From Sai Island to the First Cataract with love

Posted on February 26, 2016 by Julia Budka

A perfect day is about to end – on our day off from work, we had an excellent trip to Soleb, Gebel Dosha and Sedeigna. These sites never fail to amaze me anew on each visit in the last years! Gebel Dosha with its great rock inscriptions and splendid view is definitely one of my favourite places in Upper Nubia. I was very pleased that also the newcomers of the team seemed to enjoy the wonderful setting!

Photo shooting at Gebel Dosha.

Re-visiting the site and its inscriptions today just fitted perfectly to one of the recent finds from our work at Sai, so far probably the highlight of the cemetery season: Earlier this week, a lovely steatite scarab was found in the burial chamber of tomb 26.

SAC5 279 (15 x 10 x 7 mm) is simply beautifully made. Its decorated side can be associated with one of the main themes of our project: AcrossBorders, working both at Sai Island in Sudan and Elephantine Island in Egypt, is focusing on all kinds of references and connections between the First Cataract area and the region of Sai. The scarab SAC5 279, like some inscriptions from Gebel Dosha we saw today, is referring to gods from the First Cataract region – in this case to the female deities of the triad of the First Cataract (Khnum, Satet and Anuket). On SAC5 279, Satet is sitting to the left, Anuket to the right – the goddesses are facing each other, with an ankh sign on the knee. A “mr” sign and the “aA”-hieroglyph flank the goddesses and I would translate the complete set as “much beloved by Satet and Anuket.”

The First Cataract triad was in general very popular in Lower Nubia, and in Upper Nubia as well – but in the case of rock inscriptions like at Gebel Dosha and scarabs like SAC5 279 from Sai one might very well speculate that the owners/producers had actual bonds with the area around Aswan and were “crossing borders” during their lifetime, referring to gods from their hometown in delicate moments.

The batteries are definitely recharged after this great Friday and we are all ready for week 9 and more fascinating finds with complex meanings!

A “killed” vessel and more human bodies in tomb 26

Posted on February 24, 2016 by Julia Budka

Work is progressing very well in tomb 26 this week. Martin Fera regularly documents our present state of work using a structure from motion application, saving us much time in producing highly accurate 3D surface models of the complete chamber as well as of detailed situations.

One of the interesting new finds in the burial chamber is that more complete vessels were partly unearthed in the southwestern chamber. I was especially delighted that one of them, when further cleaned today, shows clear signs of a “ritual killing”! An intentional perforation is visible on its junction of the neck to the body.

The vessel is a very nice tall-necked red-washed bottle and most Egyptologists will probably now think of the famous “Breaking of the Red Pots”. This Egyptian ritual is attested since the Old Kingdom (Pyramid Texts) and there has been the tendency to associate every ritual that involved the smashing of pottery vessels with the “Breaking of the Red Pots” (cf. Seiler 2005, 178; Budka 2014). Recently the awareness increased that pots with killing holes appear within Egyptian and also Nubian contexts over a very long time span and should be separated from the “Breaking of the Red Pots”. Like in other cultures, there are a number of different pot breaking rituals embedded in the funerary sphere in ancient Egypt and Sudan – they are especially common in the 2^nd and 1^st millennium BC and there is no universal interpretation for all of these broken or perforated vessels.

We have to be patient whether any clues why and when the vessel in tomb 26 was intentionally perforated come up during the course of exposing it and its context further – for now I would simply call it a killed pot, probably to render the vessel “useless”, but with the awareness that other explanations are possible.

Apart from our “killed” vessel, Marlies and Andrea are finding more and more fragments of new individuals while working on the fragile human remains. This rich and quite complex situation in the burial chamber of tomb 26 will keep us busy in the next weeks!

References

Budka 2014: Julia Budka, Egyptian impact on pot-breaking ceremonies at Kurru? A re-examination, in The Fourth Cataract and Beyond. Proceedings of the 12^th International Conference for Nubian Studies, ed. by Julie R. Anderson & Derek A. Welsby, British Museum Publications on Egypt and Sudan 1, Leuven 2014, 641–654.

