital landscape model based on kite photography by Martin Fera, Sean and Sayantani also started augering in the western part of the site in order to understand the ancient topography within the context of the New Kingdom town.

Work at SAV1 East focused on the extension towards the northwest – Square 4B1 yielded not only in situ schist fragments and fragmentary walls, but also a very nice sandstone column.

Overview of Square 4B1 in SAV1 East with a sandstone column close to the in situ-remains of the schist pavement. Note the differences in levels!

Overview of Square 4B1 in SAV1 East with a sandstone column close to the in situ-remains of the schist pavement. Note the differences in levels!

Some areas at SAV1 East with 18th Dynasty deposits in Squares 4B and 4C like the one below the in situ baking plate will be excavated in the upcoming week (the deposit has already been sampled for micromorphology).

Finally, we opened a new test trench in the northern part of the town area, just above the sandstone cliff (labelled SAV1 Northeast) – the aim is to check whether an eastern enclosure wall is traceable in this area or not. We are still just below the surface, but some remains of bricks and a promising sandy area were already revealed. Interestingly, Ramesside sherds were present among the ceramics.

Of course, work on the pottery and objects continued simultaneously with the excavation. From SAV1 West, 430 baskets of pottery were processed in 2016! But this is beaten by SAV1 East which yielded a total of 610 baskets… in retrospect, really amazingly large numbers of ceramics! Thanks to these amounts, the phasing and corpus from both sectors are now well established.

Our registrar Meg Gundlach was very busy with a considerable number of finds in the last week – one of the highlights from the town excavation in 2016 is definitely the scarab SAV1 East 1595. I was lucky to find it myself while cleaning the floor in one of the rooms attached to feature 51 in SAV1 East. The scarab beetle itself, made from steatite (12 x 16 mm), has been hacked off, leaving just the decoration on the back. A crudely carved winged cobra/vulture holds a shen-ring with her talons, protecting an empty cartouche in front of her.

SAV1E 1595a combined (thumbnail)Week 6 will allow documenting and describing the excavated features in more detail; and we will also start our landscape survey in the area to the south of Gebel Abri. Very excited about the upcoming tasks and happy with the results so far!

End of week 5 at SAV1 West and SAV1 East

Today, fieldwork officially ended in the New Kingdom town of Sai – five very successful weeks came to an end at both SAV1 East and SAV1 West. Other than last year, timing was excellent (no unexpected cellars…): at SAV1 West everything was achieved and at SAV1 East small scale excavation is waiting – exactly as planned – for me and just a small group of workmen next week.

This is therefore the perfect opportunity to thank all of our Sudanese workmen: Like in the last years, the gang, this time directed by Hassan Dawd, did a marvelous job – despite weeks of really cold weather, days of nimiti-fly attacks and stormy periods, they always did their best; all of our excavations results (a summary of the most important finds will soon follow!) depend on their hard work and expertise they gained over the last years. And, of course, the help and friendship of our colleague Huda Magzoub from NCAM are essential for a successful season and much appreciated.

The AcrossBorders town fieldwork team 2016.

The AcrossBorders town fieldwork team 2016.

Many many thanks to all team members, Sudanese and international, and looking much forward to the second half of AcrossBorders’ fieldwork – 5 weeks of documentation in the field, small scale excavation, landscape survey and work in the cemetery SAC5!

Tracing cooking and baking activities at SAV1 East

Among other aspects of daily life activities, AcrossBorders aims at studying in detail the craft specialisation of functional ceramics associated with cooking and baking and various aspects of food preparation. Here, the co-existence of Egyptian style (wheel-made) and Nubian (hand-made) cooking pots as well as the import of real Egyptian cooking pots are of particular interest. Today, a large fragment of a cooking pot produced in Egypt was documented at SAV1East in Square 4B – obviously in situ, set into an ashy deposit next to a wall and still filled with some ashy material and charcoal.

Another really interesting in situ situation with a functional ceramic type was found in Square 4C: a large baking plate is still in place – close to a mud brick wall, sitting on a very ashy deposit.

Luckily a good portion of this 18th Dynasty baking plate was left in place despite the pitting of the area in Medieval/Ottoman times.

