Having just returned from Sudan and the student excursion, it’s very pleasant to find some new releases on one’s desk – especially because these also comprise papers highlightening the significance of Tomb 26 and especially of the burial of Khnummose on Sai Island.
The following new articles are relevant for AcrossBorders’ work in cemetery SAC5:
Budka, J., Pyramid cemetery SAC5, Sai Island, Northern Sudan: An update based on fieldwork from 2015–2017, Ägypten und Levante 27, 2017, 107‒130.
Budka, J., Das Grab eines Goldschmiedemeisters auf Sai in Obernubien, Sokar 35, 2017, 52-63.
Budka, J., The Tomb of a Master of Gold-workers on Sai Island, Ancient Egypt 18, No. 3, 2017/2018, 14-20.
Within the article published in Ägypten und Levante 27, I tried to reconstruct the complete use-life of Tomb 26, presenting for the first time preliminary results from the pottery analysis.
Please note that all of these articles still have to be regarded as “preliminary” – the final analysis, including the anthropological findings in Tomb 26 and the results from the Strontium Isotope analysis, is already well under way and will be published as another monograph in the series Contributions to the Archaeology of Egypt, Nubia and the Levant.
The Egypt & the Levant 27 article on Tomb 26 is now available with full open access: http://www.austriaca.at/0xc1aa5576_0x00373dc4.pdf
In Your article about this topic, AE Dec17/Jan18, you mention flower pots. You say that their purpose is unknown. Is it possible that they are gold pans used in the process of seperating gold from other debris? They look very similiar… the main difference is that they are deeper, but of course gold mining equipment would evolve over the years. What do you think? Thank you for your time. Very informative article.
Dear Stacey, many thanks – wow – interesting idea for flower pots! But I am afraid it would not work – the perforation in the base of the pots is quite large and as you say the shape quite different. One would expect a much larger mouth diameter if they were used as pans. Thanks again! So much food for thought!
Hey what’s the update on the DNA analysis.
http://www.en.uni-muenchen.de/news/newsarchiv/2017/budka.html
If ancient DNA can be recovered from the skeletal remains found in Tomb 26, it should throw light on the genetic relationships between those buried in it. Budka now awaits the results of the DNA analyses underway at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena.
Thanks for your interest – we’ll come back to this soon; results are still pending, but unfortunatelly little hope of tracing DNA because of the state of preservation. we’ll see!