Seiler 2005: Anne Seiler, Tradition & Wandel. Die Keramik als Spiegel der Kulturentwicklung in der Zweiten Zwischenzeit, Sonderschriften des Deutschen Archaologischen Instituts Abteilung Kairo 32, Mainz am Rhein 2005.

Summary of week 7 at Sai Island: focusing on tombs, ceramics & finds

Posted on February 19, 2016 by Julia Budka

Week 7 of AcrossBorders’ 2016 season has just ended – it was a very busy week – with the start of work in the cemetery, the arrival of a group of German students from Munich (all newcomers to Sai), our Austrian physical anthropologists (Marlies Wohlschlager and Andrea Stadlmayr) and the departure of our distinguished external experts Dietrich and Rosemarie Klemm (LINK). Today, two other team members, Sayantani Neogi and Sean Taylor have left Sai and are returning to Europe after a rich season of landscape archaeology with special assistance by THE sandstone experts from Munich…

Fieldwork focused in week 7 on cemetery SAC5 – and here both on tomb 26 and the neighboring area. A sector towards the south and southeast of tomb 26 was cleaned in order to check the existence of other shaft tombs – until now, unsuccessfully, but with plenty of pottery and bones attesting the use of the site as burial place during the 18th Dynasty, Ramesside times, Pre-Napatan and Napatan era.

First surface cleaning in SAC5 earlier this week.

In tomb 26, we started removing the uppermost flood deposits in the burial chamber, finding very fragile human remains. It was thus time to pass work in the chamber on to Marlies and Andrea in order that they can document the original position of the bones and their distribution – they did a great job cleaning the very fragile pieces as best as possible. A minimum number of 4 individuals were found still more or less in position in the northwestern corner of the chamber.

Marlies and Andrea busy in the burial chamber of tomb 26.

We were busy cleaning and documenting these remains in the last days – so it still remains unclear whether they are from the first phase of burial (plundered) or maybe a slightly re-deposited secondary phase. The latter seems more likely from my perspective. And there is still hope for more remains below this level of burial remains – a very nice scarab is still sealed in solid mud debris just in the entrance area. We’ll keep you updated in the next 3 weeks to come!

Very promising: a scarab close to the entrance of the burial chamber!

With the Munich group arriving, life in the magazine has quite changed for our registrar Meg: three students busy with drawing ceramics, one assisting her with several registration tasks! Two workmen are washing sherds from both the town and the cemetery – so also the courtyard is well occupied.

The small finds from SAV1 West and SAV1 East excavated in this season are now all registered and most of them photographed. One of my personal favorites is coming from feature 15 – no surprise given all the great finds unearthed in this cellar! This tiny figure of a ram functioned as a lid or stopper for a very small vessel– it is unique in our contexts so far and definitely one of the highlights of 2016.

Hidden Highlights 2: SAV1E 2771

Posted on February 17, 2016 by Kenneth Griffin Meg Gundlach

Findspot: SAV1E
Material: Fired Clay
Dimensions: 21x19x19mm

In a season with many excellent finds, this beautifully crafted six-sided dice (SAV1E 2771) stands out as one of the best. The dice is well preserved and missing only a small piece of the corner between faces three and four. In addition to the standard dots (pips), each number received further decoration: a circle around the one, incised lines connecting the dots of two through five, and a fern pattern filling the face of six. Though the popular game of senet used stick die as early as the Predynastic Period, the six-sided dice did not reach Egypt until much later than our New Kingdom focus. Nonetheless, the detailed and artistic production of this example from SAV1 East makes it a highlight of the 2016 season.

Official start of the cemetery season 2016

Posted on February 13, 2016 by Julia Budka

Today was the official start to work in cemetery SAC5, focusing on tomb 26 and its neighborhood. Unfortunately we had to return to tomb 26 already on January 1, at the beginning of the town season, because looting was reported. Thank god, the damage was not as bad and we were able to stick to our original schedule for the cemetery season after 3 days of cleaning. Today, we started removing the debris in the burial chamber – clear evidence was found for ancient looting and the hopes for finding major remains of the original burials are now quite low!

Nevertheless, we are looking much forward to focus now for the next 4 weeks on the burial ground of the people working and living in the New Kingdom town. In any case the information will be valuable and contribute to a better understanding of living conditions on Sai Island in the 2nd millennium BCE.