Luckily a good portion of this 18th Dynasty baking plate was left in place despite the pitting of the area in Medieval/Ottoman times.

Until now, we only had small fragments of these plates from SAV1 East and otherwise hundreds of conical bread moulds (probably associated with the nearby Temple A). The new baking plate and its find context are therefore of particular interest – therefore we decided to take a micromorphological sample from the ashy deposit associated with this area (and nicely “sealed” by the baking plate on top) which might have functioned as temporary “kitchen”.

Quite a challenge, but managed without problems: samples taken at SAV1 East.

Quite a challenge, but managed without problems: samples taken at SAV1 East.

These new data from SAV1 East – ceramics, archaeological context and micromorphology – will contribute to a better understanding of  some aspect of food preparation within the New Kingdom town of Sai.

Exposing in situ-remains of Dynasty 18

Week 4 of fieldwork in SAV1 West and SAV1 East was very busy and fruitful – in both areas we have by now exposed in situ-remains dating from Dynasty 18, the main occupation phase of the New Kingdom site.

At SAV1 West, work in Square 1S, partly excavated in 2015, was continued – and feature 123 along the southern baulk of the trench is getting more and more exciting. We have not yet cleaned its foundation level, but have reached clear occupational deposits of high interest.

Feature 123 in SAV1 West, Sq. 1S, was exposed further.

Feature 123 in SAV1 West, Sq. 1S, was exposed further.

Work was also continued in the “wall street” – exposing more layers which will hopefully be of excitement for our micromorphologists arriving next week!

At SAV1 East, a very nice area for bread making (on a flat baking plate) was discovered – the baking plate was cut and partly hacked away like all the surrounding structures and layers. BUT: below the plate there are still 20 cm of occupational deposit – very exciting and again a task for Sean Taylor and Sayantani Neogi!

With two walls in Square 4B going into the northern baulk, we were forced to extent our excavation area: Square 4B1 covers 3 extra meters to the north and to the west.

The new extension at SAV1 East, Sq. 4B1.

The new extension at SAV1 East, Sq. 4B1.

And here we really found the extension of the walls. Most importantly, my assumption that we had remains of a collapsed schist pavement in the northwestern corner of Square 4B was proven to be correct: yesterday just before noon, I cleaned the scarce but definitely solid and in situ remains of a very nice schist pavement! It was not easy to find, as it is was literally covered by mud brick debris and is cut off from all four sides!

View on scarce remains of what used to be a schist pavement - cut off on all edges in medieval time.

View on scarce remains of what used to be a schist pavement – cut off on all edges in medieval time.

All in all, with this last puzzle piece, it is now completely clear that our large rooms/magazine areas equipped with the sophisticated schist pavement extended to the west – of much importance for understanding the town plan of Sai.

In terms of pottery, I already shared some excitement about very nice findings from SAV1 West. At SAV1 East, it is less spectacular, but very interesting: still, mostly bread and beer! And all pottery associated so far with the walls and pavements are clearly mid-18th Dynasty in date, most probably Thutmose III.  Our 2016 results therefore nicely back up the work of years 2013-2015.

Since Ken Griffin is back to teaching at Swansea, Meg Gundlach is carrying on with the registration of finds on her own at the moment – assisted by Huda Magzoub for some Munselling, and more assistants will arrive in mid-February. There were a number of really exciting finds this week – animal figurines, female figurines and most importantly the first seal impression of this season from SAV1 East!

After 4 four weeks of excavation, I am very happy with the progress so far and looking much forward to the results of the upcoming week…

A modified Egyptian cooking pot from SAV1 West?

Work is progressing well in SAV1 West – occupational deposits and new sections of walls with several phases of use datable to the mid and late 18th Dynasty have been exposed in the last days. The ceramics are very exciting – a large percentage of Egyptian marl clay wares, considerable amounts of painted wares and a very good state of preservation.

One context was especially interesting and I would like to share first impressions, hoping for some feedback at this early stage of processing. The stratigraphic unit in question comprises the last level of debris covering a small mudbrick structure in the south-eastern corner of Square 1SE. Because of its preservation, it is very likely that the pottery represents the original inventory that was shifted/mixed when the late antique pitting in the area occurred, cutting down to the original layers.

