Tag Archives: SAV1 West

Of merits and flaws preparing archaeological publications

Posted on by
Reply

It has been silent from my side the last months. Too silent for my opinion; for too long, even during summer break. Almost no tweets and no updates or posts on this blog.

Well – I believe I have the perfect excuse: we’ve been extremely busy preparing the next AcrossBorders monograph in the last weeks and I am delighted to say that it’s actually done! Just printed all of it!

This volume is quite substantial – under the title “AcrossBorders 2: Living in New Kingdom Sai” it brings together our most important results of work about the New Kingdom remains at Sai Island in northern Sudan in the last years. Johannes Auenmüller, Annette M. Hansen, Frits B.J. Heinrich, Veronica Hinterhuber, Ptolemaios Paxinos, Nadja Pöllath, Helmut Sattmann, Sara Schnedl and Martina Ullmann have contributed apart from me to this new book. It focuses on the landscape and environmental remains of the Egyptian town on Sai and it introduces AcrossBorders work at sectors SAV1 East and SAV1 West. Archaeology and architecture are presented together with the objects and ceramics as well as specialized chapters on sandstone quarries, animal bones, molluscs and botanical remains. The occupants of New Kingdom Sai are discussed and some new ideas are put forward regarding the ‘social fabric’ and the intermingling of Nubians and Egyptians at the site.

The manuscript has a total of 700 text pages and comprises all together 300 tables, figures and plates – so indeed a substantial next volume in the AcrossBorders series of monographs which will again be published by OREA in Vienna. I will submit the manuscript on Monday and hope that the peer reviewing process will start soon!

As proud as I am today, as tired I feel. The last two weeks have been extremely intense, one could also say crazy. Working hours did not just increase but plainly doubled and several panic attacks about my own insufficient timing took turns with unexpected and very time-consuming problems with hard- and software. Most of us know all of this – finalising a manuscript means just loads of things, loads of organization and occupies one completely. No matter how much I love my occupation as archaeologist, these are the days and weeks when the really important things in life fall short – family and friends, pets and sports. In Munich, the inconvenient opening hours of grocery shops start getting on your nerves and your fridge stays empty. You’re so occupied with these texts and figures of the book you’re working on, you forget to eat and drink – and look at least 10 years older every evening and every morning in the mirror. A certain line for me was drawn when I completely forgot about and just heard it in the radio next morning that my favourite soccer team actually made it to the group phase of the European League after all (and this is the Austrian team which really deserved it, not the other one which simply keeps failing the qualification to the Champions League…).

Well – now it’s done and I cannot believe it. Without the tremendous support and help of Veronica Hinterhuber, this would not have been possible – she took so much work off my shoulders and was perfectly organised as always. Cajetan Geiger also deserves loads of thanks for preparing last minute new versions of figures and plans.

Of course as archaeologists it’s the major task to publish our results – and here, I do not necessary mean the general “publish or perish” policy which is putting so much pressure on especially young scientists from all fields. No, in archaeology, I completely agree with Peter Drewett and the following: “The only truly bad archaeologist is one who does not publish the results of his or her field investigations. All else is opinion” (Drewett 1999, 6). Our work does not stop in the field, but it is actually there where it starts.

Preparing results of archaeological excavations for publication is, however, not an easy task. One always has to balance between a descriptive way of presenting the results in a clear way, and an interpretative analysis of the same. And, since modern fieldwork is usually very interdisciplinary, one also has to bring together a large number of diverse lines of research and try to combine and/or compare results from various groups of data.

The AcrossBorders 2 volume will hopefully meet up to these standards and expectations – I am really looking forward to the reviews, always happy to incorporate some suggestions and to improve certain aspects. But in the end, I believe we did already quite a good job as an archaeological project, finishing the second monograph within one year after our final season at Sai. And I hope this will also be appreciated by the community and colleagues.

I have to stop now. Sportschau is about to start on TV. Back to normal life, at least for a while. Work on the third AcrossBorders monograph will commence soon, but the really crazy days are still a long way off.

Reference

Drewett, Peter L. 1999. Field Archaeology: An Introduction. London.

An update on Nun bowls from Sai Island

Posted on by
Reply

Back in 2015, Sabine Tschorn recorded all Nun bowl fragments from the New Kingdom town on Sai. This unique group of faience vessels is associated with regeneration and fertility and offers some insights into the daily life of 18th Dynasty Sai.

Happy with small, but diagnostic pieces of Nun-bowls from SAV1 West.

