Pottery from the Foundation trench of Building A

Posted on March 5, 2013 by Julia Budka

Processing of the pottery from SAV1E comes towards a closing – still not to an end, as the finds have been far too numerous and will also keep us busy at home and for next season. However, the most important data are already collected allowing some first observations.

Among the most important pottery vessels of the 2013-season are for sure the two rim sherds recovered from the foundation trench of the northern wall of Building A.

P57 in its original find position: the foundation trench of wall 31.

Especially relevant is the fragment of a decorated Marl clay vessel. P57 is made in a so called Marl A4 according to the Vienna System. Its mouth diameter measures 10.6 cm and 48 % of the rim of this nice jar thrown on the pottery wheel are preserved. An irregular band in dark brown is painted along the top part of the rounded lip; the beginning of a slightly flaring neck is partly preserved.

Such vessels are known from various contexts in Egypt from the Thutmoside era onwards (mid-late 18^th Dynasty) – our example seems to be Thutmose III in date (or slightly later, maybe Amenhotep II). Its find position within the otherwise undisturbed section of the foundation trench of wall 31 is therefore very important and gives us a good dating indication for Building A!

P57 was documented by a detailed drawing in scale 1:1 and by digital photographs.

A bit of cleaning and more

Posted on February 25, 2013 by Julia Budka

Intrigued by the statistical analysis of the ceramics from Square 2b, the southern extension of SAV1E, with its high percentage of early to mid 18^th Dynasty pottery, I decided today to devote some more time to this area.

Overview of part of Square 2b, looking towards North-West showing feature 27 and its surroundings

A bit of cleaning around feature 27 (which yielded the Post-Pharaonic basket) was conducted and of the relevant ceramics 74 % are again 18^th Dynasty in date, only 26 % are post-dating the New Kingdom. However, this is a small assemblage of 114 sherds in total with only 12 diagnostic pieces of the 18th Dynasty. Fine-processing of the ceramics is on-going and I am very positive that more bits and pieces of New Kingdom activities at SAV1E will be soon traceable!

The foundations of walls of Building A

Posted on February 24, 2013 by Julia Budka

Today, apart from documenting ceramics in the lab and some mapping in the field, we focused on the North-eastern corner of Building A. As reported, we have a Northern wall running almost East-West, extending beyond the eastern wall towards the Nile. Unfortunately the corner between these two walls is heavily disturbed by a later pit, probably dug in Medieval or Ottoman times. Most of the bricks are lost or broken off; only a few have remained in place. Some of the mud plaster has survived as well – between bricks, but also with negative impressions of now lost mud bricks – thus allowing us to reconstruct part of the masonry. All in all, we are therefore able to trace the alignment of the wall. The northern wall is only 75 cm wide, whereas the eastern wall is more solid with a thickness of 106 cm, thus fitting nicely to a measurement of two Egyptian cubits.

To check the alignment and the junction between the walls, we partly exposed the foundation trench of the northern wall. It is well visible both from above and in the section – on both sides of the wall a quite narrow pit, filled with loose gravels and some large mud bricks. Very unexpectedly, two diagnostic pottery sherds were found in this otherwise findless foundation: both seem to give a very good dating indication for Building A at last! At the first glance, both are mid 18^th Dynasty in date and a painted rim sherd, shown here in its original find location south of wall 30, will be very indicative as it can most probably be tied down to Thutmose III or Amenhotep II.

Thus, a dating of our major New Kingdom structure at SAV1E to the reign of Thutmose III becomes more and more likely, confirming our thoughts about the development of the Pharaonic Town of Sai so far!