154 diagnostic sherds attest to a late 18th Dynasty date. 12 % of these diagnostics were Nubian cooking pots with clear traces of use (their surface is smoked and soothed) – mostly with basketry impression and one single piece with incised decoration. Except that this is quite a high amount of Nubian pottery, all is consistent with the findings in SAV1 West so far. Most of the Nubian cooking ware in the New Kingdom town of Sai features basketry patterns, whereas coarse incised patterns with diagonally cut lines below the rim (very common at Elephantine and mostly associated with the Pangrave culture) is less common.

Snapshot from the field: the pencil marks the unique sherd in question; below are some of the Nubian sherds.

Snapshot from the field: the pencil marks the unique sherd in question; below are some of the Nubian sherds.

What makes the context in Square 1SE special is one rim sherd: An Egyptian Nile clay cooking pot occurs side by side with the Nubian ones – basically, something which is not unusual, but already well attested at SAV1 West. Imported, authentic Egyptian wheel-made cooking pots and locally made examples thrown on the wheel are used side by side with Nubian-style products in New Kingdom Sai and were found in all sectors in the Pharaonic town (SAV1 North, SAV1 East and SAV1 West).

But: this authentic Egyptian cooking pot (produced in and imported from Egypt) is not smoked (so maybe was not yet used?), but displays a very unusual feature. Below its rim, there are several diagonally arranged black lines – definitely painted/drawn. With these strokes, the Egyptian cooking pot resembles Nubian style variants with incised decoration. So-called hybrid styles – Nubian surface treatments on otherwise Egyptian pottery vessels – are well attested at Sai, other Nubian sites and also Elephantine. But is this also the case with the unique piece in question? Did the “artist” of these black lines wanted to show that something is missing on this pot? Was it a spontaneous idea of someone familiar with the incised cooking ware? Or are these lines really to be interpreted as decoration, to fuse Nubian cooking tradition with the Egyptian style? Since the authentic Egyptian cooking pots are made and fired in Egypt, it was of course not possible to apply pre-firing incised decoration on them like on the Nubian ones and the hybrid forms at Elephantine. On the other hand, we have a number of locally produced Egyptian style cooking pots on Sai – and none of them shows incised decoration…

Much food for thought and a lot of open questions – but at the end of a long working day with much routine work and processing, findings like these are inspiring and give fresh ideas and much energy!

A scarab, lots of schist, pottery and stone tools: good progress in the New Kingdom town of Sai

Week 3 of fieldwork in sectors SAV1 East and West of the New Kingdom town of Sai has just ended. There were several highlights this week – first of all a scarab from the floor of a small, not yet completely excavated room in SAV1 East. Of course this find came up just after our registrars Meg and Ken finished a blog post about their activities! We’ll share this highlight in another post very soon.

Very good news from SAV1 East: more remains of mud brick walls in situ were unearthed – in combination with lots of schist plates and plaster: evidence of destroyed pavements.

R0120678aPottery and stone tools were especially numerous from SAV1 West – more blue painted sherds were found, a number of fire dogs including a very unusual one without a “nose”, and lots of beer jars, dishes/plates and pot stands. The stone tools included very nice palettes, grinders and small dishes with yellow and red pigments. They seem to fall into the category of Egyptian type cosmetic instruments well attested at New Kingdom sites. Together with some painter’s pots this all fits very well to last year’s results and attests to some sort of production and use of pigments during the 18th Dynasty.

At SAV1 East, the upcoming week will focus on the clearance of the already visible 18th Dynasty buildings. At SAV1 West, strong layers of debris still need to be removed and are hopefully hiding some in situ-remains of the New Kingdom.

The new square 1SE enlarges our excavation area substantially.

The new square 1SE enlarges our excavation area at SAV1 West substantially.

A Day in the Life of AcrossBorders Registrars

Object registration for the AcrossBorders Project is performed by Meg Gundlach and Ken Griffin, who return to Sai Island for their second season. Meg Gundlach is a post-doctoral researcher for the AcrossBorders Project while Ken Griffin, a Lecturer in Egyptology at Swansea University, is here as an external expert. This blog post is an account of their daily activities on Sai.

