Category Archives: Archaeology

Organic material at SAV1E

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Within the Southern baulk of Square 2 we discovered already 2 weeks ago organic remains below collapsed mud bricks, most likely some kind of mat or basketry. The extension towards the South allowed us now to check this interesting find of well-preserved organic material at SAV1E properly: we did not yet clean it completely as it was a very windy day today, but its outline and an oval shape is already visible, still partly covered by mud brick debris, pot sherds, sandy filling material comprising a stone and a bone fragment. We will make a detailed drawing and then uncover it completely.

IMG_0182In Egyptian towns like Sai Island, one sometimes finds organic material in good state of preservation – especially due to the very arid climate in both Egypt and Sudan. Basketry is quite well known from Pharaonic settlement sites like Amarna. At the first glance, the basket at SAV1E seems to me rather late in date, especially since it was covered by a thick dump layer of mixed material, including in particular PIMG_0333ost-New Kingdom pottery. However, its find spot is just to the south of the storage bin 14, safely dated to the early New Kingdom. It is also more or less on the same level – and one early 18th Dynasty dish sticks already out from below the basket (visible to the lower right corner on the first picture above). Further work will hopefully provide proper dating indications.

 

Some Answers & New Questions at SAV1E

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Northeast corner of Building A, looking towards the South

After five weeks of fieldwork, we are happy to confirm the extension of our Eastern wall of Building A: just as it was visible on the geophysical survey map, we located the Northern end of this wall and its Northeast corner in our extension to Square 1. The distance from this corner to its Southern counterpart is a little less than 16 meters. Similar as in the Southern part, we were only able to trace the final layer of bricks in fragments, most of the Northern wall running East-West is now just a negative, filled with sand and some debris.As encouraging as these results are, they are of course also raising new questions: (1) the Northern wall seems to continue towards the East – at least 3 bricks are perfectly in line and still in place, situated to the East of the Eastern wall; more bricks are visible further to the East, still covered by a thick layer of mud. Probably the wall was thus running further towards the Nile. (2) A nice mud floor covers the area just north of the newly located Northern wall of Building A and seems to be associated with it.

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View of the Northern wall of Building A, featuring an extension towards the East (looking Southeast)

All in all, Building A seems to be more complex as originally thought. We probably have one large courtyard with the substantial walls we labelled so far as Eastern, Southern and Northern walls, comprising the storage pits mentioned earlier like pit 6. Towards the west, there might have been at least one North-South divider after roughly 5 meters, of which we have only a few bricks left.

We will focus in the upcoming week on this still puzzling Northern area of our main structure at SAV1E which we can firmly date to the 18th Dynasty.IMG_0080

More Bricks at SAV1E

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Work focused at the end of week 5 on the southern extension of Square 2. The surface in this area was scattered with numerous pot sherds and a lot of stone fDSC_4573ragments. Among the main reasons for extending the limits of our square was feature 20 in the south-western corner of Square 2: two mud bricks in line, obviously continuing towards the South. The alignment is similar to feature 18 and we wanted to get more information about its preserved size and if possible some stratigraphic information.

Within the southern extension we uncovered another two, fragmented bricks belonging to feature 20. On both sides of it several stone fragments came up and especially the southern end of the structure is heavily disturbed respectively lost. feature 20

All in all, the area is characterised by broken bricks, pottery sherds of mixed date and a lot of stone chips and gravels. It looks as if the natural grounds slopes towards the South and we found a large dump deposit, filling a natural depression to the South of SAV1E. Work will continue here in the upcoming week.

 

Brushing bricks of Building A

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The little of what is left from the eastern wall of Building A required very careful cleaning, especially in its highly damaged South-eastern corner. Situated on a sloping area, we worked today in the eastern extension of Square 2 and were able to make the general outline of the wall visible.DSC_4347Most of the bricks on a gravel deposit are almost faded and the material is generally very fragile – having been disturbed in ancient and medieval times. Nevertheless, a lot of 18th Dynasty pottery is associated with this section of mud bricks, again primarily comprising of bread moulds and beer jars.

Square 2a 0502Together with some bricks still in place in the northern extension to Square 1 (= the North-eastern corner), we will be able to measure the North-South extension of Building A exactly. Detailed mapping will continue tomorrow, for now a length of roughly 16 meters confirms the plan visible on the geophysical survey map from 2011.

Excavating Pit 6 in Square 1

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IMG_2119Excavations at SAV1E have reached a state where we spend most of our time clarifying small details and cleaning specific areas and features.

Simultaneously with work in both, the northern and southern extensions of our squares in SAV1E, we started today excavating pit 6 in Square 1. Similar to the circular pit 5, it is located just west of the eastern wall of Building A. IMG_2056

Feature 6 is much larger than e.g. pit 17 in Square 2. Its filling consisted so far only of clean sand containinDSC_4067g very few pottery sherds. But going deeper today, we found a lot of mud brick debris in its southern part, two stone tools made in quartz (hammer stones) between the collapsed bricks as well as a small amount of pottery (comprising both early 18th Dynasty and Post-New Kingdom material).

We still haven’t reached its base, so its size and especially the depth remains uncertain. It was cut into the pebble surface also used for setting the walls of Building A and is most likely contemporaneous to our main structure at SAV1E.

