Category Archives: Upper Nubia

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.

Visit to Sesebi

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On our day off (Friday), we managed to realise a trip to Sesebi. Sesebi is like Sai one of the important Egyptian sites of the New Kingdom in Upper Nubia and currently under excavation by the joint expedition of the University of Cambridge and the Austrian Archaeological Institute Cairo, directed by Kate Spence and Pamela Rose.

IMG_0516We very much appreciated the warm welcome by Pamela Rose and her splendid tour through the site! Congratulations to the results of this season, really excellent work! It’s wonderful to exchange so closely with other colleagues and to connect our own research with comparable investigations at other sites.

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Broken Nubian Vessels at SAV1E

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Sometimes archaeologists just need luck – and lucky we were today: at the very edge of our gravel deposit in Square 2, just next to the newly discovered feature 18, a small pile of pot sherds was found.

Nubian sherds feature 18

Interestingly, they belong mostly to a large Nubian storage vessel – which we started to reconstruct in the afternoon as soon as the sherds have been cleaned.

progress fixing sherdsThere was also Nubian fine ware of the Kerma culture present, together with small fragments of Egyptian beer jars and dishes. All in all, the recent evidence from SAV1E confirms the appearance of both Nubian and Egyptian wares in the early occupation phases of the New Kingdom. It compares perfectly with our findings in SAV1N.

That Sai Island was an important northern stronghold of the Kerma Kingdom is already well known, but the detailed relations between the indigenous inhabitants and the Egyptians at the beginning of the 18th Dynasty is still poorly understood. With finds like ours today, we are making small steps forward in assessing what seems to have been a complex coexistence of cultures with a lot of interactions.

Prospects at SAV1E

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Continuing excavation in both Squares, SAV1E has changed quite a bit in appearance.

P1060386The eastern wall of Building A is very clearly visible, but the southern wall is heavily disturbed. Between the mostly collapsed bricks there was not only 18th Dynasty pottery, but also quite a lot of sherds originating from Medieval times. It is clear that we have already reached the final layer of mud bricks from Building A – although we are able to reconstruct its outline, the architecture is mostly lost due to later destruction work.

But work will of course continue in the next weeks: In particular two mud brick structures (feature 13 in Square 1 and feature 15 in Square 2) are promising, as we still have not yet their complete outlines – both are extending beyond the limits of the squares. Especially feature 15 in the Northwestern corner of Square 2 with a lot of collapsed bricks in its western part is interesting – we will have to remove the baulk between our two squares in order to understand it better.

feature 15Its filling material comprises mixed material – predominating is again the 18th Dynasty, but there is also a large percentage of Post-New Kingdom ceramics. We still don’t know whether structure 15 belongs to Building A or is a later installation.

Pots in Our Hands!

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After finishing the detailed drawing of storage bin 14, we finally could move the in situ pots! We managed to recover the complete beaker in one piece – a great moment of joy for DSC_1849the ceramicist!

The smaller red burnished vessel was broken and fell into some pieces, which we will be able to fix together, reconstructing the jar.

Having the pots in our hands, and being able to analyse them closely, I can now also confirm their presumed dating: both are early 18th Dynasty, pre-dating Thutmose III and thus early than the nearby Temple A.

Therefore it is safe to assume that feature 14 belongs to an early occupation phase of SAV1E during the very beginning of the New Kingdom – just on the arrival of the Egyptians on Sai Island!

In situ Pots in Square 2 – an Update

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Today, we cleaned the small bin in Square 2 and christened it “Feature 14“. We now have the complete outline of the feature and will document it with a detailed drawing tomorrow – this will complement our photographic documentation.

This is why we kept the Documenting Feature 14ceramics found inside still in place – and great news here: exactly as we hoped, there was another intact vessel in the Northwest corner of the bin, just next to the one we saw last week! Both pots clearly date to the early 18th Dynasty and are set on debris which filled the bin. Other fragments of sherds of the early New Kingdom were discovered in the filling material during cleaning – nothing later, so it really is an undisturbed context! In the eastern part of feature 14, a pottery dish was smashed by collapsed mud bricks and is still only partly visible.

Feature 14 status 1901

New Features in Square 2

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Mapping our wall and other features in Square 1, we christened the partly exposed major building at SAV1E “Building A”. Today, we discovered a new rectangular structure lined by mud bricks, just in the Northwest corner of Square 2 and thus still within “Building A”.

DSC_1025 scmallThe photo shows the first outline of feature 15 early this morning. In the geophysical survey of 2011, a sub rectangular anomaly was visible at exactly this location. Similar to the circular pits in Square 1, the new feature is filled with soft sandy material – maybe it is some kind of installation for storage. Associated ceramics are again mostly early-mid 18th Dynasty in date.

 

Mud Brick Architecture at SAV1E

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As work progressed in Squares 1 and 2, we can now happily confirm that we have a mud brick structure of considerable size at SAV1E – its North-South extension is more than 15 m and we calculate c. 12 m for its East-West side. Both, size and orientation match perfectly a structure visible on a geophysical survey conducted in 2011.

WORK at the eastern wall

Cleaning the remains of the mud brick wall in Square 1.

As yet, we have unearthed only parts of its eastern and southern wall – although most of the eastern wall is now a negative impression filled with very soft sandy material, there are sections with bricks still in place, giving the width of the wall.

Section of the eastern wall of large mud brick structure at SAV1E. Note the circular depression west of the wall – they also showed up at the geophysical survey’s map and are possibly storage pits?

Section of the eastern wall of large mud brick structure at SAV1E. Note the circular depressions west of the wall – they also showed up at the geophysical survey’s map (and are possibly storage pits?)

Because of the large amount of New Kingdom ceramics associated with the remains, we remain confident that it dates to the 18th Dynasty. Details of the architecture, stratigraphy and possibly functional use will be clarified in the course of upcoming fieldwork!

From House Hold to Drawing Sheets

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From working at several archaeological sites in Egyptian Delta and Nile valley up to the First Nile cataract and acquaintance with various types of ceramics, it can be said that the pottery collection coming from SAV1 North in Sai Island offers a significant opportunity to study a great diversity of both Egyptian and Nubian pottery. These are diverse in fabrics, manufacture techniques and shapes. Such a variety is evidence of a multi-cultural society that has lived on Sai around ca. 1400 BC.

During the first ten days of the 2013 mission, pottery drawings achieved have covered a good amount of these various ceramics mainly including the essential elements of house hold such as storage vessels, dishes, bowls and cooking pots.

Fatma KeshkThe Nubian ceramics, containing a good majority of cooking pots decorated with impressions from rectangular or circular basketry, recall the Nubian pottery found on Elephantine Island during the early New Kingdom in shapes, decorations and handmade techniques. Other vessels like dishes, flower pots and incense burner are typical of Egyptian 18th Dynasty style.

Drawing both Nubian and Egyptian pottery simultaneously allows a worthy chance of comparison. The pursuit of ceramics documentation throughout this season can indeed expose other interesting details that are crucial to the study of the whole pottery corpus in Sai.

Beyond the New Kingdom

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Simultaneously with the ongoing excavation in SAV1E, processing and recording of ceramics and small finds are carried out in the digging house. Besides the corpus of New Kingdom wares comparable to SAV1N, a large number of sherds attest to the Post-New Kingdom activity on Sai Island. P001

Among them there are also many decorated fragments and the one illustrated here was today’s highlight! It is well known that there was a Meroitic, Post-Meroitic, Christian and Ottoman occupation of the site.