Egyptian Archaeology 30 by TheEES

No. 30 Spring 2007

PRICE £4.95

EGYPTIAN ARCHAEOLOGY

T HE B ULLETIN OF T HE E GYPT E XPLORATION S OCIETY

EGYPTIAN

ARCHAEOLOGY

EGYPTIAN ARCHAEOLOGY Bulletin of the Egypt Exploration Society www.ees.ac.uk

The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the aims or concerns of the Egypt Exploration Society Editor Patricia Spencer Editorial Advisers Peter Clayton Vivian Davies George Hart David Jeffreys Mike Murphy Chris Naunton John Taylor Advertising Sales Karen Exell Egypt Exploration Society 3 Doughty Mews London WC1N 2PG (Phone: +44 (0)20 7242 1880) (Fax: +44 (0)20 7404 6118) (E-mail: easales@ees.ac.uk) Trade Distribution Oxbow Books Park End Place Oxford OX1 1HN Phone: +44 (0)1865 241249 Fax: +44 (0)1865 794449 E-mail: orders@oxbowbooks.com Website: www.oxbowbooks.com Published twice a year by The Egypt Exploration Society 3 Doughty Mews, London WC1N 2PG Registered Charity No.212384 A limited Company registered in England, No.25816 Original design by Jeremy Pemberton Set in Adobe InDesign CS2 by Patricia Spencer Printed by Commercial Colour Press plc Angard House, 185 Forest Road, Hainault, Essex IG6 3HU www.ccpress.co.uk

The Euroslavic font used to print this work is available from Linguist’s Software, Inc., PO Box 580, Edmonds, WA 98020-0580, USA. Phone: (425) 775-1130.

Abydos. EEF excavations (1903-04) at the mortuary complex of Senwosret III.The latest results of current work are reported on pp.38-41. Photograph: Egypt Exploration Society Archive.

Number 30

Spring 2007

Editorial

An intact multiple burial in north-west Saqqara Sakuji Yoshimura and Nozomu Kawai

Survey between Aswan and Kom Ombo Maria Carmela Gatto and Serena Giuliani

Notes and News

Astronomical ceilings Sarah Symons

An Egyptian temple at Tell Dafana François Leclère

Re-excavation at the Amarna house of Panehsy Phillipa Payne

Tuthmosid foundation deposits at Karnak Romain Mensan

Ancient amazonite quarries in the Eastern Desert James Harrell and Ali Farrag Osman

Digging Diary

Patricia Spencer

Minufiyeh: the geophysical survey at Quesna Joanne Rowland and Kristian Strutt

Notice Board

Reopening the tomb of Senwosret III at Abydos Josef Wegner

Bookshelf

Membership Matters and Acknowledgements

www.linguistsoftware.com

Cover illustration: Burial chamber in the tomb of Seti I (KV 17) with astronomical ceiling of two registers. On the right (north), the circumpolar group and deities, on the left (south) decans and planets. Photograph by Francis J Dzikowski, reproduced courtesy of the Theban Mapping Project.

EGYPTIAN

ARCHAEOLOGY

Membership really matters In the Editorial of EA 29 we were looking forward to 2007 which is the Society’s 125th anniversary year. The special events which were being planned will still be going ahead (see p.36) and the anniversary book will be published towards the end of the year. However, a dampener has been thrown over the celebrations by the news received in November 2006 that the Society, along with the British School of Archaeology in Iraq, is to lose its annual grant-in-aid from the British Academy. The grant, which was first received in 1947, will cease altogether in March 2009. For the coming financial year (2007-08) the Society will receive £50,000 (compared with £94,000 in 2006-07) with the promise of a ‘similar sum’ for 2008-09 and then nothing. Naturally this has been a great disappointment to the Society, particularly as the Academy’s reasons for withdrawing funding from the EES and the BSAI seem to be unjustified. Representations are being made on behalf of the Society to the Academy and in wider government circles but we cannot rely on these being successful and the Society will now be more actively seeking further sources of funding. The annual grant-in-aid from the British Academy was used to cover most of the Society’s expenditure on fieldwork and research and, as can be seen from the accompanying pie-charts, in 2005-2006 (the last financial year for which audited accounts are available) the grant represented 29% of the Society’s income while ‘excavation’ costs were 28% of annual expenditure. Fieldwork and research is, therefore, the area for which the Society urgently needs to generate additional income. It is also, of course, the most important aspect of the Society’s work and if the Society cannot fund projects in Egypt or original research arising from its excavations, then it will lose its primary reason for existing. In 2005 the Society launched an Excavation Fund to which members have given most generously and which now stands at around £41,000.The Society is very grateful to those who have already made donations to the Fund, especially to members who have taken out direct debits for regular donations, as an assured source of income is vital to a charity like the EES. Donations to the Excavation Fund will continue to be warmly welcomed and you can be sure that any donations made will be spent on fieldwork or research - all the Society’s administrative costs are covered by other sources of income. The Excavation Fund will be relaunched during 2007 and we hope that members, and non-members, will give as generously as they can to enable us to build up a sufficiently large fund to generate enough income to continue our work in Egypt. The Society is also looking at other ways of economising and generating additional funds. At the Annual General Meeting on 9 December 2006 members voted in favour

Income

BA Grant

37%

Donations 19%

Rent Investment Income Subscriptions

2% 0%

6% 2% 5%

Publication sales Income / UK Events

29%

Other

Expenditure

PERSONNEL EXCAVATIONS

1% 12%

24%

14%

CAIRO OFFICE PUBLICATIONS

18% 3%

28%

PREMISES, AUDIT, OFFICE, ETC JOURNALS FOR MEMBERS GRANTS

of increased subscription rates from April 2007. Subscriptions, which account for around 37% of the Society’s income, had not been increased since 1999 and although this has led to a small number of resignations from the Society, the vast majority of members have stayed with us. Your support is warmly appreciated by everyone involved with the running of the Society. One of the great strengths of the EES, compared with other archaeological societies, has always been its large and enthusiastic membership base, and members who attended the AGM and heard of the loss of the BA grant were vocal in their support for the Society. During 2007 we will be opening up discussions with members (for full details see the EES spring mailing) to involve you more closely in defining the Society’s new role for the future and to help identify new financial resources. In the first issue of Egyptian Archaeology, the Editor, Mike Murphy, introduced ‘Membership Matters’ by drawing attention to the double meaning of the title of what was to become a regular news feature on the last page of every issue. Now, as the Society marks its 125th anniversary in 2007, membership of the EES really does matter, even more than ever before. The Society needs the support of its members to survive in the twenty-first century and to enable it to carry on the work started 125 years ago by the indomitable Amelia Edwards.The challenge she faced in interesting others in archaeological work in Egypt was even greater than that facing the Society today. Amelia did not shirk the task even though she had to overcome many obstacles and much prejudice. We all owe it to her to fight to preserve the Society which she founded and which, for 125 years, has been one of the most successful archaeological institutions working in Egypt. PATRICIA SPENCER

EGYPTIAN

ARCHAEOLOGY

An intact multiple burial in north-west Saqqara Archaeological remains at Saqqara from the Second Intermediate Period to the beginning of the Eighteenth Dynasty have previously been little known. Sakuji Yoshimura and Nozomu Kawai report on the discovery and importance of an intact multiple burial in a remote area of the necropolis. The Institute of Egyptology at Waseda University, Japan, has been conducting archaeological excavations since 1991 at a remote outcrop, located approximately 1.5km to the north-west of the Serapeum, in north-west Saqqara. The work has revealed a monument of Prince Khaemwaset (see EA 5, pp.19-23) and a mud-brick structure, probably belonging to Amenhotep II and Thutmose IV, on the summit of the outcrop. Excavations on the southeast slope have revealed a Third Dynasty layered stone structure of which the substructure had been reused in the Middle Kingdom, as well as a rock-cut chamber containing a number of ceramic statues including those with the names of Khufu and Pepy I (see EA 23, pp.38-40). In the 2003 season, excavation revealed an intact multiple burial of 11 persons dating to the late Second Intermediate Period and beginning of the Eighteenth Dynasty – a period which is poorly represented in the archaeological record at Saqqara.

Plan of the excavation area, showing the location of the multiple burials

The intact multiple burial was uncovered while excavation was being carried out at the area behind the layered stone structure.The burial was found beside a huge rock about 10m to the south-west of the shaft of the substructure of the layered stone structure, and had been placed in a recess in a tafl embankment, apparently surrounded by small blocks and pebbles. The bodies are extended on an east-west axis with their heads to the west. While the box of the coffin appears to have been well preserved, the vault-shaped lid had been indented by the pressure of the huge amount of sand above it. Because the joint pegs between the lid and box are firmly attached, the burials appear to have been undisturbed. Inside the coffin, there are nine persons buried together. In addition, two simple surface burials were uncovered beside the coffin. The nine bodies inside the coffin were wrapped in shrouds and had been piled up but in an organised manner. At the bottom, three adult bodies had been laid to rest with their heads at the western end. Anthropological study revealed that the southernmost body is a middleaged to old woman, 1.51m tall, the central body is an elderly man, 1.69m tall, and the northernmost body is

Excavating the area around the intact coffin

EGYPTIAN

ARCHAEOLOGY

The multiple burial after removal of the coffin lid

(17 to 18 years old) 1.74m tall. Interestingly, the average height of these adult bodies is greater than the norm for ancient Egyptian adults at that time.The body of an infant (only a few months old) was placed between the chests of the two adult bodies to the south. Above these three adults were the bodies of three children: (from the north to the south) one aged c.10 or 11 years old, another c.8 years old, and a third c.6 years old. Because of the poor preservation of the bodies, it is impossible to estimate their exact heights. Finally, another two children had been laid to rest on top of them: one c.6 years old and another c.3 to 4 years old. It seems likely that all the bodies were buried at the same time. The rectangular coffin measures 2.05m × 0.68m × 0.64m and has a vaulted lid of the traditional pr-nw type. The coffin is constructed using the technique known as ‘common through dovetail joint’, which is often observed in coffins dating from the Second Intermediate Period to the early Eighteenth Dynasty.The surface of the coffin is undecorated, but white plaster has been applied to the join between the lid and the box as well as on the corner parts. Objects found inside the wooden coffin include a cowroid, beads, bronze earrings, and two intact pots. The cowroid is made of steatite, and the undersurface has a cable pattern and w|D signs, indicating a date in the late Second Intermediate Period. The beads are made of various materials

including glass, precious stones, faience, and ostrich egg.They seem to have come from girdles around the female body. The earrings are bronze strings, and look as if they were made for use with pierced ears. There were two pottery vessels inside the coffin: an imported Syrian Black Lustrous ware vessel at the west side and on the east a jar covered by a fragment of red pottery. Two base fragments of a reddish brown pottery were found at the south-east corner of the coffin. Interestingly, they joined other fragments found both inside and outside the coffin. This may indicate that a broken red-pot ritual took place at the time of burial. Two poor surface burials in reed mats beside the coffin were furnished with a scarab, a wooden stick, bronze objects, beads and some pottery jars. The scarab is made of steatite, with its undersurface showing a continuous cable border pattern with an inscription at the centre whose meaning can not be understood, although some parallels can be found in the Hyksos Period. The bronze objects seem to be pins of some kind. A complete medium-sized jar made of Marl B is diagnostic in terms of dating.According to Janine Bourriau’s theory, it would date to the period of the Hyksos war or its immediate aftermath. The glass beads found with the multiple burial could represent one of the earliest examples of glass in Egypt. The glass was firmly identified by a team from Tokyo

The burials, with pottery visible, inside the coffin

EGYPTIAN

ARCHAEOLOGY

Glass beads found with the multiple burial

Stone beads found with the multiple burial

University of Science, led by Izumi Nakai, using a portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometer and a powder X-ray diffractometer in the 2006 season. In her discussion on the material culture in the Memphis/Fayum region during the Second Intermediate Period, Ms Bourriau observed small groups of burials in Mayana cemetery at Sedment, Gurob, Harageh and Riqqeh which yielded similar types of burial assemblages including scarabs, beads twisted around girdles, and imported ceramics such as Cypriot pottery, Base Ring ware, Black Lustrous ware and White Cross-lined wares. At Mayana, the bodies were wrapped in linen or matting and extended supine. Ms Bourriau suggested that this small community may have practised some non-Egyptian burial customs (although Egyptian pottery is included) and may have lived during the period of the Hyksos wars.

It is likely that the Saqqara multiple burial belongs to the same cultural tradition and, therefore, dates from the very end of the Second Intermediate Period or the beginning of the Eighteenth Dynasty. The question still remains, however, as to why these people were buried in an area of the necropolis so remote from the main cemetery at Saqqara in that period.

The steatite design cowroid found inside the coffin

The scarab found with the surface burials

Pottery found in association with the burial

Jewellery found with the burials inside the coffin

q Sakuji Yoshimura is a Professor at Waseda University and General Director of the Abusir-Saqqara Project of the Institute of Egyptology, Waseda University. Nozomu Kawai is a Lecturer at Waseda University and Field Director of the Project.The authors would like to acknowledge the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science for their generous grant for the research at Saqqara.They would also like to thank Izumi Nakai (Tokyo University of Science) and his team for their scientific identification of the glass materials from the site. Photographs and illustrations © Institute of Egyptology, Waseda University.

EGYPTIAN

ARCHAEOLOGY

Survey between Aswan and Kom Ombo

In 2005-06 a preliminary survey was undertaken in the region between Aswan and Kom Ombo by the British Museum and the University of Milan. Many sites of different periods were recorded, including a number which were previously unknown. Maria Carmela Gatto and Serena Giuliani report on the main results. The aim of the Anglo-Italian project was to gain a clearer picture of interaction between the Nubians and the Egyptians during different periods, with an emphasis on the Nubian groups. It was also hoped to test the hypothesis that the region of the First Cataract was never a real frontier between Nubia and Egypt. During previous investigations important sites had already been encountered, particularly palaeolithic campsites, pharaonic inscriptions, rock engravings, predynastic, pharaonic and Nubian cemeteries, a Graeco-Roman temple and town and a Coptic monastery. The current survey, although preliminary, revealed a higher number of sites, most of which are situated along the west bank of the Nile. Chronologically they cover a time span from the Middle Palaeolithic to the Islamic Period.As expected, a number of these were related to a Nubian presence in the area. Among the major finds there is an isolated stone tumulus in the Wadi el-Lawi, the main southern tributary of Wadi Kharit in the desert east of Kom Ombo. It is located in a very small valley, named Shaab Negema, to the west of the main wadi. The tumulus, which had been plundered and measures c.7.5m x 7.5m, is composed of two separate concentric stone rings. Sherds from three

Map of the Aswan-Kom Ombo region with sites and localities mentioned in the text. Dashed lines highlight the concession area

vessels were found in association, one of them is decorated on both sides with a wide rippled impression on a dark brown burnished exterior and a black interior. By cross referencing with similar evidence along the Nile Valley and in the surrounding deserts, the grave can be dated tentatively to the early Nubian A-Group phase (first half of the fourth millennium BC, Naqada Ic-IId), or to a

Above and below: rippled vessel from the tumulus at Shaab Negema, showing the decoration on both surfaces

The fifth-fourth millennium BC Shaab Negema tumulus found in the desert east of Kom Ombo

EGYPTIAN

ARCHAEOLOGY

A-Group black topped wares from the Nag el-Qarmila cemetery.

Examples of shale-tempered vessels from the Predynastic sites

Overview of the Predynastic settlement (background) and cemetery (foreground) at Nag el-Qarmila

A-Group black-mouthed vessels, sometimes showing a rippled surface, are present as well, but in a limited number compared to the Naqadan ones. Lithics, a bead, a fragment of a worked stone and a fragment of an incised egg-shell were also collected on the sites. A Pan-Grave cemetery, never before mentioned in the literature, was also found at Nag el-Qarmila. It is located in a part of the gebel which faces the Nile, and is currently being reclaimed by building activities. The round tumuli (c.30 were counted) and possible offering trenches have been plundered, but in spite of this much well-preserved material was found on the surface. Many

Nubian-influenced Late Neolithic Period, possibly dated to the second half of the fifth millennium BC. North of Wadi Kubbaniya, in the locality called Nag el-Qarmila, two previously unknown predynastic sites were identified. The settlement and its nearby cemetery seem to be still in place, but have been heavily disturbed by modern activities. According to the Naqadan and AGroup pottery found on the surface, both of the sites may be dated to the Naqada Ic-IId1/Early A-Group phase. In fact, the predynastic assemblage is mainly composed of Naqadan black- topped vessels, followed by a remarkable number of coarse bowls made of a shale-tempered fabric.