I am delighted that her analysis of the Nun bowls is now published (Tschorn 2017). In her paper, Sabine examines the excavated fragments and their distribution in the different sectors of the settlement as well as their diverse decorative motifs and functions. She is able to show that these faience vessels have to be seen in context with the architectural remains – for Sai, it is highly interesting that most fragments come from SAV1 North and SAV1 West, where a substantial amount of storage facilities and cellars was found, located close to the New Kingdom town wall. An association of the Nun bowls with ritual vessels like footed bowls for burning at both sectors might suggest a connection with offerings and libation. All in all, the function of Nun bowls in domestic settlements of the New Kingdom appears to be quite complex – once again stressing that daily life in ancient times also included various activities connected to the ritual and religious sphere (cf. Stevens 2006).

Thanks to the support of my FWF START project, the paper by Sabine has been published with full open access and will hopefully stimulate further research about an intriguing object group of the New Kingdom.

References

Stevens, A. 2006. Private Religion at Amarna. BAR International Series 1587. Oxford.

Tschorn, S. 2017. Nun-Schalen aus der Stadt des Neuen Reiches auf der Insel Sai, Ägypten und Levante 27, 431–446

Highlights of the 2017 season: the New Kingdom town

Posted on by
Reply

Besides our very successful work in Tomb 26 with the undisturbed burials from the 18th Dynasty, our final season in the New Kingdom town, excavating both at SAV1 West and SAV1 East, was also very successful.

Another storage installation at SAV1 West… featuring a royal inscription on a re-used stone block!

Excavating the storage pit and cleaning surface area for another cellar – located in the northeastern corner of our excavation square…

Sieving the material from the bottom of the storage pit: undisturbed mid-18th Dynasty context!

New mud brick structures and loads of ceramics from SAV1 West.

Taking micromorphological samples in the “wall street” during “nimiti happy hour”…

Starting work at SAV1 East – aiming to clarify the dimensions of in situ-schist pavement.

Finding more schist – and: one large cellar!

And discovering another large cellar with its vault still in situ…

Fighting against nimiti and time pressure!

Finishing up what was the highlight of all 5 seasons in the Egyptian town on Sai!

Thanks again to all team members – has been a great season!

Short summary of AcrossBorders’ 2017 season on Sai Island

Posted on by
2

A little hard to believe, but I am almost ready to leave Sudan and return to Munich! 11 weeks since we arrived here in Khartoum, 10 very exciting weeks of fieldwork, lots of new discoveries and much food for thought!
Thanks to the excellent working conditions provided by the local authorities to archaeologists in Sudan, we are able to export samples for scientific analysis – this will allow us to update and check some of our preliminary data from the field further in the next months.

The most important results of this 2017 season are as follows:
At SAV1 West, remaining deposits in Squares 1S and 1SE were investigated. The remains of several small mud brick buildings including one storage pit and one cellar were exposed and stratigraphic information was received from cleaning selected areas, including the “wall street” along the town enclosure. Most importantly, the earliest phase of occupation at SAV1 West seems to be contemporaneous to the one at SAV1 North – and predating the building of the town wall under Thutmose III. Only scarce remains of the early 18th Dynasty occupation at SAV1 West have survived, with the major phase in the mid-18th Dynasty partly superimposing earlier structures.
At SAV1 East, excavation was completed in Square 4C, finding more schist pavements. Other floors and mud bricks of already known structures. An extension was added towards the southwestern part of the site in order to trace a mud brick wall and in situ schist pavement further (new Square 4D, 6.5 x 9m). Within Square 4D, two large cellars were discovered (Feature 83 and Feature 85). Their size (3.3 x 1.8 x 2.00m and 3.7 x 1.5 x 2.05m) and East-West alignment corresponds nicely to the previously excavated structure, Feature 15. While Feature 83, the southern cellar, was disturbed by a pit in its western half down to the bottom, and only had in situ 18th Dynasty vessels left on the pavement in the eastern half, Feature 85 was found with its vault still partly intact.

Work in progress in feature 85.


Tomb 26, discovered in 2015, was completely excavated in 2017. Feature 4, the trench in the north, was cleaned and yielded a number of burials. Chamber 6, the northern burial chamber, held two coffins of which only traces survived in the flood sediments as well as rich burial equipment of Egyptian style: scarabs, faience vessels, pottery vessels and one stone shabti were used as burial goods. Traces of the funerary masks have also survived. According to the inscribed finds and the human remains, the double burial in Feature 6 can be identified as the master of gold workers Khnummose and an anonymous female person. Finally, Feature 5, the chamber located to the west of Chamber 2, yielded 9 adult and 2 infant burials, again with a nice selection of finds comprising scarabs, amulets and pottery vessels as well as few traces of the funerary masks and coffins.

All achievements of this season would not have been possible without great team work – many thanks go to all colleagues and students working in the field and the magazine who coped so well with time pressure and loads of finds, to all of our local workmen who faced together with us at SAV1 East nimiti-attacks which were just as bad as in our first year back in 2013! And of course to our wonderful NCAM representative and inspector Huda Magzoub, as well as to the great house staff, Sidahmed, Osama and Ridda. Last but not least, the dig dog Ramsis and his cute and entertaining off springs brought much comfort in dark black-fly hours!