Our day starts with a 6.30am alarm. The last few mornings on Sai have been rather chilly so it’s out of bed and dressed as quickly as possible! Work officially starts at 7.00am, but beforehand we have a small breakfast and a drink, then make our way to the storage magazine. The first task of the day is to register objects that have been left for us by Julia. These are usually objects found during pottery sorting from the previous afternoon, such as re-used pot sherds (lids, scrapers, tokens, gaming pieces, and sometimes figurines). One of the highlights for us this season was a beautifully painted figurine of a horse (SAV1E 2675), dating to the Christian era, of which only the head survives (fig. 1).

fig. 1

fig. 1

Objects are registered in a FileMaker database, which now consists of an impressive 4300 objects. The most common type of object is stone tools, which make up over half the database: pounders, hammers, grindstones, handmills, and whetstones.

Around 8.30am we relocate from the magazine to the office, in order to spend the next two hours undertaking photography. The objects that have been registered in the past 24 hours are photographed first. This season we have also been photographing objects from the 2013 and 2014 excavation season that were not previously done. Today we had two boxes of whetstones, which are perhaps the most frustrating objects to photograph because they are usually friable sandstone, thus continuously leaving grains of sand on the backdrop.

Our main breakfast takes place between 10.30–11.00am, following which we return to the magazine to continue our work. The next two hours are spent sorting photographs. Photos from today (usually around 350 images) are renamed, rotated, cropped, and straightened by Ken. Next, a set of low-resolution thumbnails are produced for each image, which can be inserted into the FileMaker database without making the file-size too large. The images are sorted into folders by Meg, who also inserts the thumbnails into the database and clickable links to high-resolution images of the objects. With our photo duties complete, we undertake any number of tasks outstanding before lunch at 3.00pm. This often includes more object registration, washing of some re-used sherds, and inventorying boxes of objects.

Our lunch break finishes at 4.00pm and it’s back to the magazine for the final two hours of work. With the excavation work completed for the day, we are greeted by new finds! Meg sorts and records the non-registered material, such as bones (both human and animal), charcoal, organic material, shell, and wood. Ken, on the other hand, starts registering of the other objects into the database. This season we had a number of nice objects to register, including a finely produced faience earring (SAV1E 2729), of which only half survives (fig. 2).

fig. 2

fig. 2

We have had several new fragments of New Kingdom Nun-bowls, which were studied last season by Sabine Tschorn, including one that preserves part of the pool in the centre (SAV1W 1544 fig. 3).

fig. 3

fig. 3

Most recently, a model boat (SAV1W 1574) was discovered in the Western part of the town (fig. 4). Crudely modelled in clay, the boat was painted white, and closely resembles the papyrus skiffs commonly depicted in Egyptian tomb paintings.

fig. 4

fig. 4

Over the past week we have been joined in the magazine by our Sudanese inspector, Huda Magzoub, who has volunteered to Munsell the stone tools. For this, we are extremely grateful (fig. 5)!

fig. 5

fig. 5

With work finished, it’s time for a shower and some rest before dinner is served at 8.00pm. Now for some sleep to recharge the batteries for the following day’s work!

New insights at the end of week 2

The second week of fieldwork in the Pharaonic town of Sai, in sectors SAV1 East and SAV1 West, went really well. Yesterday, remains of a large mudbrick wall with parts of a schist pavement left in situ were discovered at SAV1 East. Apart from this find in Square 4C, work focus on Square 4B – and was quite successful. Although the layers of mixed debris and sandy pits on top of the New Kingdom structures are again massive, a minimum of three, possible four sections of walls were found. Together with the wall of the schist-covered room, all of this is very promising – it seems as if a lot will be added at the end of this season to the town plan of Sai around the sandstone Temple A and Building A!

North-western corner of Square 4B with remains of new mudbrick walls between layers of debris.

North-western corner of Square 4B with remains of new mudbrick walls between layers of debris.

Regarding pottery, the mixed layers hold a large percentage of early-mid 18th Dynasty ceramics – mostly beer jars and bread moulds. Like proposed in earlier seasons, possibly an indication that the area we are currently excavating was functionally attached to the temple and its cult.