Late Middle Kingdom-Early Second Intermediate Period Egyptian pottery from the Pan-Grave cemetery

The Pan-Grave cemetery at Nag el-Qarmila with the remains of circular tumuli clearly visible on the surface

Pan-Grave decorated pottery

EGYPTIAN

ARCHAEOLOGY

The sacred bull Neghen

late Middle Kingdom-early Second Intermediate Period Egyptian ceramics were found scattered on the ground, together with diagnostic Pan-Grave pottery. The latter is characterised by the black-topped red-coated ware and by a variety of incised and impressed decorations, some of which have not previously been found in the Pan-Grave repertoire. On the sand surface a few white ostrich-shell beads, the remains of an animal horn, and one motherof-pearl spacer bead were recorded. Rock drawings and inscriptions are present on both the west bank of the Nile and along the Wadi Abu Subeira and its tributaries. Worthy of mention is a group of pharaonic inscriptions, recorded by de Morgan at the end of the nineteenth century, carved into the cliff face south of Kubbaniya and now seriously under threat by the building of a new suburb of Aswan. The inscriptions can be dated to the Middle and New Kingdoms, with some from later periods. Rock engravings on the same spot are of different ages and represent cattle, giraffes, boats, an archer with a cow, human figures, and the sacred bull Neghen. Most of them reflect a Middle Nubian tradition,

A New Kingdom inscription already mentioned at the end of the nineteenth century by de Morgan

as do some of the potsherds found on the ground surface between the rocks. A concentration of badly-plundered stone tumuli was found on the upper and lower terraces of the gebel at Nag el-Qarmila. As far as the human bones lying on the surface are concerned, some still have remnants of linen attached but they show no evidence of mummification. The structure of the graves suggests a Nubian affiliation; however, the pottery is all late, of the Roman Period, and

Outcrops overlooking the Nile south of Kubbaniya with rock drawings and pharaonic inscriptions

EGYPTIAN

ARCHAEOLOGY

wheel-made. These graves may be connected with the Blemmyes, or similar contemporary Nubian groups, even if their existence has yet to be proved and their cultural and material assemblages have yet to be defined. Similar evidence has been found and excavated in Hierakonpolis and is mentioned elsewhere in southern Upper Egypt. Graeco-Roman and Coptic sites were found along the western bank of the Nile, including a Ptolemaic temple, settlements and cemeteries.As for the latter, graves of these periods are found all along the upper section of the gebel overlooking the Nile and at the mouth of the main wadis. The graves, cut into the rock, have all been plundered, with the remains of terracotta sarcophagi (not present in all cases), human bones and other parts of mummified bodies, and potsherds scattered all around. The results of these two field seasons clearly show a stable and long-term Nubian presence in the area north of Aswan, supporting our hypothesis that the First Cataract was not a real frontier between Egypt and its southern neighbour. Further investigations in the coming season will hopefully shed more light on this and other topics. q Maria Carmela Gatto is Co-Director of the former British Museum/ University of Milan Survey in the Aswan-Kom Ombo Region, now the British Museum/University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’Archaeological Project in Aswan-Kom Ombo. Serena Giuliani is a Nubiologist of the Società Italiana di Archeologia Nilotica (SIAN).The two field seasons were funded by the British Museum, the Combined Prehistoric Expedition Foundation and the Michela Schiff Giorgini Foundation.

A Roman grave shaft cut into the upper gebel terrace at Nag el-Qarmila

jim@pandpbooks.eclipse.co.uk

EGYPTIAN

ARCHAEOLOGY

Notes and News Qurna. For many years there has been talk of moving the villagers of Qurna from their houses, many of which are built above and around ancient tombs. In 1948 most of the inhabitants refused resettlement to a model village in the cultivation, nearer to the Nile, designed by the renowned architect Hassan Fathi. More recently the Luxor City Higher Council devised a plan which aims to facilitate archaeology, encourage tourism and protect the tombs against water damage.This involves the relocation of 3,200 families to a new village, 3km from Qurna, at el-Taref, at a cost of £15.6m and on 2 December 2006, but not until after protests by the villagers, bulldozers moved in and demolition of the mud-brick houses began. Several hundred families have now accepted offers of free housing in the new village which will provide essential utilities and public services, though construction is still incomplete. The Luxor City Higher Council is permitting shops to remain in the region of the tombs, but, in future, there will be no houses or factories. University of Liverpool.Violaine Chauvet has been appointed as a Lecturer in Egyptology in the School of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology at the University of Liverpool, bringing the total of Egyptology teaching staff to six. She was previously at Framingham State College, Massachusetts, and specialises in the study of Old Kingdom tombs. Dr Chauvet will take up her appointment in July 2007. Griffith Insitute, Oxford. The making of squeezes (impressions of reliefs in soft pliable paper) was a popular recording technique in Egypt in the nineteenth century, though it would not be acceptable nowadays because of the damage it might cause to the monuments. The Archive of the Griffith Institute at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford has a number of such squeezes. Some 200 of them, made in Theban tombs TT 57 (Khaemhet, of the reign of Amenhotep III), TT 106 (Paser, of the reigns of Seti I and Ramesses II) and KV 17 (Seti I), have now been made available on the Institute’s website: http://griffith.ashmus. ox.ac.uk/gri/4.html

The tomb of Khaemhet (TT 57). Nineteenth century squeeze of a scene showing the tomb owner pouring a libation. Photograph:The Griffith Institute, Oxford

Doorjamb of Ramesses II. Two fragments of a limestone doorjamb, initially revealed by rains in the early 1980s, were re-excavated by the British Museum expedition to Kom Firin in September 2005. Conservation and cleaning work, by Tracey Sweek from the Museum’s Department of Conservation, Documentation and Science, in collaboration with Ismail Said Mohammed of the SCA, have improved the readability of an inscription of Ramesses II which proclaims his prowess in battle. The cleaning also revealed extensive parts of an earlier text featuring a cartouche followed by religious epithets. Following joining of the two fragments, the 3.7m tall jamb was erected atop a newly prepared foundation next to the SCA resthouse, designed to limit the effects of erosion from contact with groundwater. The American Research Center in Egypt Projects. In Cairo conservation of Zawiyah Farag Ibn el-Barquq is now complete and work is now focusing on the installation inside the main prayer hall of a display and visitor orientation for the surrounding district. In Old Cairo (Babylon) the archaeological monitoring programme accompanying the USAID funded groundwater lowering project has also been completed, having revealed important new evidence for the significance of the Diocletianic fortress, the position of the Amnis Traianos, and an archaeological landscape from the Late Period to the present day. ARCE/SCA Training. The Giza Mapping Project Archaeological Field School, directed by Mark Lehner, ran its second season in November and December 2006 training SCA inspectors in techniques of archaeological excavation, survey, epigraphy and finds recording and documentation. At Luxor The Site Management Training Project, directed by Naguib Amin, ran a programme for SCA inspectors concentrating on developing a pilot site management project at Medinet Habu. In Cairo The Museum Management Training Project, led by Janice Kamrin, is training a group of curators at the Egyptian Museum in modern registrar and curatorial skills. Liver pool Museums. World Museum Liverpool has secured funding (from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, the Wolfson Foundation Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund and various charitable sources) of £600,000 to refurbish the 30-year old Egypt gallery which will close in July 2007. There will be a small interim Egypt exhibition until the new gallery opens in August 2008. There is also now a new permanent display at the National Conservation Centre (part of National Museums Liverpool) containing Egyptian objects. The exhibition is called Reveal: the hidden stories of objects and features a late dynastic mummy with an interactive display using images taken from Computerised Tomography scanning of the mummy. www. liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/conservation/reveal

Kom Firin.The re-erected doorjamb of Ramesses II. Photograph courtesy of Neal Spencer Karnak and Luxor Temples.The dewatering project at Karnak and Luxor Temples, a collaborative effort by Egypt, Sweden, and USAID aimed at lowering the corrosive groundwater, was finished and activated on 28 November 2006. It is now pumping at 20% capacity and will be up to full capacity by the spring. The Second Congress for Young Egyptologists was held in Lisbon 23 -26 October 2006.The Pharmacy Museum (joint promoter of the event with the University of Lisbon) hosted three days of talks dedicated to discussion of Erotica, Eroticism and Sexuality in Ancient Egypt.The Lisbon conference provided an opportunity for young scholars, gathered from all over the world, to present the results of their research, to become acquainted with new data, and to share their own opinions in informal and lively debate. There were also papers by several international guests and patrons of the meeting. Erich Hornung opened the event, followed by Ian Shaw, Rosalie David, Lise Manniche and Josep Padró.The two next congresses will be held in Hungary in 2009 and Romania in 2012.Abstracts are still available at: www.portanta.com/html/youngegyptian.html

Tell el-Balamun. Reports on the British Museum’s excavations since 2003 and the current geophysical survey (in collaboration with the Polish Academy of Sciences) are now available in PDF format on the Museum’s website. Further reports will appear as work proceeds and, in due course, the entire collection will be re-issued as chapters in a single volume (available for download).www.thebritishmuseum. ac.uk/aes/excavations/balamun2/baldetail.html

Thanks to Ashley Cooke, Michael Jones,W Raymond Johnson, Jaromir Malek, Simone Petacci, Ian Shaw, Jeffrey Spencer, Neal Spencer and Tim Stevens for contributions to ‘Notes and News’.

EGYPTIAN

ARCHAEOLOGY

Astronomical ceilings At an EES Study Day in June 2006, four speakers discussed aspects of ancient Egyptian astronomy. Sarah Symons focuses on one aspect of the Study Day and describes representations of the night sky which are found in temples, tombs, and as decoration for water-clocks, and discusses what they tell us about the Egyptian understanding of celestial objects. From the earliest times, ceilings in tombs and temples in Egypt were decorated with a pattern of yellow fivepointed stars on a blue background. Ceilings, and their equivalent surface, the inside of coffin and sarcophagus lids, continued to represent the sky until the GraecoRoman Period. However, by the New Kingdom, the repeating star pattern was occasionally replaced by more representative designs containing named stars, planets and calendrical aspects such as figures of the lunar months, the names of civil months, or star tables known as Ramesside star clocks. The earliest surviving ceiling is found in the tomb of Senenmut at Deir el-Bahri (TT353), but it was certainly not the first attempt to present a detailed depiction of the sky. A fragment of coffin lid, perhaps from the Eleventh Dynasty, but now destroyed, retained enough traces to suggest astronomical elements similar to those which occur in Senenmut’s ceiling and in many others of similar content but varying design. The first major element is a list of stars, known as decans, divided into two groups.The stars are named and are accompanied by the names and sometimes by the figures of deities. The decanal deities were drawn mainly from the immediate family of Horus. The two groups of decans

are the so-called ‘ordinar y’ and ‘triangle’ decans. These decans appear in earlier astronomical tables painted on coffin lids. Ideally, there are thirty-six ordinary decans and eleven, or possibly twelve, triangle decans. In astronomical ceilings, however, the number of ordinary decans is close to thirty-six, Typical all-over star pattern on a ceiling in the temple of Hatshepsut at Deir but the number el-Bahri (c.1360 BC) of triangle decans rarely reaches double figures. Most lists of decans in astronomical ceilings differ slightly in number, depiction of figures, and allocation of number of stars. Yet the order of the decans, even between lists which clearly have different sources, does not change. This regularity of decan names has its origins in diagonal star tables (also known as diagonal star clocks or calendars) in which the decans first appeared. The diagonal star tables record stars performing a particular action (usually thought to be rising) in order throughout the year. The calendrical or possibly time-keeping context of these stars is not present in the astronomical ceilings, but the stars themselves and their order remain. The list of decans is always interspersed with Part of one of the astronomical ceilings in the tomb of Ramesses V and VI ( KV 9, c. 1150 BC). Lower register: the circumpolar group and beginnings of the two processions of circumpolar deities. Upper register: Orion and other decans. two groups of planets, Photograph by Francis J Dzikowski, reproduced courtesy of the Theban Mapping Project another major element 11

EGYPTIAN

ARCHAEOLOGY

Two views of a reconstruction of the Karnak water-clock (c.1375 BC) showing an astronomical diagram on the outer surface. Top register: decans and planets. Middle register: circumpolar group and deities. Vignette: Amenhotep III offering to the Sun and Moon. Bottom register: lunar months. Photographs: Alan Mills

Major astronomical ceilings In Upper Egypt: Tomb of Senenmut (TT 353) at Deir el-Bahri Tomb of Seti I (KV 17) Mortuary temple of Ramesses II (the Ramesseum) Tomb of Merenptah (KV 8) – ceiling and sarcophagus lid Tomb of Ramesses V and VI (KV 9) Tomb of Ramesses VII (KV 1) Tomb of Ramesses IX (KV 6) Temple of Hathor at Dendera Temple of Khnum at Esna

Splitting the five planets visible to the naked eye into two groups has a logical basis in observation. The two planets whose orbit is inside that of the Earth display motions which never take them far from the Sun. They appear as morning and evening stars. The other three planets, Jupiter, Saturn and Mars, have orbits outside Earth’s orbit, and range around the ecliptic (the path of the Sun) but are not restricted to being near the Sun.We have no text which explains the Egyptian understanding of the difference between the two groups of planets, but astronomical ceilings demonstrate that the five objects were not thought of as a homogeneous group, but rather as two distinct classes of object. The five planets are not depicted as similar figures until Graeco-Roman times, at which point foreign influences were incorporated into astronomical ceilings. Decans and planets occupy the southern half of astro-

On objects in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo: Karnak water-clock Psusennes’ sarcophagus Abu Yasin sarcophagus (in Museum garden)

in astronomical ceiling designs. The first group, appearing between the ordinary decans and the triangle decans, contains Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars, usually as hawk-headed deities standing in individual barques. Mars is sometimes omitted in an apparent copying error. The second group of planets, consisting of Mercury and Venus, follows the triangle decans.Venus is depicted as a benu-bird, but Mercury has no figure and is associated with the god Seth.

Detail of astronomical ceiling in the tomb of Ramesses IX (KV 6, c. 1120 BC).Top register: the benu bird represents Venus (right): two superior planets stand in barques (left): triangle decans including ‘two turtles’ (middle to right). Middle register: one procession of circumpolar deities. Bottom register: Ramesside star clock tables 12

EGYPTIAN

ARCHAEOLOGY

Detail from the astronomical ceiling in the hypostyle hall in the temple of Hathor at Dendera (c.AD 30).The zodiacal constellations Taurus (right) and Gemini (centre) among Egyptian decans including Orion (left, in barque) and Sirius (far left, as a cow in a barque)

nomical ceilings.The third major element, located in the northern part of ceilings, is a group of stars or constellations called the circumpolar group. The details of the representation of the circumpolar group and the number of figures change, but three characters are always present: the Foreleg (shown as a bovine leg or complete ox), the Hippopotamus, and the Mooring Post. Additional figures usually include a number of crocodiles and humans. The circumpolar group represents a group of stars with particular behaviour when observed from Egypt. The circumpolar stars do not rise and set but rotate around the north celestial pole, always above the horizon. Like the planets, Egyptian descriptions of the sky divide stars into two distinct groups: those in the south which rise and set (including the decans) and those in the north which do not rise and set (the circumpolar group). The circumpolar group is always accompanied by two processions of named deities, but the significance of this element is not known. The explanation of the Foreleg, Hippopotamus and Mooring Post, however, is documented in the Book of the Day, present in several New Kingdom tombs. A small part of the text describes how the Foreleg, associated with Seth, was imprisoned in the northern sky by being tied by a golden chain to a flint Mooring Post. The Hippopotamus was set as guardian over it with orders never to let the Foreleg move to the southern part of the sky. The Foreleg is one of the few Egyptian constellations

to have a reasonably secure identification in the modern sky. It corresponds to the asterism we call the Plough or Big Dipper. The imagery of a tethered animal wandering around in circles can immediately be seen as an apt description of the Plough’s movement around the north celestial pole, even though the position of the pole has changed over the centuries; this is due to precession, the variation in the direction of the Earth’s axis of spin. The arrangement of the elements is usually consistent with the orientation of the ceiling (stars and planets in the south, circumpolar group and deities in the north) reinforcing the resemblance between the ceiling design and the real sky. The characters and their arrangement survived practically unchanged from the New Kingdom until the Graeco-Roman Period, when ‘foreign’ elements, such as the signs of the zodiac, were incorporated into the traditional layout. The Dendera zodiac, perhaps the most famous of astronomical ceilings, has an unusual circular arrangement, even though another astronomical ceiling at Dendera but of slightly later date retains the original linear layout. Astronomical ceilings are more than just beautiful designs. They are the nearest documents we have to ancient Egyptian star maps.Among the symbolism we can see evidence of observation and categorisation of celestial objects. Today, we can view an astronomical ceiling in a temple or tomb, then go into the desert and watch the same stars and planets, still travelling in the Egyptian sky. q Sarah Symons is a Lecturer in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Leicester. She is very grateful to Kent Weeks and Magdi Ali of the Theban Mapping Project for supplying images and granting permission to use them in this article. Other photographs, unless otherwise stated, by the writer.

Detail from the astronomical ceiling in the hypostyle hall in the temple of Hathor at Dendera (c.AD 30). Upper register: the foreign zodiacal constellations Sagittarius and Capricorn with the Egyptian circumpolar group. Lower register: decans in barques. Surround: the sky goddess Nut swallows the sun disk 13

EGYPTIAN

ARCHAEOLOGY

An Egyptian temple at Tell Dafana?