Some data from the on-going ceramic analysis

Posted on February 17, 2013 by Julia Budka

Simultaneously with the 2013 excavation in SAV1E, the East sector within the Pharaonic town of Sai Island, the processing of the ceramic material was being carried out and will continue in the next weeks. Especially the New Kingdom material still has to be recorded in detail, with entries in the database and by drawings. But some basic characteristics of the material can already be outlined as follows: 279 find numbers of sherds (counting between just a few sherds and 10 baskets full of fragments) were sorted and processed – a total of 29.178 pieces comprised 16.972 sherds of Post-New Kingdom origin (58 %), mostly of Post-Meroitic, Medieval and Ottoman date. This large percentage of Post-Pharaonic material is changing from one square to another: following the sloping landscape of SAV1E, the shallow deposits in Square 1a to the North are mostly Post-Pharaonic, whereas the material from the deep depression south of Building A, especially in Square 2b to the South contained 60 % of 18th Dynasty ceramics!

Overview of part of SAV1E with labels of squares; note the slope towards the South and East

The general distribution of the ceramics within SAV1E can be illustrated as:
Square 1a (10 x 2 m)   22 %
Square 1 (10 x 10 m)   27 %
Square 2 (10 x 10 m)   10 %
Square 2a (2.5 x 6 m)   8 %
Square 2b (10 x 2 m)   33 %

The squares with the least preserved features – square 2, and here especially its northern part, and square 2a – are together just responsible for 18 % of the material, whereas the small square 2b (10 x 2 m) yielded 33 % of the material. Although the material retrieved from this square 2b was mixed until the lowest level excavated so far, it comprised a total of 5.786 New Kingdom sherds, counting up to 60 % of the pottery from the square and to 47 % of all of the New Kingdom material from SAV1E!

Overview of Southern part of SAV1E, showing square 2b during the course of excavating dense dump deposits

I would like to associate this fact with the nature of the archaeological deposit in square 2b as massive dump layer comprising obviously rubbish from both Building A as well as from the adjacent area to the South, just north of temple A. This zone north of Temple A yielded interesting mud brick features, recently published by M. Azim in CRIPEL 29, and obviously datable to the very early history of New Kingdom activity on Sai Island.

Summing up, the percentage of New Kingdom material increases towards the South of SAV1E, closer to Temple A and decreases towards the North (Square 1a and Square 1). Except for a small number of Ramesside sherds, all of the New Kingdom pottery from SAV1E can be dated to the early to mid 18th Dynasty. Further analysis will focus on the question whether there is any functional difference within this New Kingdom corpus according to find positions – be it in respect to shapes and forms or to wares and fabrics.

Organic material at SAV1E

Posted on February 9, 2013 by Julia Budka

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.

In 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 Post-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 18^th 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

Posted on February 8, 2013 by Julia Budka

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.

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 18^th Dynasty.

Brushing bricks of Building A

Posted on February 5, 2013 by Julia Budka

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.Most 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 18^th Dynasty pottery is associated with this section of mud bricks, again primarily comprising of bread moulds and beer jars.

Together 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.

Processing Finds from SAV1E

Posted on February 1, 2013 by Julia Budka

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 18^th Dynasty in date (4375 pieces).

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.

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.

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.

Evidence for Fishing at SAV1E?

Posted on January 29, 2013 by Julia Budka

Fieldwork continued mainly in the northern part of SAV1E. We 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 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 18^th 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.

More about Feature 15

Posted on January 28, 2013 by Julia Budka

Feature 15 is the mud brick structure located just in the north-western corner of Square 2, thus within the limits of Building A. To clarify both its size and date/function, we extended our excavation limit and removed the baulk just north of 15.

A lot of broken mud brick, pottery and sandy filling came to light, matching the results from the southern part and providing new information. Work is still not finished, but today we found the Northeast corner of feature 15! Its eastern wall measures 2.15 m and is lined in the interior with red burnt bricks – the first outline is visible on the photo, together with a lot of collapsed brick material which we did not yet cleared.

Between the debris of bricks, there are quite a lot of pottery sherds. These ceramics from the filling of feature 15 are mixed material – approximately half of it is 18^th Dynasty in date, the other half originates from Medieval times. The western limit of feature 15 is still not excavated, being located to the west of Square 2.

It is still too early to propose a date for feature 15 – hopefully finishing its excavation in the next days will also illuminate date and function.

AcrossBorders

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

Category Archives: 18th Dynasty