AT SAV1 West, Martin Fera and Klara Sauter made very good progress documenting substantial debris and large sandy pits cutting into the New Kingdom levels. We are still busy with Post-Pharaonic layers, but the New Kingdom material found in these mixed contexts is very well preserved and of great interest. Exactly like in the last years, there is a striking high amount of painted wares. The highlight of this week is definitely a fragment of a nice Egyptian Blue Painted marl clay vessel.

2016-01-13 12.10.19_resized-1Work in the lab was of course also continued – this week, Meg Gundlach and Ken Griffin got some help from Huda Magzoub, especially in checking the Munsell codes of objects.

Thanks to our enthusiastic Sudanese trainee from NCAM, Roa Abdelaziz, also some work on ceramics from tomb 26 was conducted. Roa and I are currently puzzling with material from the uppermost debris found in the burial chamber and the lowermost shaft filling. This includes a number of Pre-Napatan and Napatan storage vessels.

All in all, I am more than satisfied with the progress and results of the first two weeks! Many thanks to all AcrossBorders team members and especially to the gang of local workmen headed by Hassan Dawd – great job so far!

Finally: a schist floor found in situ at SAV1 East

Sometimes the greatest finds just come up 30 min before the end of a day… Our week 2 just ended perfectly: finally, after two years of documenting large fragments of schist with plaster at SAV1 East – obviously dismantled pavements of rooms – we located in situ remains of a substantial mud brick wall with abutting plaster and schist!

In the southwestern corner of Square 4C, a large sandstone block caught our attention. It was dumped between mud brick debris; a faded line of brick was soon visible a bit further to the east. Cleaning these bricks today, I realized that they are the last remains of a large wall, running almost north-south, thus with a similar alignment as Building A.

Still attached to the small section of this wall, there is a large plate of schist and lots of plaster. There was no time today to properly clean the area, but the sandstone block is definitely also sitting on this schist pavement!

IMG_7038Of course it is still too early to speculate about the shape, size and function of this room – but the new elaborate schist floor finds its best parallel in the large magazines in the southern part of the New Kingdom town. Very exciting and looking much forward to the upcoming week of fieldwork!

First results of week 1

We just finished our first field in the field, working on the New Kingdom remains on Sai Island. Unfortunately, our schedule had to be slightly modified – on arrival we found out that tomb 26 was looted back in early summer 2015… So the first unexpected task was of course to document its present state, document the effects of the plundering and clean up the recent debris.

With some delay because of this unfortunate development at cemetery SAC5, we started work as planned in the New Kingdom town. New squares were opened in both sectors currently investigated by AcrossBorders, SAV1 East and SAV1 West.

At SAV1 West, the new extension lies in the south-eastern corner – we are hoping for more mud brick structures contemporaneous to the enclosure wall and located at the inner side of the town. The present findings closely resemble the results from 2015: much material of mid to late 18th Dynasty date was re-deposited in antiquity and now lies on the surface of the area. Large areas of mud brick debris are promising and might cover some structures below.

IMG_6584At SAV1 East, we extended the squares towards the west in the southwestern corner of the area. One of the aims is to assess the east-west extension of Building A; another is to clarify whether a north-south street existed in this part of the town (as it was documented further south by M. Azim).

IMG_6739aThere are no surprises so far at SAV1 East – thick layers of mixed material comprising 18th Dynasty, Ramesside, Post-Meroitic, Medieval and Ottoman finds are covering scarce remains of the New Kingdom. Possibly, we have already located another “negative wall”.

Contemporaneously with the excavations, processing of the pottery is conducted directly at the site in newly set-up sherd yards. The amounts from both sectors are very large – 135 baskets of sherds were processed in the first days from SAV1 East, 100 from SAV1 West.

Stone tools and all other categories of finds are registered by Meg Gundlach and Ken Griffin in the digging house. There are already a number of new fragments of firedogs, net weights, female and animal figurines and of course plenty of grindstones, hammers and pounders.

All in all, week 1 suggests a promising 2016 field season, confirming results from previous seasons, but also enabling us to draw further conclusions.