The site of Tell Dafana, on the eastern edge of the Nile Delta, is probably to be identified as ancient Daphnae, a defensive outpost known to have existed on Egypt’s north-eastern border at the beginning of the Saite Period. François Leclère re-evaluates the evidence in the light of information gained from recent satellite photographs. Tell Dafana is situated on the eastern border of the Delta, barely ten kilometres west of the Suez Canal, at the latitude of the modern town of Qantara. In antiquity it occupied a strategic position, controlling at the same time the most easterly channel of the Pelusiac branch of the Nile and the routes leading to neighbouring countries to the east and desert tracks into the Sinai peninsula. For a long time not easily accessible and visually unattractive, it has, nevertheless, aroused the interest of historians specialising in relations between Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean world in the Late Period because of the material found at the site during the excavation of Flinders Petrie, for the Egypt Exploration Fund, in 1886 – the only such investigation which has ever taken place at Tell Dafana. At the end of the eighteenth century the similarity of the Arabic toponym (sometimes transcribed Defeïnéh, Defeyneh or more commonly, Defenneh) suggested its identification with Daphnae, the town mentioned by Herodotus (II, 30) as the seat of an Egyptian garrison established at the beginning of the Twenty Sixth Dynasty to control the north-east frontier, like Marea in the northwest and Elephantine in the south. It was also suggested that the site should possibly be identified with the Dafno of the Antonine Itinerary and also the biblical Tahpanhes, the place of refuge for the prophet Jeremiah and Judeans seeking refuge from the Babylonian oppression during the reign of Apries.The ancient Egyptian name for the site is uncertain but, if the identification often proposed with the toponym Tjeben(et) has possibly to be rejected, it has more recently been suggested that the name should be sought among different variants based on the name Pa-Nehesy, which appears – and has been variously read – in several

Plan of Tell Dafana in 1886. Petrie, Tanis. Part II. Nebesheh (Am) and Defenneh (Tahpanhes), pl.43

demotic documents: a geographic onomasticon from the end of the dynastic period and some literary texts of the Ptolemaic Period which are, however, looking back on events in the Saite epoch. The site today is a vast sandy plain, barely higher than the nearby cultivated or desert land, scattered with pot sherds and dotted with thorn bushes. It seems to have changed little since the end of the nineteenth century (see also EA 16, p.25) despite having been temporarily occupied by the Egyptian army in recent decades, resuming in a way a tradition more than two thousand years old. It is, however, today threatened by the construction of roads and canals related to the important development of agriculture in the region. In the southern part of the site rise a series of blackish or reddish mounds which are the sole remains, long ago moulded by the wind and

Levelled buildings south of the Qasr at Tell Dafana

Tell Dafana.The levelled south-east corner of the great enclosure

EGYPTIAN

ARCHAEOLOGY

rain, of the Qasr (‘fort’) excavated by Petrie. This was a massive Saite construction of mud-brick built on a cellular foundation and standing within a vast rectangular space surrounded by a thick enclosure wall, now levelled. In the north-west Petrie identified another elevated area as an urban zone of the Hellenistic Period. Still further north, beyond a long depression running from west to east (probably an ancient bed of the Pelusiac branch of the Nile) another mound seemed to have been occupied in the Roman and Byzantine Periods, perhaps over the site of an ancient cemetery. The discovery by Petrie of iron items, some at least of which were military in nature, and of finely decorated imported archaic Greek ceramics, seemed straight away to corroborate his a priori hypothesis that the site should also be identified with the Stratopeda which Herodotus described elsewhere (II, 154) as being establishments situated on either side of the Pelusiac branch, downstream from Bubastis, on the land ceded by Psamtik I to the Ionian and Carian soldiers whom Amasis eventually took back to Memphis to form his personal guard. The ‘garrison at Daphnae’ thus became a ‘camp for Greek mercenaries’ and Tell Dafana was interpreted as a military enclosure containing a keep, with a configuration similar to that of the southern enclosure at Naucratis, discovered earlier by Petrie and which he interpreted as the Hellenion mentioned by Herodotus (II, 178-179). Almost immediately, however, this identification was rejected by other specialists as, according to Herodotus himself, Daphnae was still flourishing in the Persian Period while the Stratopeda were already in ruins. In addition, the majority of the imported pottery, essen-

Building A Building B Landing

Dromos

Terrace

Hypothetical reconstruction of the entrance to the mud-brick substructure of the Qasr

tially of eastern Greece and Attica, dates to the reign of Amasis and had, therefore, little chance of coming from an establishment evacuated by that king. Moreover, the true Hellenion of Naucratis was subsequently revealed as being in the northern part of that site, and the southern enclosure was eventually identiﬁed for certain as that of a classic Egyptian temple, dedicated to a local aspect of the god Amun-Re. These various objections, however, did not have the expected effect on the interpretation of the remains at Tell Dafana, still most often considered as being those of a Greek military camp. Re-evaluation of the material found at the site, and now dispersed among many collections, shows notably that a large proportion is of a purely Egyptian nature: the Saite stela, jar sealings in

The Qasr during Petrie’s excavations (EES Archive)

Left:The Saite stela found during Petrie’s excavations (EES Archive) Right: Plan of the Qasr and its annexes in 1886. Petrie, Tanis. Part II. Nebesheh (Am) and Defenneh (Tahpanhes), pl.44

EGYPTIAN

ARCHAEOLOGY

from trade with the eastern Mediterranean world, outside the Naucratite monopoly. Nor do the structures which have been located at Tell Dafana have anything to do with the Greeks: by its style, size and thickness the enclosure is no different from those of the classic Egyptian temples.The structures of the Qasr itself, from which came various Egyptian architectural and decorative elements, belong to the category of casemate buildings similar to those identiﬁed within many ancient religious enclosures in the Delta (at Tanis, Naucratis, Memphis, Tell Belim Tell el-Balamun, Tell el-Maskhuta) and also in Upper Egypt, notably at Karnak, where inscriptions permit, at least for some of them, their identification as ‘pure magazines’ (6QD wab), structures on a base linked with the preparation, consecration and storage of offerings for the temples situated near by. A re-examination of the archaeological data supplied by Petrie would support a hypothetical reconstruction of its access, built in limestone, from the north. Without absolutely excluding, on the basis of other indications, the possibility that Greeks, in the same way as other peoples, could have joined the contingents of the garrison based at Daphnae, much of the evidence would seem to suggest that the remains of structures excavated by Petrie at Tell Dafana correspond at least partly to those of a classic Egyptian religious enclosure. The excavator did not locate, Satellite image of Tell Dafana. (DigitalGlobe, reproduced courtesy of GoogleEarth) however, remains of

the names of many kings of the Twenty Sixth Dynasty, a jar handle stamped with the name of Necho II, a bronze seal of Amasis, foundation deposits of Psamtik I from the Qasr, elements of other disturbed deposits of Apries, statuettes, scarabs, seal-rings of priests, sherds and vessels inscribed in demotic, fragments of New Year ﬂasks, various amulets and locally-made pottery.The presence of imported vessels, coming only from a very few speciﬁc locations near the Qasr, does not necessarily imply the presence of an important community of foreigners, but perhaps resulted

©GoogleEarth

EGYPTIAN

ARCHAEOLOGY

100

200

300 m

Approximate based on Petrie’s planle plan de Petrie Échelle scale approximative restituée d'après

©GoogleEarth

Emplacement du "Qasr" d'aprèsPetrie’s le plan de Petrie. Position of the Qasr after plan

Satellite image of the temple enclosure at Tell Dafana. (DigitalGlobe, reproduced courtesy of GoogleEarth)

Plan, based on satellite imagery, of the temple enclosure at Tell Dafana

temples, but that was also the case initially for the enclosure of Amun-Re at Naucratis. High resolution images (DigitalGlobe) taken by satellite, and made available recently on the GoogleEarth website, conﬁrm at the same time the quality of the schematic general plan made by Petrie and the good state of conservation today at Tell Dafana. However, they also show radically new information on the topography of the remains and their possible interpretation. In the central southern area of the site are located the vast rectangular enclosure detected by Petrie and the position of the Qasr. In the southern half of this enclosure and in its surroundings can be seen a multitude of levelled structures (of which it is possible to draw a plan) visible because of differences in the colour of the ground caused by the reactions of various materials (according to their nature and density) to different levels of humidity. In the central part can clearly be observed a large building orientated to the south, entered by an axial limestone doorway of which Petrie had located traces, and made up of three successive courts, which evoke immediately those of a major Egyptian temple.The possible site of the sanctuary itself, north of these courts, is still difﬁcult to identify. A

double row of long rooms, east of the courts, and other constructions to the south-west suggest the existence of a collection of magazines.To the north-east another cluster represents, less clearly, a sector where Petrie encountered many chips of stone, not far from the original position of the great Saite stela, and where the access way led off to the casemate buildings.The north-west zone seems to be empty of buildings but the terrain is, if not destroyed, perhaps covered by a layer of wind-blown sand. Many other buildings are also visible in the urban areas to the south-west and east of the enclosure. The only way to verify this hypothesis would be by investigations on the ground and further excavations; failing this, the satellite images would seem to reinforce the suggestion that Daphnae, a garrison town, was above all a true Egyptian city, which possessed a great enclosure protecting one or more temples. T François Leclère is a former scientiﬁc member of the IFAO and a current associate member of the UMR 8152 of the CNRS (Université de Paris IV). His doctoral thesis Les villes de Basse Égypte au Ier millénaire av. J.-C. Analyse archéologique et historique de la topographie urbaine is in the press with IFAO. He is grateful to GoogleEarth (http://earth.google. com/) for permission to use the DigitalGlobe satellite images. Other illustrations (unless otherwise indicated) by the writer.

EGYPTIAN

ARCHAEOLOGY

Re-excavation at the Amarna house of Panehsy In 1926 the EES expedition then working at Amarna excavated, next to the Great Aten Temple, the house of one of the city’s chief officials, a man named Panehsy. Now, 80 years later, the current Amarna expedition has undertaken a reinvestigation of material from the house discarded by the first expedition, throwing new light on Panhesy and his role at Amarna, as Phillipa Payne describes. The name of Panehsy is familiar as that of the owner of tomb number 6 in the northern tomb group at Amarna. As ‘Chief Servitor of the Aten’ Panehsy owned two houses in the city, one in the main residential area and the other beside the Great Aten Temple. Since its excavation in 1926, the latter has been considered as an ‘official residence’, but it is noteworthy for its proximity to one of the few known butchers’ yards in the city, that in the Great Aten Temple itself. Since another of Panehsy’s titles was ‘Keeper of the Cattle of the Aten’, the writer’s curiosity was aroused by the possibility of a connection between Panehsy’s title and the location of his house, close to the butchers’ yard; a connection which had already been noted by the original excavators. Frankfort wrote (JEA 13 [1927], p.212): ‘Remains of cattle, horns and bones, cropped up everywhere, and it thus seems probable that these rooms served for the preparation of the sacrificial animals, for which Panehsy, as superintendent of the cattle of the Aten, was responsible’. Frankfort evidently did not keep the bones, but it was realised that if they could be found again they would, through their sacred connection, represent a distinctive group for study. In the hope of recovering the cattle remains a general

surface survey was begun in March 2004, with a further day spent probing the spoil-heaps of the house in April 2005. In March 2006 a more thorough investigation over ten days was undertaken with the assistance of five local workmen. The first task was to produce a plan of the spoil-heaps of the original Frankfort excavation as a way of ascertaining the relationship of the dumps to the various parts of the house. The pathways that the workmen had taken were still visible over the top part of the spoil heaps, giving them a gentler gradient on the house side and a sharp drop on the other. Near the end of the season both the house and the spoil heaps were photographed from the air using the expedition’s helium balloon. Frankfort treated the house and its outbuildings as a single excavation unit, and so kept no record as to where in the house the cattle remains were collected. Although it will never be possible to make a direct link between particular parts of the dumps and specific rooms, the survey shows how the spoil was carried only a short distance to either side of the outbuildings, and how the fill of the house proper was divided into a lesser volume dumped on the south and west, and a greater volume on the north. During the 2004-05 preliminary investigation ap-

The house of Panehsey looking south 18

EGYPTIAN

Sherd of blue painted pottery with outline drawing of a cow, from the south dump

ARCHAEOLOGY

A flint tool recovered with the bone material. Left: obverse. Right: reverse

destination of different parts of the animal.The fragments that are present were splintered when the shoulder joint was detached, the remainder of the bones being removed with the joint. The skull, being one of the most complex areas of anatomy, can sometimes appear to be over-represented because it has become exceedingly fragmented.The skull that was recovered was very broken, but no other species appeared to be represented, suggesting that cattle heads were treated differently to heads from other animals.The ratio of atlas to axis bones (1:2) may also be significant. Although the numbers are very small (6 atlas, 14 axis), half of the axis bones had been butchered against none of the atlas bones.This suggests that beheading took place place at the point of the second vertebrae in the spine and that the first vertebrae travelled away from the site, with the rest of the head, while the second remained with the body. The original reports mention not only cattle remains but also the discovery of flint blades. Evidently some examples had been retained by Frankfort’s team, but the remainder of the flint-working waste and several tools were collected from the dumps for future study. As we were dealing with re-excavated material it was difficult to reconstruct the original context, but there was a clear relationship between areas of the deposit rich in animal bone and the location of the flints. Some of the bones displayed damage inflicted with different kinds of tools. Chopping-marks from a heavybladed instrument were the most common, but thinner marks made with a blade were also preserved. Some were so alike that they seemed to be the signature of a particular mode of butchery, apprentices trained by the same master or perhaps a received wisdom in dealing with sacrificial animals. Some of the marks were also

proximately 3 kg of bone was collected, mainly from the large dump on the north side of the house. In 2006 four trenches were opened, three into the large dump to the north and one in the dumps to the south. They yielded nearly 40kg of bone, most of it from cattle. This helps to confirm the evidence of the tomb reliefs that cattle were a major form of offering to the Aten.As if to emphasise this, among the pottery found in the dumps was a blue-painted sherd with the outline drawing of a cow.The familiar offering scene depicted in the Amarna tombs (in Panehsy’s own, for example) shows the heads and forelimbs of cattle on offering-tables. The faunal remains, however, showed neither a marked presence, nor a dearth, of forelimb bones. The hind limb was favoured (148 bones compared with just 82 from the front limb) but the only notable absence overall was of the scapula (shoulder blade). Just four fragments of scapulae that could have come from cattle were collected, all from trench 4.The complete absence of any shoulder blade in the other three trenches, and its scarcity of representation in trench 4, suggests that it was being deliberately removed. It is possible that this joint, rather than the lower joint of the radius/humerus, was being presented as the offering. If this were the case we might expect there to be fewer examples of humerus present – there are 22 as opposed to 35 examples of the radius, which is a thinner bone and generally survives less well. The three complete examples are also neonatal individuals suggesting that age had a role in A juvenile horn-core [11352].74 from determining the the north dump

Damage from butchery. From left to right: a toe [11352].6, an ulna [11363].432 and an articulated joint,[11363].303 and 365 19

EGYPTIAN

ARCHAEOLOGY

very deep, suggesting an amateur at work rather than a fully trained individual. There were also some examples of classic jointing butchery, tendon-cutting at the elbow and knee joint (parallel cuts on the outer distal edge of a femur, for example). Although the bone does not prove that cattle were killed on site, it is very suggestive of butchering occurring at, or very near to, the house. If it proves possible to link the flint blades with the butchering marks on the bones, then this would help to corroborate further that the processing of cattle carcasses was taking place right next to the house. The recovered flint knives were disposable equipment and so would have been discarded at the same time as the waste bone material. Although artistic representations show animal skins, the bones themselves exhibited no signature skinning marks. Either this was done by a professional whose skills left no mark – unlike the butchers – or it was done with the heavy dismembering tool that the butchers were using and it is not possible to distinguish between the actions. [11352].6, a single third phalanx (illustrated on p.19) showed seven heavy chopping marks on the anterior surface. Marks on the toes are usually associated with skinning and this may record a clumsy version of this activity using a tool unsuited to the task. Many of the shaft fragments could not be definitely identified as cattle but had come from an animal of that size and shape. They had been split open following the ‘grain’ of the bone from proximal to distal end, possibly to extract marrow and grease. Some positively identified cattle remains had been treated in this way, but most were too broken up by the process itself to be identified. This is a pattern not recorded at other areas of the city and may be an activity associated with mass carcass processing. In domestic waste we see the remains of consumption; here at the temple, the remains indicate the preceding preparation process. The proximity to Panehsy’s house of evidence for butchery leaves unexplained the ‘butchers’ yard’ situated some distance away inside the enclosure of the Great Aten Temple. Is it possible that here the animals were despatched in the ritual environment, to be removed to the secular space of the house of Panehsy for dismemberment? The presence of virtually the complete skeleton suggests that the whole animal was butchered here, rather than that only parts of it were dumped here after consumption. The animal was killed within the sacred space but the longer and more cumbersome process of preparation for consumption took place outside the temple, in this secular space. Although outside the enclosure wall, this area still retains a link with the inside yard by being built on the same axis. This line runs north to south and is formed at one end by Panehsy’s house and a gateway in the enclosure wall, and at the other by the butchers’ yard and a large stela set up to list the offerings made within. These discoveries have a bearing on Panehsy’s titles.