End of fieldwork in SAV1 West

Posted on by
Reply

Week 4 of our 2017 fieldwork season has just ended – Cajetan and Franziska, who did an excellent job in SAV1 West, have left Sai Island this morning to return back home to Germany. We still have 6 weeks of work in front of us, but as scheduled we managed to close fieldwork in sector SAV1 West.

The results are very important and will keep me busy for a bit longer: Cleaning the lowest deposits of stratigraphy in SAV1 West, both in the wall street and in other structures, it became clear that – despite of everything we thought in the last years – we do have an early 18th Dynasty occupation phase here after all!

Having processed not yet all of the ceramics, it is difficult to give an exact date, but for sure we have a phase predating the enclosure wall. Thus, SAV1 West nicely mirrors SAV1 North, the sector excavated by the French Mission between 2008-2012.

In addition to this very important new information concerning the evolution of Egyptian New Kingdom occupation on Sai, we excavated some nice features this season: two new cellars/storage pits, one grind stone emplacement and various remains of the relevant mud brick structures.

SAV1 West, status 2017.

Many thanks again to all team members for making the first half of the season very successful!

Tomb 26 continued to keep us very busy…. More and more parallels to neighboring tombs excavated by our French colleagues become evident, especially to the close-by Tomb 7.

In week 4, we managed to clear the new western chamber (feature 5) down to a level with many in situ vessels and burial remains. As yet, we have cleaned a very nice individual in extended position, lying East-West along the South wall, with his head to the West. We managed to document traces of his funerary mask – one eye has survived and traces of gold foil. Several miniature vessels were placed at the head, a cluster of flower pots at the feet. Both skeleton and vessels were partly covered by the collapse of side walls and roof.

Skull, remains of funerary mask and miniature vessels in chamber 5.

In chamber 6, the lower chamber off from the trench towards the north, I managed to reach a level with very faint traces of wood and blue, white, red and yellow plus black pigments/colors. It seems very likely that we have here a badly decayed wooden coffin – the first bones appeared yesterday!

Work will concentrate in the next weeks on finds, pottery and Tomb 26 – of course we will keep you updated!

Summary of week 3, fieldwork season 2017

Posted on by
Reply

Having just started week 4 of the 2017 fieldwork season, it’s time to briefly summarize the last week of work in Tomb 26 and in SAV1 West.

In Tomb 26, lots of things changed… The trench in front of the lower burial chamber still keeps us busy – we finally have now an almost complete skeleton still in place. But we still don’t know how much deeper the trench continues. The silt filling is partly void of finds, partly full of bones and also includes some pottery sherds.

Andrea busy cleaning the new, almost intact skeleton in the trench.

A big surprise waited for us in the northwestern corner of the main chamber. I started cleaning there at the very beginning of this season. Already in 2016, a feature in this corner was described as “niche” – obviously a small opening into the western wall, with collapsed stones making an assessment of its size difficult. Well – this small niche is now another chamber, measuring ca. 3.3×3.4m – and actually a “hidden chamber”! Cleaning the entrance area and removing all the collapsed stone from the roof, it became clear that the worked stones lining the western wall of the main chamber hide the second chamber situated further west! Since all was once plastered, the new chamber was once obviously nicely concealed.

Cleaning the new chamber was hard work – it was filled until the top with dense flood levels.

We have almost finished removing the debris, having reached more flood levels with some bones and pottery – at present, it seems that only little remains of burials have survived – however, for the ground plan and general understanding of Tomb 26, this is all very exciting! And we can say already that this new chamber was also plastered – remains were found on the collapsed roof and on one part where we have reached the chamber floor.

Work in SAV1 West is also progressing were well – we managed to finish excavating the extension to Square 1SE to the east which was necessary because of the new cellar found in week 2. Only little in situ mud brick structures have survived – but we will be able to put together ground plans of some nice domestic structures. Besides the cellar, a storage pit and a possible grind stone emplacement were found.

Registration of finds is continuing – our favorite piece of week 3 was a tiny miniature net-weight! Its small size becomes very evident when compared side by side with an axe-head shaped net-weight of regular size.

Furthermore, to round up a very productive week with lots of new finds, we had a perfect Friday trip to Kawa and a wonderful tour by Derek Welsby through town and cemetery – the warm welcome by our British colleagues was very much appreciated!

Last, but definitely not least, I am more than happy that my dear friend and distinguished Viennese colleague Helmut Satzinger joined us yesterday. Timing could not be better: we had the possibility to celebrate today his birthday with a small boat trip – unfortunately without seeing crocodiles, but with plenty of nimiti ;-)!