End of Sai Island New Kingdom town season 2016

Posted on February 12, 2016 by Julia Budka

Time flies by – the town season 2016 was officially closed yesterday and celebrated together with all workmen with a traditional sheep-dinner and party last night!

Week 6 on Sai Island focused on “cosmetic work” at SAV1 East – the complete area was cleaned for the final surface documentation, description of features and drawings.

Final cleaning at SAV1 East.

Specific areas and small features were excavated – most importantly a very interesting part of Square 4C with a newly discovered rectangular storage pit (feature 76) and impressions of two firing places for baking plates within the pavement associated with this feature. This is one of the rare cases were intact, undisturbed contexts from Dynasty 18 were documented at SAV1 East.

The final task at SAV1 East was to fully excavate feature 15. Wall 44, set into the cellar/feature 15, was carefully dismantled step by step, brick by brick. Although I proposed a dating for the building phases of cellar and wall already last year, firm proof was still missing as the deposit below wall 44 was not yet accessible.

Wall 44, set into feature 15, was carefully removed in order to document the western part of feature 15 and the deposit below the wall.

Having now cleaned the entire feature, my preliminary assessment was strengthened: both the pottery and seal impressions from below wall 44 testify to a dating in the reign of Thutmose III. Thus, wall 44 was built into feature 44 not prior to the mid/late reign of this king – corresponding nicely to the proposed main building phases of Building A.

Sieving the undisturbed contexts in feature 15 was again very successful: a number of artefacts, most importantly seal impressions were found!

Excavations in test trench 1 in the new area SAV1 Northeast continued in week 6 as well – and the results are very promising: a substantial mud brick structure of mid-18^th Dynasty date was discovered! Very likely the eastern enclosure wall of Sai city, enabling us to upgrade the town map!

Work in progress in test trench 1, SAV1 Northeast.

A more concise summary of the town season will follow – for now I would like to thank the team members who have already left the island (Jördis Vieth, Klara Sauter and Adrian de Vries): the data collected in the last weeks are extremely rich and will keep us very busy for a while!

Hidden Highlights 1: SAV1W 1677

Posted on February 7, 2016 by Kenneth Griffin Meg Gundlach

In the course of every season at Sai we find a lot of great material culture that never appears in the blogs, either in the form of the weekly highlights or themed object posts. Some of these things are rare and beautiful. Some of them are weird and wonderful. So, we thought we would start a series of posts to showcase some of our favorite finds of the season. Hopefully you love them as much as we do!

Findspot: SAV1W
Material: Fired Ceramic
Dimensions: 91x29x73mm

Here at Sai we are no strangers to figurines. In fact, there are nearly one hundred entries in the database classified as figurines, most often zoomorphic. Of this large collection, none are quite like SAV1W 1677…

SAV1W 1677 is the head portion of a larger animal figurine. The eyes are represented by small points of clay pulled out from the head. Between the eyes are nine incised lines, which look very much like the mane of a horse. The elongated mouth and nose of the figurine are also rather equine. Horse figurines are well known within our corpus, with many already featured here on the blog.

However, it is clear that these features have been grossly exaggerated for this figurine—the snout itself is 60mm in length! Furthermore, rather than the rounded muzzle of a horse, here the snout flares out and the end surface is concave. No incised details for either the nostrils or mouth have been added. Unfortunately the surface is slightly burnt, so it is not possible to tell if additional details were also added in paint.

Thus, it may be that this creature only shares equine features and is not intended to portray a realistic horse. Perhaps it is simply a creation living only in the mind of the artisan. And being on an island, isn’t it possible that their fictional creatures are river dwellers? Could this in fact be evidence of a local Nile monster? The Nubian Nessy!?

Summary of week 5 at Sai Island, Pharaonic town

Posted on February 5, 2016 by Julia Budka

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.

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 18^th 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!

Some areas at SAV1 East with 18^th 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.

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

Posted on February 4, 2016 by Julia Budka

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.

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

Posted on February 3, 2016 by Julia Budka

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.

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.

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.

AcrossBorders

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

Category Archives: Sai Island