Tomb No.6 at Amarna - Panehesy worshipping the Aten

We need not doubt, from his tomb reliefs, that Mahu, for example, had a very active role as ‘Chief of Police’ of Akhetaten. But for a ‘Chief Priest of the Aten’ the supplementary office of ‘Keeper of the Cattle of the Aten’ need imply only a distant connection with the cattle themselves. The amount of animal bone present at his house, however, points to a ‘hands-on’ role and illustrates that his was far from a tranquil office environment. His title of ‘Keeper’ described part of his actual job. The atmosphere of his official residence would have been closer to that of an abattoir. The position of this isolated dwelling is also more understandable in the light of this use.The buildings nearest to it (excluding the temple) are all of a municipal nature. Bread-baking is particularly well attested on this side of the enclosure wall. Building S40.1, excavated by Pendlebury (City of Akhenaten III, p.28), could have been used as a meat processing and potting plant, its whitewashed walls and floors indicative of an activity requiring a hygienic location. A concentration of meat jar labels in the nearby building Q41.9 might also locate the potting- and processing-factory for sacrificed animals. Thus the animals that went into the temple may not all have been consumed as fresh meat, but they and their products could have been hoarded in temple stores for future use. The evidence also goes some way towards explaining why Panehsy had a second residence away from his temple duties.This small house provided accommodation for him during times of sacrifice so that the rest of his family could remain separate from the bloody and messy business of butchery, within the residential neighbourhood of the main city. q Phillipa Payne is a zooarchaeologist. She would like to thank Anna Stevens, Barry Kemp, Gwil Owen and Boris Trivan for their help on site. Photographs: Phillipa Payne and Gwil Owen © The Egypt Exploration Society.

EGYPTIAN

ARCHAEOLOGY

Tuthmosid foundation deposits at Karnak Since 2002 the CFEETK has been investigating the central area of the Temple of Karnak, to establish its various building phases from the Middle Kingdom (see also EA 27, pp.20-24) until the middle of the New Kingdom. Romain Mensan reports on the discovery of foundation deposits which are helping to illuminate the history of the Amun temple. Between 2004 and 2006, excavations carried out by the Centre Franco-Égyptien d’Étude des Temples de Karnak (CFEETK) around the Hatshepsut podium and in the south courtyard of the Sixth Pylon have revealed three foundation deposits in situ, adding important new information about the chronology of the Sixth Pylon and its south chapels. The first investigation was undertaken in the easternmost chapel, close to the Middle Kingdom courtyard. After the removal of the flooring it was possible to observe the foundations, made up of two courses of pale sandstone in part bedded on a thick layer of sand and on two mud-brick structures which are the ruins of an earlier building. Many blocks from the lower course of the foundation are inscribed in red ink with the name of Senenmut, Hatshepsut’s architect. Aerial view of the central area of Karnak: the winch is in the Sixth Pylon courtyard. Inside the sand, under the foundation at the north (Photograph © Antoine Chéné, CFEETK, CNRS) side of the chapel, a foundation deposit was discontaining six copper objects; an axe, two adze blades, covered consisting of a series of ceramic vessels, faience a knife blade and two nails. The axe is inscribed with cartouches of Tuthmosis III and many model faience the name of Tuthmosis III and one of the adze blades columns. Inside the chapel one of the earlier mud-brick with the name of Hatshepsut. A red sandstone fragment walls had been hollowed out to let in a foundation deposit inscribed with the name of Tuthmosis III and about twenty chalcedony beads were excavation area 2004-2006 also associated with the copper objects in this deposit. Sandstone foundations The association of the two co-regents, Tuthmosis I ? Menkheperre Tuthmosis III and Maatkare Hatshepsut podium Hatshepsut inside the same foundation North rooms of HATSHEPSUT deposit poses some interesting questions excavation areas as to who built the chapels. The chapels Foundation deposits eastern themselves contain decoration in which car1 Chapel of PHILIP ARRHIDEUS chapel touches of Tuthmosis III are alternated with 2 sixth pylon Middle Kingdom courtyard those of Amenhotep I and they are men2 3 western tioned (as is the Sixth Pylon) as monuments chapel South room of HATSHEPSUT of Tuthmosis III in the well-known ‘texte 3 1 TUTHMOSIS I rooms? de la jeunesse’, but the name of Senenmut Chapel of TUTHMOSIS III painted with red ink in the foundations confirms that Hatshepsut’s architect was involved in the construction work. A survey under the south wing of the Sixth The central area of the Amun Temple at Karnak (after Guillaume Charloux, Pylon has allowed observation of its foundaupdated by Romain Mensan) Vth Pylon

VIth pylon

Vth Pylon

EGYPTIAN

ARCHAEOLOGY

The foundation deposit of the eastern chapel after restoration. (Photograph: © Yoann Stoeckel, CFEETK) Eastern chapel deposit. Axe blade inscribed for Tuthmosis III and an adze blade with the name of Hatshepsut. (Photographs: © Nathalie Gambier, CFEETK)

Sandstone fragment carved with the name of Tuthmosis III

Quartzite fragment carved with the name of Maatkare, Sixth Pylon excavation. (Photograph: © Gael Polin, CFEETK)

The Sixth Pylon foundation deposit in situ, at the start of the excavation 22

EGYPTIAN

ARCHAEOLOGY

The western chapel foundation deposit in situ

Faience objects from the western chapel deposit

Western chapel. Gold cartouches with the name of Tuthmosis III

The western chapel’s foundation deposit, after restoration 23

EGYPTIAN

ARCHAEOLOGY

eastern chapel excavation

Foundation deposit of Tuthmosis III-Hatshepsut

M4 Hatshepsut podium

Excavation of the eastern chapel. View from the north sandstone foundations

tions, which consist of three sandstone courses, the upper one belonging to the Eighteenth Dynasty paving. The cornerstone block from the lower course has Senenmut’s name painted in red on its outer side.This block rests in a trench filled with sand and it was sealed by waste material from sandstone cutting, under which was found a quartzite fragment carved with the name of Maatkare. Beneath the block itself and under the waste materials, a fine foundation deposit of Tuthmosis III was buried in the sand. It had been placed in a circular depression (c.1m across) with the objects themselves carefully arranged.They had been placed in the following order: small incense dishes containing carnelian beads, then different engraved stones and copper models, and finally pottery vessels for food offerings. In total this foundation deposit contained: 30 types of pottery vessels (incense dishes, beer jars, bowls); 25 model copper tools, all inscribed with the name of Tuthmosis III (four axes, three adzes, eight cold chisels, six chisels and four knives); seven sandstone fragments, six of which are inscribed with the name of Tuthmosis III and 180 carnelian beads. Again this is evidence for a structure attributed to Tuthmosis III associated with a foundation built by Senenmut, architect of Hatshepsut whose other name, Maatkare, is carved on the quartzite fragment, which, although not part of the foundation deposit, was located above it. Similar stone fragments with the name of Maatkare are common in the central area of the temple, around the podium above

Unexcavated area

Mud brick walls

M2 channel

2,5m

The locations of the eastern chapel’s foundation deposit

which the red chapel was built. The third deposit was discovered inside the westernmost chapel of the south courtyard. Like the easternmost chapel, the foundation of the east wall consisted of two courses laid above the remains of an earlier brick wall while its west side was formed of the wall which runs south from

VI th pylon, south wing

N 74.37

VI th pylon excavation

74.35

5 11

8 12

7 1

3rd foundation course with SENENMUT inscription

mud brick walls

Tuthmosis III's foundation deposit M2 M1 Foundation trench limit 0

The last stage of the excavation of the Sixth Pylon deposit; note the reverse Senenmut inscription on the block

The location of the Sixth Pylon foundation deposit

EGYPTIAN

ARCHAEOLOGY

Western chapel excavation

74.49

VI th pylon courtyard

73.71

M2 72.71

74.37 73.10

74.39

Copper objects with inscriptions of Tuthmosis III. Sixth Pylon excavation

the Sixth Pylon.This is founded on three courses placed in the north-south foundation trench, just like that revealed under the south wing of the pylon. This foundation deposit is located beneath the lowest course of the foundation of the wall running south from the Sixth Pylon.The protruding side of the wall seems to have served to protect it. To facilitate its deposition, a rectangular pit (1.0m x 0.5m) was cut inside the mud-brick wall.The deposit consists of 32 types of pottery vessels (incense dishes, beer jars and bowls); 156 faience cartouches with the name of Tuthmosis III; 126 small, faience w|D pillars of several forms; nine gold cartouches with the name of Tuthmosis III; a bovid skull and bones. The contents of the deposit are still in situ, as is demonstrated by the perfect alignment of the bones even though they, and the faience objects, had been damaged by their long immersion below the water table. The position of the deposit under the corner created by the chapel and the end of the pylon confirms their contemporaneous construction.Although Hatshepsut Maatkare is not mentioned in the deposit, the name of Senenmut was written on the enclosure foundation of the south-running wall beside the south courtyard of the Fifth Pylon. These three foundation deposits mark clearly the corners of a single architectural project bounded by the Sixth Pylon, the wall which runs south from it and the south chapels. These structures surround the Hatshepsut podium with the still-standing red chapel.The omnipresent name of Senenmut painted in the foundations, together with those of both Tuthmosis III and Hatshepsut, would support the dating of this monument to the co-regency period. The construction of the Sixth Pylon, its courts, its chapels and the podium would seem to have belonged to a single architectural project which was started by Hatshepsut and continued by Tuthmosis III. A typological study of material must now be undertaken to understand better the significance of the variety of objects in the foundation deposits and in particular to compare the inscribed foundation votives (the quartzite fragments) of Hatshepsut which mark the construction of her podium.

Tuthmosis III's foundation deposit

Western chapel

73.80

73.18 73.70 Mud brick wall

73.18 73.70

M2 74.39 74.39

The location of the western chapel’s foundation deposit q Romain Mensan is an archaeologist of the CFEETK. He would like to thank all the members of the CFEETK, and especially Nathalie Gambier, for their help and support. He is also grateful to Giorgia Urbani for the initial translation of the article into English. All illustrations, unless otherwise indicated, © Romain Mensan, CFEETK. The copy of the Senenmut text is © Helena Zacharias, CFEETK, CNRS.

EGYPTIAN

ARCHAEOLOGY

Ancient amazonite quarries in the Eastern Desert Although amazonite was used by the ancient Egyptians as early as the Predynastic Period, the source of the stone remained uncertain until July 2006, when James Harrell and Ali Farrag Osman discovered two amazonite quarries in the Eastern Desert. Amazonite (also commonly referred to as Amazon stone and green feldspar) is an opaque, green to bluish-green variety of microcline, one of the feldspar minerals. The green colour is produced by trace amounts of lead impurities in the normally white or pink microcline. Known to the ancient Egyptians as neshmet, amazonite was one of the more important, but also rarer, gemstones used for jewellery. It was employed for beads in Predynastic times, and during the Dynastic and Graeco-Roman Periods it was used not only for beads but also for amulets, inlays and, rarely, small unguent and kohl jars. Amazonite was especially popular for jewellery during the Twelfth and Eighteenth Dynasties. Although no ancient quarry for amazonite had been

Map of Egypt showing the location of the study area

found in Egypt until now, it has long been reported by geologists, and so known to archaeologists, that deposits of this gemstone occur on and near the neighbouring mountains of Gebel Migif and Gebel Hafafit in the southern Eastern Desert. In July 2006 the authors came to this area to look for ancient amazonite quarries and found two of them. The first and more important discovery was made on the north side of Gebel Migif, near the conspicuous, whitewashed tomb of Sheikh el-Tum in Wadi Shait. On the lower slope of this mountain, at 24o 48.390’ N and 34o 27.185’ E, there is a single trench cut through the granitoid gneiss bedrock that follows an amazonitebearing pegmatite vein. The trench is 9.7m long, 1-2m wide, and 1-1.5m deep. Amazonite crystals up to 5cm in size occur in compact masses that are commonly 1020cm across.The crystals are bluish-green, and sometimes have white patches and veins of uncoloured microcline. The north-west end of the trench stops at the edge of a precipitous slope that drops into a deep ravine. Beyond the trench’s south-east end, the surface rock was cleared by the ancient quarrymen for several metres along the continuation of the pegmatite vein in an effort to evaluate its amazonite content.

Amazonite quarry trench on Gebel Migif

EGYPTIAN

ARCHAEOLOGY

Amazonite crystals in the Gebel Migif quarry

Dolerite mauls used in the Gebel Migif quarry (the hammer is 27cm long)

Scattered around the trench are the stone tools used to quar r y the amazonite. These are what are commonly referred to as dolerite mauls or pounders. They are roughly spherical or circular ellipsoidal in shape, and have diameters ranging between 10cm and 20cm. Tools of identical aspect are abundant in the New Kingdom granite and quartzite quarries near Aswan.At Gebel Migif, these tools were presumably used to knock out masses of amazonite crystals after first isolating them by bruising away some of the surrounding pegmatite matrix. Crudely pecked into the quarry trench wall, probably using a dolerite maul, there is a hieroglyphic inscription with a cartouche. The latter is faint and poorly rendered, but most likely bears the name of either Amenhotep II or Tuthmosis IV. The signs above the cartouche possibly read ‘the good god’ and those below clearly say ‘given life’. Near by, on the same rock surface, is a single sign that appears to represent a sail, and which may be the phyle or name of the quarry crew. No pottery or other archaeological remains were found in the quarry. Directly below the quarry, at the foot of the mountain, there are the poorly preserved remains of stone huts that sheltered the quarry workers. Although this site has been badly eroded by flash floods coming down the adjacent wadi, the partial outlines of ten single-room huts are still clear. Many unnatural stone alignments across the low terrace hint at the former presence of other huts. The surviving structures are circular to oval in outline and a few metres across with walls of dry-laid, stacked stone up to 0.5m high. No pottery was found among the huts. A rock basin or qalt (also galt) in a ravine near this settlement

would have been a source of water for the quarry workers, at least dur ing the wet winter months. A commonly cited reference to a possible ancient amazonite quarry first appeared in the 1948 (3rd) edition of Alfred Lucas’ Ancient Egyptian Materials and Industries, where he reports (on p.451) the following personal communication: ‘Ahmed Ibrahim Awad [of the Geological Survey of Egypt] found a broad seam of the blue-green variety [of amazonite] with ancient workings in Wadi Higelig about seven miles west of Gebel Migif ’. It was this reference that originally led the writers to the Gebel Migif area. However, as evident from the several maps consulted, and confirmed by the local Bedouin, there is no Wadi Higelig west of Gebel Migif, and also the rocks to the west are incompatible with the known geologic occurrence of amazonite in Egypt. Lucas, therefore, is in error but it appears that it is only the direction given that is wrong. About 7 miles south-east of Gebel Migif there is a wadi which modern maps and local Bedouin both call Abu Higelig, and there is another amazonite occurrence that can be loosely said to lie on the east side of this wadi. It is on the west side of Gebel Hafafit (at 24o 45.306’ N and 34o 34.355’ E) and well up a narrow boulder-strewn defile which the Bedouin call Wadi Fayrouz in the mistaken belief that it is the similar-looking turquoise (fayrouz in Arabic) that occurs here. As at Gebel Migif, the amazonite is found within a pegmatite vein cutting granitoid gneiss. This deposit, however, is much richer, with bluish-green amazonite crystals as large as 25cm and crystal masses up to 40cm across. Dominating the site is a modern quarry shaft that

Amazonite quarry on Gebel Hafafit.The modern shaft is the dark opening on the right side of the large boulder at centre. One of the two ancient workings is in the cleft on the upper left side of the same boulder and the other one is behind the boulder

Topographic contour map of the Gebels Migif-Hafafit region showing the locations of the two newly discovered amazonite quarries 27

EGYPTIAN

ARCHAEOLOGY

A sail possibly denoting a phyle, on the wall of the Gebel Migif quarry

the ravine where the quarry is located. The only datable pottery sherds come from amphorae; those in the quarry are Roman and the one found in the ravine leading up to the quarry is Ptolemaic. The Gebel Migif and Gebel Hafafit quarries are both rather small and so it seems unlikely that they supplied all the amazonite used anciently in Egypt. Lucas, in his Ancient Egyptian Materials and Industries, suggested that some of the amazonite came from the well-known quarries for this gemstone at Zuma in the Eghei Mountains, north of Tibesti, in Libya.While this may be true, it is now certain that ancient Egypt had its own sources. Outside the Twelfth Dynasty, the best examples of amazonite in jewellery come from the tomb of Tutankhamun. Given the Eighteenth Dynasty date of the Gebel Migif quarry, it may well be that this is the source of amazonite used in this jewellery. Still to be discovered, unless it is one or both of the two quarries described herein, are the sources of amazonite used during the Twelfth Dynasty and other periods. Additional occurrences of amazonite in the Gebels Migif-Hafafit region have been reported, and so it is anticipated that more ancient quarries will be found in this part of the Eastern Desert.

