Assessing Nubian Fabrics of the New Kingdom

Posted on February 19, 2013 by Julia Budka

This week we have the pleasure to introduce a new team member who has just joint us in the lab: Giulia d’Ercole has recently received her PhD in Prehistorian Archaeology at the Sapienza Università di Roma. She has worked on manufacture techniques of Nubian ceramic traditions in the 6^th-3^rd Millennia BC, focusing on Khartoum variant, Abkan and Pre-Kerma material and taking Sai Island as a sample site. Giulia will soon become a member of the core team of AcrossBorders in Vienna, extending her research into the New Kingdom, conducting in particular petrographical, mineralogical and chemical analysis of the ceramics. I am very happy that she made it to Sai island prior to her appointment!

She is currently assessing the Nubian ceramics of the New Kingdom, both from SAV1E, the new excavation site of 2013 and from SAV1N, the area to the north within the Pharaonic village, excavated in the last 5 years. Trying to establish main groupings for the fabrics and wares, it is already striking that some vessels show a close similarity to the Prehistorian wares, whereas others are distinctly different. Giulia’s first evaluation thus raises a lot of interesting questions and shows the rich potential of her line of research!

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.

Evaluating the Northeast corner of Building A

Posted on February 13, 2013 by Julia Budka

Approaching the end of our fieldwork, we are currently focusing on measuring and mapping the excavated northern part of Building A. As stated earlier, on its eastern side and here at its north-eastern corner, the northern wall running East-West continues towards the Nile.

We have by now removed part of the debris covering this area, comprising of decayed mud bricks, mud mixed with plant remains and very diverse pot sherds, mostly of the Christian and Ottoman period. The complete thickness of the wall is visible, with several bricks still in place, confirming our negative evidence of the robbed wall trench further to the West. At least two layers are preserved and a third layer is partly recognisable. Cleaning of the Northeast corner is time-consuming and not yet finished – assessing the Northeast corner of Building A is thus still on-going and will continue tomorrow.

From Field Drawings towards Digital Files

Posted on February 12, 2013 by Julia Budka

In the sixth week of fieldwork, Joerdis and Sebastian started to digitalize our plans and scale drawings from SAV1E.

More than 30 drawings have been scanned already – as yet these comprise level plane drawings on scale paper (in scale 1:50) as well as detailed drawings from important features like the storage bin 14 or the basket in Square 2b (in scale 1:10 respectively 1:5). In the upcoming week we will document the relevant vertical sections of the squares in scale 1:20. All drawings are made in pencil and coloured according to a site specific system. Most important are of course the outline of structures and walls, the general alignments of bricks and other features at SAV1E. Especially in view of our challenging state of preservation of New Kingdom levels and structures we pay much attention to all details and try to work as meticulously as possible. This will allow us to establish a detailed plan of our site and excavation area – and here we will of course also include our measurements with the total station and CAD files.

Washing & drawing pot sherds

Posted on February 10, 2013 by Julia Budka

Simultaneously with our fieldwork, processing of finds continues in the courtyard and the magazine of the dig house. The present focus is on the New Kingdom material coming from SAV1E, especially the pottery associated with Building A. The sherds arrive from the field at the house in baskets, arranged according to their archaeological context (square, level and location). The contents of each basket are separated in a first step into the Pharaonic and Post-Pharaonic material.

Diagnostic pieces are selected for further documentation (drawing and photographing), but prior to this they have to be washed and cleaned.

Our pottery team around Nicole and Vicky was strengthened today by Mohammed and Shazeli as the amounts of sherds to be documented have increased considerably in the last weeks. The pottery will keep us busy in the next weeks!

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.

The Architectural Survey

Posted on February 4, 2013 by Ingrid Adenstedt

Apart from the newly excavated area, one focus of this year’s campaign lies in the reexamination of the southern part of the town which was uncovered in the 1970ies by M. Azim. In this area, the remaining walls are in parts preserved up to 2-2.5 m.

The original layout of the New Kingdom settlement can be traced very well here: inside a massive fortification wall with the main entrance gate situated on the western side and facing a temple (Temple A), the streets and houses are laid out in a grid-like pattern with distinctive quarters for the administrative buildings, residential houses and storage rooms.

Overview of the residential quarter of the New Kingdom town

The task of this year’s three week long architectural survey of the area is to take a closer look at the remains and to reassess the results and observations made in the 1970ies. In the first week, the work focused on the storage area. While in the northern and southern part longitudinal storage rooms were built over the remains of round silos, the central part of this town quarter presents itself as more complex: here, at least four building phases can be detected, considerably changing the original layout of this storage area. In the last phase, housing units were possibly built into the former storage rooms.

Remains of a storage silo

New Kingdom door post reused as a threshold

The method of work as of now is to make detailed sketches and to take measurements in order to enhance the city plan made in the 1970ies. This and the compilation of a catalogue of each room shall serve as a basis for further research. In the remaining two weeks of the survey, the focus of the work will shift to the residential quarters. A closer look shall also be taken on the various building techniques applied in the different areas of the town.

Excavating Pit 6 in Square 1

Posted on February 3, 2013 by Julia Budka

Excavations 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.

Feature 6 is much larger than e.g. pit 17 in Square 2. Its filling consisted so far only of clean sand containing 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.

AcrossBorders

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

Category Archives: New Kingdom