Feature 15 again…

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Work focused today primarily on feature 15. We removed most of the mud brick debris, obviously collapsed into the structure from its eastern wall.

DSC_3980Cleaning is still not finished, but the outline of the exposes eastern half of the building has become clearer: not only on the eastern side, but also in the North and South, the bricks are lined at the interior with red bricks. feature 15 02 feb

Although the ones which appeared in the South-western corner might have been secondary burnt, attesting firing activities within feature 15, the better preserved ones at both the Eastern and Northern side appear completely fired. This would definitely suggest a Post-New Kingdom date which is also probable from the finds so far – the filling material comprises a lot of 18th Dynasty ceramics, but also Post-Meroitic and especially Medieval material. Some Christian sherds were found among and also below the collapsed bricks.

As far as a functional interpretation is concerned, it is notable that we discovered some charcoal and ashy sand in the western area. The current hypothesis is therefore that feature 15 represents some kind of installation for cooking and/or a firing place – probably set into Building A at a later time, after the New Kingdom.

Processing Finds from SAV1E

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While there was no fieldwork today, we used this Friday to continue the processing of finds and ceramics. After 4 weeks at SAV1E, a total amount of 12 176 pottery sherds have been analysed – from the total 36 % are 18th Dynasty in date (4375 pieces). SAV1E-P18

Bread moulds, beer jars, dishes and plates are the most common types. The beer jars (cf. picture to the right) are especially numerous and seem to have been made in a local Nile clay variant.

Some of the small dishes found at SAV1E show a nice splash decoration with red paint inside like the rim sherd illustrated here – this pattern is well known from Egypt and predominantly originates from the reign of Thutmose III. SAV1E-P20.9-04 in

 

Small finds and objects are still rather rare at SAV1E – as reported, we have a number of reused sherds, a clay weight, pounders and other stone tools, especially grinding stones. Some of the latter were found directly in the sandy remains filling the negative outline of the outer walls of Building A. SAV1E-120-01

In the north-eastern corner of Square 2, we discovered from the lowest level of bricks a small fayence ring bead, probably of New Kingdom date.

All in all, we have traces of grinding, bread making, possibly fishing and storage facilities at SAV1E – typical domestic activities in Egyptian towns, of which some are also commonly associated with temples and cultic activities. With two more weeks of fieldwork in our excavation area, we attempt contextualising SAV1E and its architectural and material remains further.

 

Circular pits within Building A

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As reported some weeks ago, we have several circular pits just west of the eastern wall of Building A. There are two of them in Square 1, the northern of which still featured some collapsed mud bricks at one side. Today we extended work on the third one in Square 2, more or less in line with the two others in Square 1. We still have not reached its bottom, but interestingly, removing the northern baulk of Square 2, we found a lot of mud brick debris at its eastern side.

IMG_1598 smallAs we have experienced with the external walls of Building A themselves, the sandy filling is really a kind of negative impression of former brick work which was completely dismantled. Are our circular features therefore former silos, originally lined with bricks? Or something else, maybe ovens? We are still uncertain about them, at least they seem to be contemporaneous to Building A; excavation in the upcoming week will hopefully answer some of our questions.

Team work

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Approaching the end of week 4 in the field and thus almost mid-season, we will unfortunately also say goodbye to one of our team members very soon – much too soon as all of us think!

I use this opportunity to say a heartfelt “Thank you!” to all team members, but especially to our house staff – their daily efforts and perfect service covering millions of small but important things enables us to simply focus on scientific aspects and our research, and to enjoy our stay on Sai Island as much as possible! Looking forward to the second half of our 2013 field season!

Team 2013 small

Evidence for Fishing at SAV1E?

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Fieldwork continued mainly in the northern part of SAV1E. DSC_3262We were able to trace already first remains of the eastern wall of Building A which thus definitely continues towards the North.

At this very northern end of our excavation area, just below the surface, a small clay object with two perforations was found today. SAV1E 119 measures 5.8 cm in length and has a height of 2.3 cm. Such objects, resembling axe-heads in clay, have been found in quite large number and in varying sizes at SAV1N, in the northern part of the Pharaonic town of Sai Island. Close parallels from the Egyptian town at Elephantine allow us to interpret them as net weights for fishing (see von Pilgrim 1996). Although this identification remains tentative, it is from our point of view the most likely classification of such objects. However, they might have been used as weights for several purposes (see Giddy 1999 for objects from Memphis/Kom Rabia). SAV1E-119-09

SAV1E 119 is a rather small and thus light example of this type of weighing-down device. But all in all, SAV1E 119 adds to our assessment of the material culture in the Egyptian town on Sai Island – it falls into the category of objects well known from New Kingdom sites in Egypt and probably testifies fishing activity during the 18th Dynasty on Sai.

References:

Giddy 1999 = L. Giddy,The Survey of Memphis II. Kom Rabiaa: the New Kingdom and Post-New Kingdom Objects, EES Excavation Memoir 64, London 1999.

von Pilgrim 1996 = C. von Pilgrim, Elephantine XVIII. Untersuchungen in der Stadt des Mittleren Reiches und des Zweiten Zwischenzeit, AV 91, Mainz am Rhein 1996.