Hieroglyphic inscription with a cartouche on the wall of the Gebel Migif quarry

follows the vein for 6m into the mountainside.According to the local Bedouin, this is at least a few decades old. It seems likely that this is the amazonite quarry that Awad mentioned to Lucas prior to 1948 and, if so, the modern activity may date to this time. Beside the shaft are two clearly much older excavations, and there may well have been a third where the modern shaft is now located. Both cave-like excavations are about 2m deep and up to 1m high and wide. Except for some pottery, no stone tools or other archaeological remains were found, but these could easily be buried beneath the modern quarry debris and the bouldery gravel that periodically moves down

q James A Harrell is a Professor of Geology in the Department of Environmental Sciences at the University of Toledo in Toledo, Ohio. For the past 17 years he has been conducting a survey of ancient Egyptian quarries. Ali Farrag Osman is an Assistant Professor of Geology in the Faculty of Science at Ain Shams University in Cairo, and he studies the crystalline basement rocks in the Eastern Desert. The writers wish to thank Emily Teeter (Oriental Institute, University of Chicago) and Lawrence Berman (Boston Museum of Fine Arts) for their assistance with the hieroglyphic inscription and phyle sign, and Sylvie Marchand (IFAO) for her analysis of pottery found at the Gebel Hafafit quarry. Thanks are also due to Ahmed Badawy, the team’s driver and logistics co-ordinator, and Mahmoud Mohamed, their knowledgeable Bedouin guide.

Stone huts below the amazonite quarry on Gebel Migif

EGYPTIAN

ARCHAEOLOGY

Digging Diary 2006 Summaries of some of the archaeological work undertaken in Egypt during the Summer and Autumn of 2006 appear below, together with reports of two expeditions which worked in the Spring.The sites are arranged geographically from north to south, ending with the Western Oases. Field Directors who would like reports on their work to appear in future issues of EA are asked to e-mail a short summary, with a website address if available, as soon as possible after the end of each season, to: patricia.spencer@ees.ac.uk PATRICIA SPENCER Abbreviations: ED Early Dynastic; OK Old Kingdom; FIP First Intermediate Period; MK Middle Kingdom; SIP Second Intermediate Period; NK New Kingdom; TIP Third Intermediate Period; LP Late Period; GR Graeco-Roman. Institutes and Research Centres: ARCE American Research Center in Egypt; AUC American University in Cairo; BM British Museum; CFEETK Franco-Egyptian Centre, Karnak; CNRS French National Research Centre; DAI German Institute, Cairo; DFG Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft; EAC Egyptian Antiquities Conservation Project; EAP Egyptian Antiquities Project; FNRS Scientific Research Fund, Brussels; IFAO French Institute, Cairo; HIAMAS The Hellenic Institute of Ancient and Mediaeval Alexandrian Studies; MMA The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; OI Oriental Institute, University of Chicago; Swiss Inst, Swiss Institute for Architectural Research and Archaeology, Cairo. SCA Supreme Council for Antiquities SPRING (February to May) Upper Egypt Dahshur: the expedition of the Free University, Berlin, directed by Nicole Alexanian and Stephan Seidlmayer and funded by the DFG, continued its work in the OK wadi cemetery E of the Red Pyramid. A magnetometric survey (500m x 350m) executed by Helmut Becker (Munich) shows a dense occupation of mastaba tombs of the late 4th to 6th Dyns. One mastaba could be identified as the tomb of prince Kanefer which was excavated by de Morgan in 1895. An area of 45m x 30m was excavated and revealed c.seven large family tombs and several miniature mastabas built of mud-brick. Most of the burial shafts were undisturbed. Of

The Tomb of Harwa. Relief fragment found in 2006, showing a butchery scene. From the south side of a pillar in the courtyard of the southern portico. Photograph courtesy of the Cultural Association ‘Harwa 2001’ ONLUS great importance was the find of a fragment of the base slab of an OK statuette belonging to a royal wab-priest and confirming the interpretation that the inhabitants of the pyramid town of the Red Pyramid were buried in this cemetery. A survey of MK monuments was undertaken by Robert Schiestl at Saqqara South and Dahshur South. Several previously undocumented pyramids and elite cemeteries of the 13th Dyn were discovered. Western Thebes: The spring season of the Italian Archaeological Mission to Luxor, directed by Francesco Tiradritti, was mainly dedicated to epigraphic activities in the tomb of Harwa (TT 37). Reconstruction of the door frames of the First Pillared Hall side rooms was improved, attaining in some cases 60-70% of the original state of the features. The record of the fragments coming from the decoration of the Courtyard porticos was also begun. Some new scenes of daily life, carved on the rear wall of the S portico, have been identified and the reconstruction of the Book of the Dead chapters on the E wall was improved. (www.harwa.it) SUMMER (May to September) Lower Egypt Marina el-Alamain: The ARCE Site Presentation Project, directed by Agnieszka Dobrowolska, continued limited excavation in collaboration with

the SCA and the Polish Centre for Mediterranean Archaeology in Alexandria to clarify details of the agora and adjacent streets.Work in 2006 focused on conservation of buildings and layout of pathways, car parking, visitor reception, signage and preparing an on-site museum. Zawiyet Umm el-Rakham:The Liverpool Univ mission, directed by Steven Snape, did not excavate this year, but maintained a watching brief on its ongoing conservation work at the site. Cairo: 1. The ARCE project to conserve the Mamluk Mosque of Aslam el-Silahdar began work in June 2006 in collaboration with the Aga Khan Trust for Culture. A building study and structural stability survey were completed and work began on cleaning the interior and replacing damaged masonry on the exterior façade. The project includes architectural conservation and conservation of fine decoration throughout the building. 2. Conservation by ARCE of the E Courtyard of the Beit el-Razzaz is now complete. Discoveries made during the last year include painted Ottoman Period ceilings and a network of underground tunnels which once formed part of the elaborate drainage and sewerage system of medieval Cairo.The garden, once an integral part of the architectural arrangement of the courtyard, has been replanted.

Egypt Exploration Society Expeditions (www.ees.ac.uk)

SUMMER/AUTUMN Sais: The summer season of the joint EES/ University of Durham expedition, directed by Penny Wilson (Univ of Durham) undertook further recording of archaeological material excavated in earlier seasons. Work was concentrated on the pottery, small finds, lithics, stone objects and bone from the Prehistoric area in the ‘Great Pit’. All of the material was drawn and photographed, except for a small number of flints. In addition, the pottery and small finds from the TIP Excavation 5 were also drawn and environmental samples from various parts of the site were processed and analysed. The drawings made of the Roman pottery from the regional survey were checked and the wares studied and photographed. (www. dur.ac.uk/penelope.wilson/sais.html)

Memphis: 1. David Jeffreys (UCL) led a short survey/study season, with continued analysis of lithics and plant remains from Kom Rabia. Informal discussions were held with colleagues at nearby sites (Giza, Helwan) about future collaboration, in particular the idea of a ‘capital zone project’ to study the behaviour of the river Nile over time in the Memphis area. 2. The joint EES/University of Cardiff work this season, led by Paul Nicholson (Univ of Cardiff), was devoted to the study of material excavated from the faience production site at Kom Helul in previous years.The work focused particularly on the domestic and industrial pottery. The photographic record for the objects was supplemented and one illustrator worked full time on the pottery, joined by a second for part of the season. It is anticipated that one further season will complete the work.

Saqqara: Peter French and Janine Bourriau (Univ of Cambridge) continued study of the ceramics excavated at the Anubieion. Amarna: Barry Kemp (Univ of Cambridge) directed a field and study season, during which Anna Stevens and Wendy Dolling continued the survey of the Stone Village and excavated a 5m x 4m trench on the S side of the Village. This revealed walls enclosing two interconnecting rooms which form the back of a building that probably represents the S boundary of the site. The walls are built from stones set in mortar, made from the local orange clay that was also used to cover the walls with a smooth plaster. A further large part of the surface plan was also completed. In continuation of Kristin Thompson’s study of Amarna statue fragments, artist Andy Boyce made detailed drawings of selected pieces.

EGYPTIAN

ARCHAEOLOGY

on raising, photographing and drawing a large granite block with the mutilated relief of a dignitary rendered in a pharaonic manner and carved with some hieroglyphs, as well as a calcite block with a hieroglyphic inscription. In the course of the operation another large inscribed block of calcite was found. All three blocks were superficially cleaned of marine incrustations and after being photographed and preliminarily drawn they were replaced in their original position on the seabed.Work on reading the texts will continue but will be difficult because of the poor preservation of the surfaces of the blocks, More slabs and blocks were found scattered in the vicinity of the three blocks, but due to shortage of time they could not be moved to ascertain if they bear inscriptions. (www.underwaterarchaeology. gr/HIAMAS) Kom Khawalid: A new expedition, directed by Paul Sinclair, of the Dept of African and Comparative Archaeology, Uppsala University, Sweden began work at this large mound in Kafr esh-Sheikh governorate.The extent of the tell (c.900m x 500m, 11m max height) was mapped using handheld GPS equipment. A systematic field sampling programme was implemented over the whole tell using a 100 m UTM grid. Dog leash samples of 10 square metre area around each node 50m apart along N/S grid lines were taken. All finds of bricks, ceramics, glass, metal and stone and organic remains were recorded and photographed. Brick walling and structures were located and activity areas such as metal and glass working and food processing locations defined. Ceramic finds appear to date from the Late Roman and Islamic Periods. No earlier materials were recognized. Follow up work will include sub-surface investigation using augers as well as geophysical and geochemical methods. (www.arkeologi.uu.se) Buto:The DAI expedition, led by Ulrich Hartung, continued excavations in the NW part of the site focusing on the huge rectangular Late Dyn/Ptolemaic building structures which were traced in 2004 by geomagnetic measurements.The walls are badly eroded and seem to be built immediately on top of OK constructions. In one of the structures a Ptolemaic tomb with a decorated limestone coffin and other rich funeral equipment came to light, Upper Egypt emphasising the special importance of this area of Karnak:The many projects of the CFEETK continButo. In the SW part of the site, the geomagnetic ued throughout the Summer and Autumn, under the survey (carried out by Tomasz Herbich) and the scientific direction of Ali Radwan and Dominique auger drillings were continued. The former reAUTUMN (September to December) Valbelle and directed in the field by Mansour Boreik vealed the continuation of a huge enclosure wall of Lower Egypt and Emmanuel Laroze. New excavations began Ptolemaic date which now appears to be more than Alexandria, Cape Lochias (Silsileh): The HIAin the so-called Madrasa area where construction 400m long. In addition, other structures and several MAS expedition, directed by Harry Tzalas, focused is planned of the new offices of the CFEETK. A groups of kilns became visible on the magnetic map. huge stone wall (possibly part The drillings yielded information of the ‘basin’ at the entrance to on the settlement sequence from the Amun temple) oriented N-S Predynastic to Ptolemaic times at was uncovered, along with many the southern edge of the kom. mud-brick structures dating to the Kom Firin:The BM expedition, Roman Period. N of the landing led by Neal Spencer, chose two stage, a sounding was undertaken areas for excavation to clarify to follow the bank of the ‘basin’ aspects of the previous year’s and to work out how it had been magnetometry survey. A section back-filled. At the Opet Temple, of the exterior E face of the restoration continued with scafRamesside enclosure wall was folding erected in the hypostyle cleared to its foundation level, hall to support the ceiling while revealing well-preserved white the architraves are being restored. plaster facing. Outside the wall, In the N and S chambers painted well stratified deposits of the TIP decoration was cleaned. In the SE and LP were excavated, above area of the temple enclosure, reswhich lay the first few courses toration and enhancement of the of a LP enclosure wall, but no enclosure wall which is attributed evidence was found of significant to Tuthmosis III continued. (www. structures contemporary with cfeetk.cnrs.fr) the Ramesside enclosure. In the Tell Edfu:The season, directed by NE of the site, three near-parallel Nadine Moeller (Univ College, walls of considerable dimension Oxford) focused on the adminhad been identified in the magistrative quarters discovered last netic survey. Initial interpretation Cape Lochias, Alexandria. Raising the granite block from the sea. year along the E part of the tell. of the ceramic evidence suggests Photograph courtesy of HIAMAS Saqqara: 1. The Inst of Egyptology at Waseda Univ, under the general direction of Sakuji Yoshimura and led in the field by Nozomu Kawai, continued work at the remote outcrop in N Saqqara, in the area in front of the 3rd Dyn layered stone structure, to identify the extent of the MK cult debris. Almost the entire extent of the debris was uncovered. Restoration work was carried out at the layered stone structure to prevent further weathering. Excavations were also conducted in the W slope of the outcrop where the Monument of Khaemwaset is situated, revealing a number of small faience LP amulets and over 350 blocks from Khaemwaset’s monument. Some reused decorated relief blocks from the OK monuments near by. Izumi Nakai (Tokyo Univ of Science) conducted X-ray analyses to investigate the chemical composition and crystal structure of objects from the excavation. Notably, the glass type of the beads from the intact multiple burial (late SIP or beginning of the 18th Dyn) was scientifically identified (See further pp.3-5). 2. An SCA team, directed by Zahi Hawass, while cleaning the (late 5th/early 6th Dyn) burial shaft of the tomb of the royal physician Qar, near the Step Pyramid, discovered a fine painted LP anthropoid wooden coffin with the features of a bearded man. Within the coffin was a well-preserved 30th Dyn mummy wearing a gilded funerary mask showing the idealized facial features of the deceased.The mummy is decorated with coloured scenes divided into several registers on cartonnage. Preliminary studies have revealed that the mummy had been wrapped with a large number of linen strips, and probably does not belong to the coffin, which was reused. Both coffin and mummy are now stored at the Saqqara Restoration Laboratory where they will be restored and research will be conducted on the scenes and hieroglyphic texts to try to identify the mummy and the reasons for it having been inserted into a coffin in Qar’s tomb. In addition 22 LP bronze statuettes of various deities, including Ptah, Horus as a child and Isis, were found. A statuette of Djoser’s architect Imhotep was also found in the group. (www. guardians.net/hawass)

The excavation of the 17th Dyn silo court was enlarged to the N and S and established that it is a large storage area with at least eight silos of diameters between 5m and 6.5m, not counting those that were built against their exteriors.Towards the N, the second half of Silo 316 was cleared. A small square opening found in the E side of the silo wall, c.1.7m above the foundations, had once functioned as a door to fill and empty the silo. Further investigation of the early 13th Dyn columned hall revealed two more sandstone column bases providing evidence for a large (at least 100 m2 ) administrative building containing a hall with at least 16 columns which were probably made of wood and removed in antiquity. Numerous seal-impressions showing traces of wooden boxes, door bolts and papyri were found in and on the contemporary mud-floor. Additional hieratic ostraca (now totalling 21) came to light in different contexts. Based on the archaeological context, palaeography, and styles of associated pottery, they can be dated from the FIP to the NK.The two heaps of inscribed stone blocks piled up at the base of the tell were moved and rearranged in clear lines so they are standing freely and are easily accessible. Further facsimiles of them were made. Eastern Desert: 1.A team, led by James Harrell of the Univ of Toledo, Ohio and co-sponsored by Ain Shams Univ, Cairo, resumed its ongoing survey of ancient quarries. This season’s work focused on the S portion of the Eastern Desert where on Gebel Migif, near the tomb of Sheikh el-Tum, the team found an 18th Dyn quarry for amazonite (green microcline feldspar) with a crude graffito including the faint cartouche of either Amenhotep II or Tuthmosis IV. This is the first discovery of a quarry for this gemstone in Egypt.The team also investigated another amazonite occurrence in Wadi Fayrouz on nearby Gebel Hafafit. This site was heavily worked in the last century but there are traces of earlier quarrying that may date to the Dynastic Period. See further pp.26-28. 2. At the Monastery of St. Anthony, the ARCE project, directed by Abuna Maximous el-Anthony, continued the recording and conservation of an early monastic cell and part of a medieval church discovered under the floor of one of the monastery churches during renovations.Archaeological recording was carried out by Kai Bruhn.