Summary of week 2, fieldwork season 2017

Posted on by
2

The second week of AcrossBorders’ fieldwork at Sai just ended. Work is making very good progress, although – as usual in archaeology – there were quite some unexpected developments and finds we had to adapt to.

At SAV1 West, the goal of this week was to investigate unexcavated parts of Square 1SE, the northeastern and southeastern corner. After 2 days, we were a little bit disappointed – almost no mud brick architecture was preserved, all New Kingdom bricks were ripped out during the substantial digging activity here in Christian and Medieval times until the natural ground surface. Thus hopes were limited, when we started cleaning a pile of collapses bricks around a very large stone in the southeast corner. It came as a big surprise that the dumped stone was 1) our first royal hieroglyphic inscription from SAV1 West! and 2) sitting on top of a mud-lined storage installation still largely intact.

The block is a re-used sandstone lintel with horizontal lines of hieroglyphs – it was recut to an almost round shape and the only hieroglyphs surviving are “nTr nfr nb xaw” – the royal name to follow was of course disturbed… Given all the known inscribed lintels from Sai, it is likely that we have here the badly disturbed inscription of Thutmose III or Amenhotep II.

Especially with the new storage installation, the southeastern corner thus turned out to be really exciting! Cleaning of the pit will continue next week – there were already some very nice finds, see below.

In the northeastern corner, a deep sandy pit, filled at the bottom with mud brick collapse was already excavated in 2016. We wanted to check the bottom of it and there came again a surprise: part of a rectangular brick wall enclosing a lower mud feature of rectangular shape sitting against the natural pebble was found! The only suitable explanation for this feature is the entrance opening to a large subterranean cellar – but of course excavation of this exciting find is not possible because we are directly in the corner of the square.

I really wonder why all of the nice cellars in SAV1 West and SAV1 East are found in baulks or corners of our excavation squares ;-)!

Well, so we had to re-adapt our plans and started an extension towards the east in order to be able to properly excavate the new cellar from the top. This will keep us busy next week!

Objects deriving from SAV1 West were registered as usual by Meg Gundlach. Among the most interesting finds is the head of a female figurine (of a type very common also at Elephantine) and a very nice cauroid bead from the small storage pit in the southeastern corner of Square 1SE.

Female figurine SAV1W 1735.

Cauroid bead SAV1W 1736.

Work in Tomb 26 made very good progress as well – we had several layers of very dense clusters of bones, all in all probably remains of 4 or 5 individuals. Cleaning and documenting them takes much time. Yesterday, I reached a level of 38 cm thickness completely void of human remains – it’s a solid accomplishment of flood levels with very little pottery fragments and still continues.

At present, we have cleaned a depth of 72 cm below the entrance to the chamber in the north – we still have not reached the bottom of the trench and hope to do this in the upcoming week.

Update from week 2, Sai Island

Posted on by
Reply

Just a quick update from the last few days of fieldwork: Work was successfully re-started at SAV1 West, concentrating on the mud brick structures to the east of the town enclosure. The amount of pottery unearthed is very substantial – 46 baskets of pottery in 3 days! The majority is mid-18th Dynasty in date, confirming nicely our assessment from last season.

In addition, Tomb 26 still keeps us very busy – what looked like dislocated human remains in the trench in front of the new chamber, actually turned out to be slightly twisted and moved, but almost complete individuals. The state of preservation of the bones is – like last year – very bad and cleaning is extremely time-consuming. However, with a minimum of three new “inhabitants” of Tomb 26, the trench along the northern wall yielded much more than we originally expected! One of the skeletons is just lying directly below the entrance to the chamber which is filled with deposit until the ceiling…

 

Off to Sudan

Posted on by
2

Every year again… The holidays are just over and the first team members are getting ready to start the next season on Sai Island, Sudan. Meg, Franziska and me are flying to Khartoum tonight, hoping to reach the island later this week.

Not everything is like every year though – it’s going to be our final closing season on Sai Island, I am very much looking forward to finishing excavations in SAV1 West, SAV1 East and of course in Tomb 26.

It will be for sure exciting and splendid sun-settings like every year will make life with the nimiti-flies endurable.

We will of course share nimiti- and nimiti-free-moments with you and will keep you posted about AcrossBorders final Sai Island season 2017!

Report of fieldwork 2016 on Sai Island

Posted on by
Reply

Having just returned from Elephantine, it’s time to prepare the final fieldwork season on Sai Island, scheduled for January to March 2017. We will finish work in the two sectors within the town area (SAV1 East and SAV1 West) and in the New Kingdom cemetery SAC5 (Tomb 26).

The very successful 2016 season added important information about general aspects of the evolution of Sai Island in Pharaonic times and here especially during its heyday in Thutmoside times. The 2016 report is now available, promising further findings in 2017!