EGYPTIAN

that these are of the LP and early Ptolemaic era, perhaps fragments of the now destroyed temple enclosure of these periods.The limestone doorjamb of Ramesses II which was rediscovered in 2005, was the subject of conservation work which revealed an earlier inscription, of an unidentified king, but clearly different in character from the main text of Ramesses II (see further p.10). (www.thebritishmuseum. ac.uk/aes/excavations/firin1.html) Tell el-Daba:The mission of the Austrian Archaeological Inst, Cairo, and Inst of Egyptology, Univ of Vienna, directed by Manfred Bietak with Irene Forstner-Müller as Deputy Director, undertook a study season, mainly on pottery from the newly discovered Palace of the Hyksos Period and on material from earlier seasons at Ezbet Helmi. Further work was carried out on the plaster reliefs of Palace F (Tuthmosid Period). Abu Sir:The work of the Czech Inst of Egyptology team in the Pyramid field, led by Miroslav Verner, concentrated on restoration and reconstruction work. The mud-brick masonry of the early part of Raneferef ’s mortuary temple was consolidated and, in order to protect its fragile masonry, the floor of the whole temple was covered by a layer of sand, half a metre thick. In addition the whole outer W wall of the mastaba of Ptahshepses was completely consolidated and the team collaborated with Tarek el-Aqwadi in the photodocumentation and copying of reliefs on the blocks revealed by the SCA expedition around Sahura’s causeway. Exploration began of the monument ‘Lepsius no. XXIII’ which proved to be a badly damaged mastaba and not a pyramid. So far, only a major portion of the superstructure of the tomb has been unearthed. On the blocks masons’ inscriptions repeatedly occur, mentioning the ‘eldest King’s son’ Werkaura. Saqqara: 1. The Glasgow Museums Project, directed by Ian Mathieson, continued the geophysical survey N and E from the Serapeum Way. Using the new EM256 gradiometer the team completed the survey of N Saqqara as far as the 1st Dyn tombs in the E and the Sacred Animal Necropolis in the N. Many new OK tomb signatures were found which had not been previously recorded. A complete record of the sub-surface structures found by the project in N Saqqara will now be published.The team also excavated two 5m square test pits on the line of the N wall of the Serapeum Way. One test exposed an area of the pavement and in the NE corner the facing of the N wall. All pottery found indicated a date from the LP to the Ptolemaic Period.The other test exposed the main structure of the N wall c.2m thick and 1.5m high above the foundation courses of up to 0.5 m of typical LP mud-brick, and again all pottery found indicated a LP date. (www.glasgowmuseums.com) 2. An SCA expedition, directed by Zahi Hawass, found the first necropolis dedicated to dentists in an area W of the 1st Dyn tombs.The necropolis includes three tombs built of mud-brick and limestone.A 4th Dyn tomb belongs to the ‘Chief Dentist of the King’ Iymery and has a rectangular hall with two L-shaped chapels decorated with offering and daily life scenes. Above the false door is a curse to prevent anyone entering the tomb.A 5th Dyn tomb belongs to Kamesu a ‘King’s Dentist’ and also has a rectangular hall but in this instance the W wall is decorated with several false doors resembling the royal palace façade. Behind the hall is a rectangular niche with a statue of Kamesu and his son.The third tomb, located between the other two, belongs to the dentist Sekhemka of the 4th Dyn and is a rectangular tomb with a limestone niche and an offering basin. (www.guardians.net/hawass) Maadi: The joint DAI/SCA team, led by Ulrich Hartung, took geomagnetic measurements in the area of Maadi-West but they failed to yield clear results due to strong anomalies caused by iron posts

ARCHAEOLOGY

Kom Khawalid. Planning the brick and mortar structure in the west central area of the kom. Photograph by Nils Billing and other remains of a former wireless station still in the ground. In the area of Maadi-East, drillings were undertaken to trace the thickness and the extent of cultural layers. The results showed that remains of the predynastic settlement are preserved only in a rather limited area. Upper Egypt Dahshur: The MMA mission, directed by Dieter Arnold, continued work around the mastaba (No.17) of Sobekemhat, one of the main officials at the court of Senwosret III. The mastaba is located N of the king’s pyramid complex. Numerous relief fragments with Sobekemhat’s titles were excavated together with part of a life-size figure of the tomb owner with an almost intact, powerfully rendered face. Architecturally the structure is significant in that it seems to be the prototype for many of the mastabas in the area. The remainder of mastaba 34 was also excavated. This seems to have belonged to a high official named Senwosretankh whose titles included ‘overseer of the double granaries’. To the N of Senwosretankh’s main mastaba were two smaller structures, presumably belonging to members of his family. The only shaft found in the area leads to a small chamber to the N and a larger burial place to the S with a small, completely robbed limestone chamber. Small items remaining from the burial show that it was originally richly furnished. (www. metmuseum.org) Kelua (Fayum): The joint Mission of the Univ of Pisa and the Univ of Messina, directed by Edda Bresciani, continued consolidation and restoration of the rock-cut tomb of Prince Uaget. Medinet Madi (Fayum):The joint Mission of the Univ of Pisa and the Univ of Messina, directed by Edda Bresciani, initiated consolidation and restoration in one of the houses of the second court of the Temple of Medinet Madi. During excavation the principal structures of the Roman military camp have been revealed. Its construction continued to the end of the 3rd century AD. It is a square structure with very thick walls, reinforced with four corner towers and a circular central tower. It had two entrances, the main one on the N side with a secondary one on the S.A great part of the perimeter and about half the lodgings of the soldiers have now been cleared. It can be identified with the Castrum of Narmuthis, the second Roman military camp of the Fayum, after Qasr Qarun, and it housed the Cohors IV Numidarum under the command of a Roman tribune. The recovery of objects has been modest

but has included a fragment of painted limestone relief representing the goddess Isis-Renenutet. The condition of the fortress will require much restoration and consolidation. Bakchias (Kom Umm el-Atl, Fayum): The mission of the Dept of Archaeology, Univ of Bologna directed by Sergio Pernigotti, and led in the field by Cristian Tassinari, continued excavation, bringing to light the remains of a one-nave Coptic church, which can be dated from the 6th to the 8th centuries. As the only church known in Bakchias, and indeed in the whole N Fayum, it represents a significant contribution to regional history in the Late Antique Period. The Mission also continued excavation of the temple of the crocodile god Soknobraisis (Temple E, see EA 29, pp.30-32) which began in 2005 and will be concluded in the next season. (www3.unibo.it/archeologia) Amarna:The mission of the Centre d’égyptologie François Daumas – Univ Paul Valéry – Montpellier III, directed by Marc Gabolde, continued the topographic survey in the Wadi Abu Hassah el-Bahari (the Royal Wadi), recording new points in tombs 27, 28 and 29 to make a 3D reconstruction of them. Study of ceramics (by Amanda Dunsmore) and objects found in previous seasons and stored in site magazines continued. The mission is grateful to the EES and Barry Kemp for hospitality at the site. (http://recherche.univ-montp3.fr/egyptologie/index.php - website under construction) Sohag: At the Red Monastery Church an ARCE team of Italian conservators, led by Luigi de Cesaris and Alberto Sucato, completed the cleaning and conservation of the N lobe of the tri-conch (having three semi-circular apses) sanctuary.Work began on the S lobe in the semi-dome and the arcaded niches below it. An archaeological building study which includes recording the reused hieroglyphic relief blocks in the church began. This work is being undertaken in collaboration with the Coptic Orthodox Church. Luxor: 1. The OI work, directed by W Raymond Johnson, continued documentation, conservation, and restoration at the Luxor Temple. Conservator Hiroko Kariya continued the condition surveying and consolidation of the fragmentary inscribed wall material in the blockyard, and began preparing 76 fragments for restoration to the N end of the E wall of the Amenhotep III solar court. 350 new inscribed blocks and fragments recovered by the SCA in the ground water-lowering trenching E of the temple last season were processed and treated. Ted Brock supervised the moving and numbering of 400 additional inscribed block fragments found reused in the old retaining wall surrounding the E Roman fortified gateway and tetrapylon which will be incorporated into the Luxor Temple blockyard programme. The blockyard documentation and conservation work are supported by a Robert Wilson Challenge for Conserving Our Heritage award through the World Monuments Fund. (wwwoi.uchicago.edu/OI/PROJ/EPI/Epigraphic.html)

2. The cleaning and stabilization of the late 3rd century AD Roman frescoes in the Roman Vestibule of the Luxor Temple by ARCE and the OI resumed under the direction of Michael Jones of the EAC Project. The conservators, Luigi De Cesaris, Alberto Sucato and Maria Cristina Tomassetti, focused on the E end of the S wall and the S end of the E wall. The work involved manually cleaning painted wall surfaces, infilling losses, stabilising/consolidating the edges of the plaster, and consolidating the surfaces.This project is funded by USAID through ARCE and the EAC Project. (wwwoi.uchicago.edu/OI/PROJ/EPI/Epigraphic.html)

Western Thebes: 1. In the Valley of the Kings, Geoffrey Martin continued work in KV 57 (tomb of Horemheb), concentrating on Room Jc, a large chamber

EGYPTIAN

immediately behind the burial hall. Evidence was found that a huge amount of debris, many tons in weight, was thrown there by the original 1908 expedition, consisting of fragments of stone from ceilings and shattered columns as well as some masons’ chippings. This material was examined carefully, the larger stones broken up in situ, and the whole removed to the exterior of the tomb and ultimately deposited outside the Valley. Many small fragments of the original tomb furniture came to light during the clearance and in the sieving of the finer material, notably a Mehetweret couch fragment with blue glass inlays in situ, and many loose inlays, impressions of the necropolis seal, jar sealings of Horemheb and, in one instance, of Mutnodjmet, fragments of arrows, jar stoppers, a quern, sandstone grinders, beads, etc. Further work in the Well Shaft begun in March, revealed more amphorae wine jar dockets, many with year dates of Horemheb (the tally is now over 200).These have been recorded in facsimile by Jaap van Dijk. The shaft, now 6.75m deep, is still descending. Roxie Walker continued her examination of the skeletal material. A final season of work will involve completing work in the shaft, raising and re-orienting the lid of Horemheb’s sarcophagus (it is the wrong way round), and the removal of material inside, including bones. A full catalogue of objects from KV 57 found by Theodore Davis and mostly in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, is also in prospect. 2. At Dra abu’l Naga, the DAI expedition, led by Daniel Polz and Üte Rummel, continued work in the forecourt of the huge saff-tomb TT 232 to clear its E limit which forms the border to the pyramid area of king Nubkheperre Intef. On the basis of over 170 funerary cones found in the court TT 232 can with certainty be ascribed to the High Priest of Amun, Minmonthu (temp. Amenhotep I). The season’s objective was the further examination of the mud-brick wall discovered in autumn 2005 at the E end of the forecourt. This seems to be connected to the second phase of TT 232, which was reused in the late 20th/21st Dyns. In this phase the corridor of the saff was transformed into a long pillared hall. Heaps of extracted white limestone chunks originating from this building activity were found in the debris, as well as large quantities of pottery of the late 20th/21st Dyns. Excavation began in the inner forecourt and in the entrance of the rock-cut tomb K93.12 shortly below the hilltop of Dra abu el-Naga North. It forms the southern part of the double tomb complex K93.11/K93.12 (early 18th Dyn royal tombs), the N part of which was excavated and documented between 1993 and 2000 (see EA 14, pp. 3-6). Five trenches were opened this season. The upper layers of the N part of the forecourt displayed at least two phases of Coptic occupation (c.7th to late 9th centuries). In two trenches the bedrock level was reached. Like its neighbour, tomb K93.12 was reused in the late 20th Dyn. K93.11 was occupied by the High Priest of Amun, Ramessesnakht, and K93.12 by his son, the High Priest Amenhotep. His name and titles are attested on several of the c.150 sandstone relief fragments found in the lowermost layers of the debris. (www.dainst.org/index_265_de.html) 3. Also at Dra abu’l-Naga, the Univ of Pisa mission, under the direction of Marilina Betrò, worked in MIDAN.05, the tomb found in 2004 W of TT 14, completing excavation of the 10m long, W-E oriented corridor. Beyond the thick transverse wall of stone chips and pink mortar which once closed its W part, traces of LP and secondary interments were found with many pot sherds which were reconstructed to make numerous complete vessels. The large funerary shaft, which opens in the N square room, turned out to be a 4.5m deep vertical passage giving access at its bottom to four rooms. The only room (the E one) to be explored this season originally housed a LP burial. (www.egittologia.

ARCHAEOLOGY

Western Thebes.View of the entrance to the small oratory situated at the top of the ‘Vallée des pèlerins d’Espagne’. (Photograph: Guy Lecuyot) unipi.it/pisaegypt/TT14.htm)

4. The Italian Archaeological Mission to Luxor, directed by Francesco Tiradritti, resumed excavation in the courtyard of the Tomb of Harwa (TT 37) where the use of a fully-digitalised total station speeded up the documentation. About 40cm of soil has been fully excavated. Remains of the lower decoration of the entrance niche to the subterranean part of the tomb of Harwa were exposed and what was believed to be the entry to the Tomb of Akhimenru (TT 404) proved to be a sort of chapel with a niche on the rear wall. (www.harwa.it). 5. An IFAO team of Guy Lecuyot (CNRS), Alain Delattre (FNRS) and Catherine Thirard (Univ Lyon II) conducted an archaeological survey of Coptic graffiti in the S and W part of the necropolis, identifying and studying 273 graffiti. In the ‘Vallée des pèlerins d’Espagne’ one location includes many images of birds and men while another (located at the lower end of the natural chimney of Taged Zeid) is a small oratory with 55 graffiti mentioning individuals and place names, especially in middle Egypt. Noteworthy is a graffito naming Father Ammonios which resembles a drawing in the tomb of Ramesses IV (KV 2). In area C32 are GR graffiti associated with Coptic ceramics. In the Valley of the Queens, three sites were surveyed, one of which is a small oratory with many Coptic graffiti, including the name of Father Johannes from Titkooh in middle Egypt. In the Wadi Gabbanat el-Gurud and the Wadi Sikkat Taget ez-Zeid are unpublished graffiti with further references to Father Johannes. 6.The OI team, led by W Raymond Johnson, continued its documentation, conservation, and restoration programs at the Medinet Habu small Amun temple, drawing and collating material in the 18th Dyn temple ambulatory and barque sanctuary, and the Kushite additions. The systematic mapping, documentation and translation of the graffiti on the roof of the Ramesses III mortuary temple and in the Treasury and Slaughterhouse rooms below continued. The conservation team extended the consolidation of the deteriorating exterior walls of the 18th Dyn sanctuary along the N and S sides, where the decay due to groundwater salts was found to be extreme. Pre-conservation photographs were taken of the decaying walls, the barque sanctuary ambulatory and the E and W faces of the exterior of the barque sanctuary prior to cleaning. The sandstone footing for the granite naos of Ptolemy

IX was completed and the naos was moved back into place. The OI also began collaborative efforts with Qurna SCA director Ali Asfar on the restoration of the collapsing S well of Ramesses III, and the moving, organisation and protected storage of the blockyard. This work is supported by USAID with a grant from the EAP, ARCE. (www-oi.uchicago. edu/OI/PROJ/EPI/Epigraphic.html) Ar mant: Chr istophe Thiers (CNRS-Univ Montpellier 3) directed the joint IFAO/CNRSUniv Montpellier III archaeological survey. Pierre Zignani (CNRS-Univ Montpellier III), Damien Laisney (IFAO) and Yassin Mohamed (Antiquities Service of Sudan) planned the foundation levels of the naos and its surrounding chapels revealing, during the cleaning of the area, MK and NK blocks reused in the foundation of the temple. Catherine Defernez (CNRS-Univ Montpellier III) cut a trench into the old railway embankment left by the 1930s’ EES mission. The last level reached has fragmentary mixed pieces of sandstone (Ptolemaic Period) and limestone (MK) from the destruction of the temple: most of the sherds date to the Late Roman Period and Coptic times. Around 50 new Ptolemaic blocks were recorded. In the area of Bab el-Maganin, most of the blocks are in a very bad state of preservation; Hassan el-Amir (IFAO) removed some blocks from the wet and salted modern redim and raised them on to red bricks before restoring them with silicate treatment. Eleven new blocks were found during the cleaning of the area. (www. univ-montp3.fr/egyptology/) Aswan: 1. After a survey season in January 2006, the first season of a new DAI project, led by Philipp Speiser, to clean and restore the Fatimid Cemetery began, concentrating on the N part of the cemetery. The architectural history of the structures, the stratigraphical sequence and their relation to the topography was investigated. (www.dainst.de) 2. The joint team of the Swiss Inst and the SCA Aswan, headed by Cornelius von Pilgrim and Mohamed el-Bialy, and directed in the field by Wolfgang Müller, continued work in the ancient town, concentrating on the study of the LP and Ptolemaic pottery found in Area 15 during previous seasons. Additionally, the recording of the pottery from some rescue excavations in the cemeteries on the E bank at Aswan, conducted by M A el-Hetta in the 1960s, was started. During a reinvestigation of a modern saqiah in the N district of Nag elGezeira, a large number of reused fragments of decorated temple blocks from various periods was found. A limited rescue excavation in the district of Sheikh Saleh dealing with domestic structures of the Middle Ages started in mid-December and is continuing. Elephantine: The joint DAI/Swiss Inst mission, directed by Günter Dreyer, Dietrich Raue and Cornelius von Pilgrim, resumed work in the area between the temple of Satet and the sanctuary of Heqaib, starting with the occupation of the 6th Dyn, aiming to investigate the possible location of a Nile cult place of the earlier OK. In addition, the NK strata S of the sanctuary of Heqaib were examined. The building complex of the late OK is under restoration, and study of architectural fragments from the temple of Satet of Mentuhotep II and Mentuhotep III, of the Late temple of Khnum, Nubian and NK pottery, botanical finds and small finds was undertaken.The conservation and reconstruction of the wooden columns of the bakery and other wooden finds of the late OK was continued. (www.dainst.de) Thanks are due to Michael Jones, Chris Naunton and Jeffrey Spencer for help in compiling ‘Digging Diary’ and to Francesco Tiradritti, Harry Tzalas and Irene Chryssoheris, Paul Sinclair and Joanne Rowland, and Guy Lecuyot for providing photographs.

EGYPTIAN

ARCHAEOLOGY

Minufiyeh: the geophysical survey at Quesna EA 28 contained an account of preliminary fieldwork in Minufiyeh province, as part of the EES Delta Survey. Joanne Rowland and Kristian Strutt report further on their geophysical survey of the important site of Quesna. Alongside the continuing ground survey in Minufiyeh province, a major undertaking of the Minufiyeh Archaeological Survey during spring 2006 was the location and mapping of sub-surface archaeological features across the site of Quesna (see EA 28, pp.3-6). The archaeological remains visible today at Quesna were discovered in the mid 1990s during sand clearance to the south of the sand gezira and were revealed by subsequent excavations of the Supreme Council for Antiquities. Three main areas of archaeological interest were known prior to the 2006 season: a brick-built mausoleum containing burials of the Late and Ptolemaic Periods, overlain by Roman burials; a further burial area, Roman in date, with a range of ceramic coffins now exposed on the surface; and a sacred falcon necropolis, or gallery, where birds’ eggs and mummified birds have been found.While test pits have also been dug to check for further remains, until Spring 2006 no overall survey or geophysical prospecting of the gezira had been attempted. The finds to date were published in 2002 by Farouk Gomaa and El-Sayed Hegazy. The geophysical survey in 2006 was initiated with the aim of locating and mapping the remains of sub-surface archaeological features across the site, stretching from the excavations at the Late Period and Ptolemaic mausoleum to the western and northern confines of the gezira. The survey concentrated on the area between the excavations

View south across the Quesna gezira, with the Late Period to Ptolemaic mausolea in the distance

at the Ptolemaic mausoleum in the south and the falcon gallery to the north, including the area around the excavations and spoil heaps of the Ptolemaic cemetery, and the excavations of the Roman cemetery that overlie the earlier structures.The aim was to locate and map the full extent of the cemetery and galleries, and to try to find any evidence of settlement in the vicinity of the burial area. In total, some 12 hectares of magnetometer survey were conducted at Quesna in the area north of the Ptolemaic mausoleum. The results show at least two sequences of structural remains, including the Late Period and Ptolemaic mausoleum and galleries, and the Roman cemetery. The results are dominated in the northern sector by a series of rectilinear and linear features. These comprise a large rectangular enclosure [m1] measuring 30m by 50m, and subdivided into two areas with the smaller to the north [m1] and the larger [m2] to the south. To the east a series of linear anomalies are visible [m3] and [m4], showing a continuation of the falcon gallery that was uncovered during the SCA excavations. A series of rectilinear features [m5] are also visible to the east of the gallery. These include a narrow chamber measuring some 40m by 15m and a second parallel rectilinear feature [m6] running 30m

Location of the site of Quesna 33

EGYPTIAN

ARCHAEOLOGY

Roman coffins on the surface of the gezira at Quesna

further 100m towards the falcon gallery. A further area of dipolar features can be seen in the northeast quadrant of the survey area [m17] and [m18], covering an area of c.100m by 70m.This may indicate an extension of the Roman cemetery that is visible across the centre of the site. The remaining features are all located around the spoil heaps for the mausoleum excavations [m19].A cluster of dipolar features is situated on the southern confines of the site [m20]. Several other large dipolar features are also visible [m21] and [m22], one marking the location of a circular structure [m22] and others suggesting the possible location of other structures. Plan of Quesna, indicating excavation areas of the Supreme Council for Antiquities

to the north.The area in between [m7] is subdivided into a series of chambers. Along the western side of the gezira several of the faint structures are visible [m8] and [m9] matched by four similar features situated some 90m to the east [m10], [m11] and [m12]. The centre of the area surveyed is dominated by a massive number of dipolar anomalies, each measuring some 2m to 3m across. These features stretch from the southwest confines of the survey zone [m13], covering an area measuring 190m by 90m. A concentration in the anomalies can be seen towards the south and in the central part of the zone [m14] and [m15], close to one of the excavations. The features extend northwards [m16] for a

Interpretation plan of subsurface structures derived from the magnetometer results at Quesna

View over the excavated area of the falcon gallery 34

EGYPTIAN

ARCHAEOLOGY

The magnetometer survey at Quesna proved successful in locating a large number of features which appear to be associated with the Late Period, Ptolemaic and Roman cemeteries.The greatest contrast between features is that represented between the strongest and weakest signals. This is predominantly due to the differences in building material and the depth at which different features are buried. Earlier structures from the site, including those associated with the falcon gallery [m3] and [m4], and other parts of the cemetery [m8] and [m10] all show as faint linear features. These structures are of mud-brick and are around 1.5m-3m below the current gezira surface. In contrast, later activity at the site, especially the ceramic coffins associated with the Roman Period, are indicated by a massive number of dipolar and positive maculae [m13], [m14], [m15] and [m16]. The majority of these features appear to be roughly aligned on the same orientation as the earlier structures, and it is possible that the mud-brick mausolea and gallery walls were actually used to support the later, Roman, burials in the cemetery. The distribution of features across the site suggests that the cemetery may continue to the north, and also to the south-west corner of the site close to the Greyscale range of the magnetometer results from Quesna SCA offices and guards’ house. There is very little evidence to suggest that the cemetery falcon gallery. Geophysical survey will continue to play continues to the east, and very few features were noted a role in our investigations, with magnetometry at Kom in this area, one exception being the remains of a circular el-Ahmar, west of Quesna, planned to trace the outline structure [m22] visible on the surface. It is possible that of walls which the villagers have found to lie beneath there may be occupational features beneath the surface to the fields. the east of the area surveyed in 2006, so there is still the q Joanne Rowland, Director of the Minufiyeh Archaeological Survey, possibility of a settlement on the remains of the gezira. is based at the Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History What is certain, however, is that the settlement is not of Art, University of Oxford, and Kristian Strutt at the Archaeological directly alongside the cemetery. Prospection Services of Southampton, University of Southampton. They are grateful to Sophie Hay of the Archaeological Prospection In spring 2007, the team, including the writers, plans Services of Southampton, University of Southampton, who was reto return to Minufiyeh to conduct a topographic survey sponsible, with Christian Strutt, for carrying out the magnetometry in at Quesna and to dig exploratory trenches to investigate the field, and to the EES Cairo Office for logistical help and for the the scope of the burials, both chronologically and demoloan of surveying equipment. Photographs: Joanne Rowland. Other graphically, and to ascertain the structure of the sacred illustrations by Kristian Strutt. 35

EGYPTIAN

ARCHAEOLOGY

Notice Board

Egypt Exploration Society Events EES 125th Anniversary Conference 23-24 June 2007 A two-day conference to mark the Society’s 125th Anniversary will be held in the Brunei Gallery Theatre, SOAS, London.Tickets £60 (EES members) £75 (non-members) include a reception on the Saturday evening. Enquiries: contact@ees.ac.uk or phone: +44 (0)20 7242 1880.

Egypt and Empires Toby Wilkinson, Egypt and the outside world: from the unification to the Middle Kingdom J J Shirley, The beginning of the Empire Aidan Dodson, Amarna and abroad Trevor Bryce, Ramesses II and the Hittites Kenneth Kitchen, Post-imperial Egypt and her neighbours, c.1070-650 BC Robert Morkot, From ‘a land shadowing with wings beyond the rivers of Kush’: the emergence of the ‘Napatan’ state Paul Collins, Views of Egypt from Nineveh, Babylon and Persepolis Alan Lloyd, The Ptolemies: an Age of Imperial Endeavour Val Maxfield, Egypt and Rome Alison Gascoigne, Egypt after the Romans London

Manchester

Cairo

London events are usually held at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Enquiries: Egypt Exploration Society, 3 Doughty Mews, London WC1N 2PG. Phone: +44 (0)20 7242 1880. E-mail: contact@

EES Northern Branch lectures are held in Lecture Theatre 1, Stopford Building, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester at 7.00 pm. Enquiries: Rosalie David, KNH Centre of Biomedical Egyptology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PT. Phone: +44 (0)161 275 2647. E-mail: rosalie.david@man.ac.uk

EES lectures are held in the auditorium of the British Council at 7.00 pm. Enquiries: Faten Saleh, EES Cairo Office, c/o British Council, 192 Sharia el-Nil, Agouza, Cairo. Phone: +20 (0)2 3001886. E-mail: ees.

ees.ac.uk

Thursday 26 April 2007. EES lecture and book signing by John Romer The Great Pyramid: ancient Egypt revisited in the Brunei Gallery Theatre, SOAS at 6.00 pm.Tickets: £10 (EES members), £15 (non-members). Saturday/Sunday 23/24 June. 125th Conference (see box above). Tuesday 31 July 2007. A joint EES/Dept of Ancient Egypt and Sudan Lecture and Reception will be held in the evening at the British Museum to mark the Society’s 125th Anniversary. An open discussion Forum for members will be held at 5.30 pm, followed by the Lecture at 6.30 pm and a Reception in the Egyptian Sculpture Gallery at 7.30 pm. The lecture will be given by Ian Shaw on The Royal Harem in Ancient Egypt. Admission to the Forum and Lecture is free but tickets (£12) will be required for the Reception.This event is only open to EES members. Saturday 8 December 2007. A 125th Anniversary Study-Day on the Society’s work, past and present. The event will include the 2007 Annual General Meeting. Full details in the EES summer mailing.

Tuesday 8 May 2007. Toby Wilkinson, Ancient Egypt from A to Z. Tuesday 5 June 2007.Vivian Davies, The British Museum at El-Kab: the tombs of Sobeknakht and Renseneb. Tuesday 23 October 2007. Derek Welsby: Living at the Fourth Cataract: 150,000 years of settlement history. There will also be a Day-school in 2007 (date and details to be announced). Bolton Thursday 22 March 2007. Chris Naunton, 125 years of the EES. Bolton Museum & Art Gallery, Le Mans Crescent, Bolton, 7.30 pm. Details:Tom Hardwick: +44 (0)1204 332212. E-mail: tom.hardwick@bolton.gov.uk Thursday 8th November 2007. Paul Nicholson, Recent work in the Temples and Catacombs of Saqqara, 7:30 pm. Venue and details as above. 36

cairo@britishcouncil.org.eg

April/May 2008. A special exhibition to mark the Society’s 125th Anniversary will be held in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. Full details will be sent to members as soon as they are available. Exeter Saturday 21 April 2007. A joint EES/ ASTENE Study-Day Discovering Egypt: the ancient and the oriental at St Loye’s Foundation,Topsham Road, Exeter EX2 6EP. Tickets: £35 (including lunch). Brian Taylor, Lusting all his Life:The insatiable, incorrigible and incomparable 4th Earl of Sandwich. Robert Morkot, Captains Charles Irby and James Mangles encounter Belzoni, Abu Simbel, and an unwanted mummy. Briony Llewellyn, The Ancient and the Oriental: the paintings of David Roberts and Frederick Lewis. Chris Naunton, Careful Coloured Drawings: the EES facsimiles. Enquiries: Robert Morkot, Wisteria Cottage, Nadderwater, EXETER EX4 2 JQ. E-mail:r.g.morkot@ex.ac.uk

EGYPTIAN

ARCHAEOLOGY

Notice Board Non-EES Lectures and other events These events are not organised by the EES. Please confirm details with the organisers Lectures on ancient and modern Egypt, and other cultural events, are held at the Education and Cultural Bureau, Embassy of the Arab Republic of Egypt, 4 Chesterfield Gardens, London W1Y 8BR at 6.45 pm. Phone: +44 (0)20 7491 7720. E-mail: egypt.culture@btconnect.com

17 March-17 June 2007. Exhibition Mummy: the Inside Story, Kobe City Museum, Japan. To 24 March 2007. Exhibition A Future for the Past: Petrie’s Palestinian Collection at the Brunei Gallery, SOAS, University of London, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London. Free admission. Phone: + 44 (0)207 679 9728 Email: d.fourniol@ucl.ac.uk Website: www.ucl. ac.uk/media/library/Petrie%20Palestinian%20Co llection

2 April 2007. SCA lecture Géza Féhervari, The Kuwait excavations at Bahnesa, 1985-1987 at 6.00pm in the Ahmed Pasha Hall, SCA Building, Zamalek, Cairo. Phone: + 20 (2)731 8671/(2)736 5645. 20-22 April 2007. The 8th Annual ARCE meeting at Toledo Museum of Art,Wyndham, Toledo. Details: arce@emory.edu 27 April 2007. Friends of the Petrie Museum lecture, Elizabeth Bloxam, Ancient quarrying and mining in the desert margins of Egypt: rethinking the technological, logistical and social context. Room G6 Institute of Archaeology, 31 Gordon Sq, London WC1 at 6.30 pm. www.

8 June 2007. Friends of the Petrie Museum lecture, Nigel Strudwick, Norman and Nina de Garis Davies: two lives spent recording Egyptian art. Details as above, 29 April. To 10 June 2007. Exhibition The Red and the Black: life and death in ancient Egypt at St Albans Museum. www.stalbansmuseum.org.

8 September 2007. The Stephen Glanville Memorial Lecture in Cambridge. Emmanuel Laroze, Director of the Centre Franco-Égyptien d’Étude des Temples de Karnak will speak about conservation and restoration projects at Karnak. The lecture will be followed by a reception in the Egyptian Galleries of the Fitzwilliam Museum. www.fitzmuseum.cam.

uk/temp_exhibitions.htm

ac.uk/dept/ant/aeo2007

19 June to 16 September 2007. Exhibition Passport to the Egyptian Afterlife: the Book of the Dead of Ramose. Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/dept/

11 September 2007. SARS Annual General Meeting and Kirwan Memorial Lecture, in the Stevenson Theatre, British Museum, London in the evening. Admission by ticket only. Details as above, 15 May.

ant/aeo2007

2 July 2007. SCA lecture Muhammed AbdelMaksoud, Excavations on the Ways of Horus:Tell Hebua in Cairo. Details as above, 2 April. 2-5 July 2007. Conference Prehistory of Northeastern Africa - new ideas and discoveries in Poznan. Details: http://cohesion.rice.edu/CentersAndInst/SAFA/ 11 July 2007.The 2007 Raymond & Beverly Sackler Distinguished Lecture in Egyptology, Luc Limme on Belgian excavations at Elkab. BP Theatre, British Museum, London at 6.00 pm.Tickets available from 1st June. Phone: +44 (0)20 7323 8306 (Alison Cameron). E-mail:

To 14 May 2007. Exhibition From a Modern Land. Ancient Egyptian textiles: contemporary paintings at Bolton Museum. Coptic textiles displayed alongside artwork by Ros Ford. Phone: +44 (0)1204 332211. 15 May 2007. Sudan Archaeological Research Society, one-day international colloquium Recent Archaeological Fieldwork in Sudan in the Stevenson Auditorium at the British Museum, London. Admission by ticket only. Phone: +44 (0)20 3238500. E-mail sars@thebritish-

12-13 July 2007.An International colloquium Fieldwork in Upper Egypt south of Thebes. British Museum, London. Details as above, 11 July. To 22 July 2007. Exhibition Excavating Egypt at the Mount Holyoke College of Art Museum, South Hadley, Mass. 29 July-4 August 2007. The XXV International Congress of Papyrology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Details: www.lib.umich. edu/pap/ICP25/index.html

4 June 2007. SCA lecture Chahinda Karim, The Mosque of Amir Husayn: a reconstruction in Cairo. Details as above, 2 April.

To 30 September 2007. ExhibitionTutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs at the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia.Website: www.kingtut.org/philadelphia

1 October 2007. SCA lecture Dieter Arnold, Excavations of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York in Cairo. Details as above, 2 April. 5 November 2007. SCA lecture Ian Mathieson, The Geophysical Survey of the Saqqara necrpolis in Cairo. Details as above, 2 April. 19 November 2007. The 2007 Amelia Edwards Memorial Lecture.Alan Lloyd Digging in Egypt in the Wills Memorial Building, Queen’s Road, Bristol 8, at 5.15 pm. 22 November 2007 - 31 August 2008 (provisional dates). Exhibition Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs at O2 London. www.kingtut.org/london or wwp.millennium-dome. co.uk/tutankhamun-exhibition/index.htm

September 2007 - Easter 2008.An Egyptian exhibition celebrating the Egypt Exploration Society’s 125th anniversary at the Museum of Reading. www.readingmuseum.org.uk 3 September 2007. SCA lecture Karol MyÊliwiec, A necropolis from the Ptolemaic period in Saqqara in Cairo. Details as above, 2 April.

museum.ac.uk

18 May 2007. Friends of the Petrie Museum lecture, Ian Shaw, The ‘golden mansion’: revisiting people, pots and stone at Hatnub. Details as above 27 April.

classics@reading.ac.uk Website: www.reading. ac.uk/AcaDepts/lk/GraecoAegyptica/

acameron@thebritishmuseum.ac.uk.

ucl.ac.uk/FriendsofPetrie/

7 May 2007. SCA lecture Béatrix MidantReynes, The predynastic sites of Adaima and Kom el-Khilgan in Cairo. Details as above, 2 April.

17-19 September 2007. Conference GraecoAegyptiaca/Aegypto-Graeca. Interactions between Greece and Egypt 700bce-300ce. University of Reading. Phone: + 44 (0)118 378 8420 Email:

7-8 September 2007. Conference Decorated surfaces on Ancient Egyptian Objects: Technology, Deterioration and Conservation. Co-hosted by The Fitzwilliam Museum and the Institute for Conservation Archaeology Group in Cambridge. Associated events (workshops, seminars and guided tours) on 6 and 9 September. www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/dept/ant/ aeo2007

3 December 2007. SCA lecture Josef Wegner, New excavations at the tomb of Senwosret III at Abydos in Cairo. Details as above, 2 April. 22-29 May 2008. The Tenth International Congress of Egyptologists, organised by the Archaeology Division of the Department of Mediterranean Studies, University of the Aegean and the International Association of Egyptologists, will be held on the island of Rhodes at the Rodos Palace Hotel and Convention Center (www.rodos-palace.gr) and will focus on multi-disciplinary approaches to general themes.The deadline for abstracts is 1 September 2007. Further details: www.rhodes. aegean.gr/tms/congress2008.htm or www.iae.lmu. de/ Email: congress2008@rhodes.aegean.gr

EGYPTIAN

ARCHAEOLOGY

Reopening the tomb of Senwosret III at Abydos The Pennsylvania-Yale-Institute of Fine Arts Expedition to Abydos has begun the re-excavation of the enigmatic tomb of Senwosret III, ﬁrst excavated by the EES over 100 years ago. Josef Wegner reports on their discoveries, which are answering many old questions and posing new ones. Candle-soot name of ‘C T Currelly 1903 EEF’ on the ceiling of the inner curving passage

On 7 March 1902, Arthur Weigall, working under the supervision of Flinders Petrie on behalf of the Egypt Exploration Fund, opened the interior of the subterranean tomb of Senwosret III at Abydos. The discovery of this tomb was the culmination of months of effort focused on the excavation of a vast T-shaped brick enclosure at the foot of the cliffs of South Abydos. The following season (1902-03) Petrie assigned Charles Currelly the task of completing a description and plan of the tomb’s interior. The reports of both Weigall and Currelly were published in the 1904 EEF volume Abydos III. Cut into the bedrock at a depth of some 30m below the desert surface, the entrance system of the Senwosret III tomb rapidly ﬁlled in again with collapsing sand, forming an immense crater, with the result that for over a century one of Egypt’s largest and most enigmatic tombs has remained hidden beneath the sands of Abydos. In 1994, the Pennsylvania-Yale-Institute of Fine Arts Expedition to Abydos initiated a programme of systematic excavation of the wider Senwosret III tomb complex,

revealing many n ew c o m p o n e n t s o f t h is Twelfth Dynasty mortuary installation named Enduring are the Places of Khakaure true of voice in Abydos.The daunting task of reopening and excavating the tomb, however, had been set aside during the ﬁrst ten years of our work until, in 2004, with the support of the National Geographic Society, we began the process of a systematic excavation and investigation of the tomb. While much new information has been produced by the archaeology of surface features, key questions regarding the Senwosret III complex could be answered only by excavation of the tomb interior itself. Particularly, was this tomb the actual burial place of N. Senwosret III, or was it designed - as many in the past have assumed Kom es-Sultan 0 500 - as a cenotaph with the king’s body North Cemetery METERS actually being buried in his pyramid at Dahshur ? Floodplain and In 2004 three months were devoted Modern Villages to excavating the sand-encumbered Temple of Seti I entrance to the tomb, while an investigation of surface structures associated with the T-shaped enclosure was also undertaken. As part of this work we made the fortunate Town Umm el-Gaab SENWOSRET III of MORTUARY discovery of clay impressions of the Wah-sut COMPLEX Ahmose necropolis seal of the Senwosret TOMB Complex OF III tomb enclosure. This bears the SENWOSRET III designation Mountain of Anubis, a divine name which appears to refer to the gebel cliff below which the Senwosret III tomb is built. Rising above the tomb, this cliff formation GEBEL appears as a natural pyramidal peak, one which may have been identiﬁed Plan of Abydos showing the location of the mortuary complex of Senwosret III in the Twelfth Dynasty as the abode 38

EGYPTIAN

ARCHAEOLOGY

Excavation of the entrance system of the Senwosret III tomb during December 2005

long rock-cut trench with the vertical shaft at its western end and the sloping passage with associated descending staircase at the eastern end. Remains of plastered brick walls around this entire structure represent a containment system that is likely to once have been vaulted. By 24 December 2005, we had finally emptied both the vertical shaft and the sloping passage, allowing us to re-enter the tomb’s interior. Once open, it was possible to examine the entirety of the tomb as Currelly had left it in 1903 and to complete a new plan and photographic survey. The basic structure of the tomb’s c.170m long interior fits with the original description. The tomb consists of a series of separate sections, with considerable effort put into blocking and concealment of the points of connection leading up to the burial chamber.The first section of the tomb is a T-shaped unit: a central limestone chamber roofed with limestone blocks cut to resemble wooden logs, and flanked by identical rock cut chambers. Beyond, a 30m long corridor, originally mortared solid with massive blocks of limestone and granite, terminates in two identical ‘shaft chambers’ lined with limestone. From

The entrance area of the Senwosret III tomb looking north-east towards the Nile ﬂoodplain

of Anubis as protector of the royal tomb. By the end of the 2004 season we had excavated much of the sand crater and deﬁned the top of the entrance system of the tomb: a vertical shaft and a sloping passage which descend to the actual entrance. During this work in 2004 we realised that the orientation of this tomb differs dramatically from the original plans of Weigall and Currelly, and we also discovered a carefully constructed, gypsum plastered staircase which descends from the desert surface to reach the top of the sloping passage leading to the tomb’s entrance. Built with very shallow steps, this staircase appears to form a ceremonial entryway to the tomb. Is this evidence for ﬁnal burial rites associated with the interment of Senwosret III at Abydos ? Between November 2005 and January 2006 work continued on the entrance system to the tomb. Although much of the sand had been excavated during the previous season, considerable work remained to be done in order to expose fully and secure the entrance area. We have now found that the entrance system takes the form of a

Plan and section of the Senwosret III tomb

EGYPTIAN

ARCHAEOLOGY

there a concealed connection, now broken through, leads to a sloping passage which is entirely filled with granite blocking stones. This granite-blocked passage (which ancient robbers circumvented by cutting passages through the bedrock parallel to it) terminates in the burial chamber: a small room, originally lined with red quartzite masonry, which contains the granite sarcophagus and canopic chest. Both the sarcophagus and the canopic chest were originally concealed in niches behind the wall lining of the burial chamber. However, the location of the burial chamber is only the midpoint of the tomb. Beyond, a lengthy passageway proceeds westwards, curving ultimately in a great arc to face in a local easterly direction. Two additional chambers are positioned on this curving passage, and the Isometric view of the subterranean architecture of the tomb of Senwosret III, showing its innermost chamber forms the terminus of the relationship with the Mountain of Anubis tomb. Now badly wrecked by ancient tomb robbers, this was once a magnificent chamber, 4m x 9m, tomb of the Middle Kingdom. lined with red quartzite. As one proceeds through the tomb of Senwosret III In our initial re-planning of the tomb interior we have one can follow very closely the activities of both the confirmed the accuracy of some aspects of Currelly’s Twelfth Dynasty architects who constructed the tomb 1904 published plan. However, we have found major and the robbers who eventually plundered it, probably errors in other areas. One detail which Currelly passed during the Second Intermediate Period.Throughout the over occurs in the two balanced chambers flanking the interior occur red survey marks used in measuring spaces pole-roof chamber.These have precisely cut and polished and in setting the masonry. One of these builders’ marks vaulted roofs: a purely symbolic or stylistic feature since is a survey line which runs along the roof of the inner these chambers are rock-cut and require no vault. Perhaps the most significant architectural error lies in the inaccurate 10m height which Currelly originally showed for the double shaft chambers. These chambers are actually 5.5m in height, providing the sectional profile of this tomb now with a rather different appearance. The slope of the granite-blocked passageway leading down to the burial chamber is also greater (-30º), making the burial chamber and the inner quartzite-lined section of the tomb considerably deeper than thought. This inner end of the tomb lies fully 45m below the level of the aboveground entrance staircase, making this the deepest known royal

The second shaft chamber with fallen blocking stone from the granite blocked passage

The pole-roof chamber looking inwards from the tomb’s entrance

EGYPTIAN

ARCHAEOLOGY

The terminal red quartzite chamber with ﬂoor and wall masonry dislodged by ancient tomb robbers

curving passageway and which shows how the architects very carefully adjusted the orientation to create an eastward facing arc. The process of robbery is reflected in a series of robbers’ passages and the damage to the interior architecture. Particularly noteworthy is the fact that the outer section of the tomb is in excellent condition, while the inner quartzite chambers were badly wrecked. Apparently tomb robbers who finally bypassed the granite-blocked passageway proceeded first to the terminal quartzite chamber, which they may initially have assumed was the burial chamber. The massive quartzite blocks of this once grand room were all prised out of place and the chamber was piled high with chippings as the robbers dug pits below the floor searching for the burial. Failure to locate the royal sarcophagus there may have then led them backwards again to the actual burial chamber.There they were able to strip the masonry lining from the walls of the burial chamber and to break open the sarcophagus and canopic chest. We know that the sarcophagus must have been closed and sealed at this point of initial robbery because to break it open the robbers had to dig a pit undermining the sarcophagus, allowing it to fall against the chamber wall, thereby cracking the lid. One of the promising results of the initial reopening of the Senwosret III tomb is the realisation of how cursory the initial work of Weigall and Currelly was. Most of the chambers were clearly never excavated down to floor level. With the vast volume of debris yet to be excavated there is tremendous potential in coming seasons to retrieve evidence of the original contents of this tomb which we hope will provide answers as to why it was built, and whether it indeed once contained the burial of KhakaureSenwosret III.

The T-shaped tomb enclosure of Senwosret III

The curving inner passageway with an ancient red survey line visible on the ceiling

T Josef Wegner is Associate Professor of Egyptian Archaeology in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, and Associate Curator in the Egyptian Section, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. He is grateful to the National Geographic Society for its generous support of the ﬁeldwork at Abydos. Photographs and plans by the writer.

The granite sarcophagus of Senwosret III

EGYPTIAN

ARCHAEOLOGY

Bookshelf Carola Wedel, Nofretete und das Geheimnis von Amarna. Philipp von Zabern, 2005. (ISBN 3 8053 3544 x). Price: €29.90. This book is a by-product of the involvement of the Central German Television Network (ZDF) in the restoration of the museum landscape on Berlin’s Museum Island. The occasion for its publication was the return of the painted bust of Queen Nefertiti, the icon of the Prussian Cultural Property Foundation (so p.7), to Museum Island - though not to the New Museum whose renovation and reoccupancy is scheduled for completion in 2009 (according to pp.13 and 88) or in 2010 (according to p.10), following decades of ‘exile’ during and in the aftermath of World War II. The author is a journalist; no staff member of the Egyptian Museum actively participated in the project nor was any specialist for the Amarna Period involved although opinions expressed by the Egyptian Museum’s Director, Dietrich Wildung, are sporadically cited and an interview with him is mentioned on p.14. The first sentence of the main text (p.11) states that the bust had stood for 38 years in a darkened room, just inside the entrance to the Egyptian Museum in Charlottenburg. This is only the first of numerous errors. Actually, between 1967 and 1993, the bust was exhibited in a room on the first floor of the Museum, directly above the entrance foyer. It was moved to the crypt-like setting on the main floor when the collection was reinstalled after the Bode Museum on Museum Island was closed for renovation in the wake of German unification. Misunderstandings (or ignorance/disregard?) of pertinent literature characterize the text ,as do problems with chronology. I, too, am amazed that the bust survived virtually undamaged for over 3,500 years (p.13), since that would mean it was created 150 years before the accession of Amenhotep IV/Akhenaten. Other readers may be as nonplussed as I to learn (p.20) that the Napoleonic expedition’s discovery of the remains of an ancient city on the site of Akhetaten predated Sicard’s visit of 1714. Neither Akhenaten’s erasure of his father’s nomen nor the elimination of the reigns of Akhenaten and his immediate successors from the official record is comparable to Ramesses II’s usurpation of the monuments of earlier kings (as stated on p.19). Rudolph Anthes was a German Egyptologist, not an English archaeologist (p.25); etc. My patience finally ran out on p.39 where Wedel confuses Ay’s wife Tiy with Queen Tiye, citing the inscription naming Tiy alongside Ay on a ‘sewing box’ in Berlin (ÄgM 17555) to support the idea that Ay and Queen Tiye were siblings, and she states that Teye’s parents are named on one commemorative scarab issued during Amenhotep III’s reign, rather than on two series of them. Furthermore Wedel mentions an inscription ‘carved’ in the tomb of Tiye’s mother Tuja calling her ‘royal mother of the King’s Great Wife’, when in fact the title

of age lines in the queen’s face. According to Wedel (p.18), Wildung claims to have made this ‘discovery’ but in fact the presence of the lines was remarked by Borchardt in the initial publication of the bust (Porträts der Königin Nofret-ete, Leipzig 1923, p.34). In short, this book does not meet the standards Egyptologists have come to associate with the publisher. (In this connection it is worth noting that Philipp von Zabern is no longer under the aegis of Franz Rutzen, and has recently changed hands a second time). However, none of the book’s shortcomings will affect its commercial success, for after all, Egypt, and especially the Amarna Period, sells. Indeed, rumour has it that Wedel’s book is a bestseller in the Museum’s shop. MARIANNE EATON-KRAUSS

occurs on a number of items of her funerary equipment found in KV 46 (not KV 55); and, finally,Wedel asserts that ‘some specialists’ consider Mutnedjmet (sic, for Mutbeneret) Nefertiti’s sister, illustrated by fig.34 showing her with the hieroglyphic label unequivocally reading ‘Sister of the King’s Great Wife Nefertiti’. After this barrage of garble, I skimmed the chapters on the history of the Amarna Period which are padded out with picturesque descriptions and Wedel’s ‘reading’ of character in facial features along with uncritical citation of speculative ideas. I resumed reading the text with the last of Wedel’s chapters, covering the history of the bust in modern times.There the division of finds that sent the bust to Berlin is dated (p.83) to 1912 (rather than 1913) and Heinrich Schäfer is erroneously called Director General of the Staatliche Museen (p.84). I had thought the book might at least be recommended for its illustrations, despite numerous errors in the captions, of which some glaring examples are: fig.44 - the bust from a colossal statue of Akhenaten is from Karnak, not Tell el-Amarna; fig.60 - the Berlin family stela is not associated with Petrie (perhaps Wedel has confused it with the stela fragment in the Louvre E 11624 excavated by Petrie at Amarna, 1891/92?); fig.66 - the crown is the hemhem, not the atef; fig.81 - Tutankhamun was buried in the Valley of the Kings, not the Valley of the Monkeys (the West Valley); etc. However, many of the illustrations are unfocused amateur photographs, shot from oblique angles, and nearly all of the monochrome images have been taken from other books, where they had been often reproduced from yet older publications.The colour photographs attributed to professionals associated with the museum are for the most part familiar; more often than not they have been reproduced with a greenish-yellow cast (e.g., figs. 8, 28, 35, 45, etc.). One of the few recent photographs is Jürgen Liepe’s dramatically lit frontal view of the bust on p.17 revealing the subtle modelling

Marc Gabolde, Akhenaton. Du mystère à la lumière. Découvertes Gallimard/Histoire, 2005; (ISBN 2 07 030745 X). Price: €11.80. In 1998, Marc Gabolde published a comprehensive study of the reign of Akhenaten and its aftermath in traditional scholarly form for his Egyptological colleagues under the title D’Akhenaton à Toutânkhamon (Lyon). The copiously illustrated ‘pocket’ book reviewed here is intended to present his conclusions to the French-speaking non-specialist. Gabolde had performed this service for German laypersons with his contribution to the exhibition catalogue Das Geheimnis des goldenen Sarges. Echnaton und das Ende der Amarnazeit (A Grimm and S Schoske [eds]; Munich 2001, pp.9-41). Anglo-American Amarna enthusiasts familiar with the sometimes conflicting ideas of Aldred, Redford, and, most recently, Nicholas Reeves, are in for several surprises if they read this book. Gabolde’s conclusions in brief:Akhenaten was the last child of Amenhotep III and Tiye, born between regnal years 27 and 30. He ascended the throne at about 10 years of age. Nefertiti, who was just as young, became his queen around the transition from regnal year 3 to 4; the union was celebrated at a sed-festival.Their first child and daughter, Meritaten, was born later in year 4; her sisters Maketaten and Ankhesenpaaten quickly followed in years 5 and 6 (or 7).The opposition of the clergy of Amun at Thebes to a campaign directed against their god (and those deities closely associated with him, Mut, Khonsu and Nekhbet) led Akhenaten to found his new capital city in Middle Egypt. Although never explicitely stated, it is implied that the military supported the precocious sovereign (see p.72). Akhenaten’s ‘other wife’ and mother of their daughter Baketaten was the Mitanni princess Tadukhepa, renamed Kiya, whom the king had inherited from his father. When the Mitanni fell victim to the Hittites, Kiya was sent packing.Akhenaten and Nefertiti’s second daughter Maketaten and her two little sisters Neferneferure and Setepenre died at some point between years 12 and 14, as did the queen mother Tiye; all of them

EGYPTIAN

were interred in the Royal Tomb. The baby carried in the arms of a nurse in the reliefs of chambers a and g there is Akhenaten and Nefertiti’s last child and only son Tutankhaten. Nefertiti died in year 17, and Meritaten, who had reached puberty by this time, took her mother’s place at Akhenaten’s side. When her father’s death quickly followed her mother’s, Meritaten wrote to request a husband from the Hittite king who obliged by sending his son Zannanza. Upon the prince’s arrival in Egypt and accession at Meritaten’s side, he was renamed Semenkhkare, but assassination ‘brutally interrupted’ his reign. Then Meritaten assumed the throne. It was she who reinstated the traditional cults and engineered the removal of the administrative capital from Amarna back to Memphis. She also was responsible for the transfer of the royal burials from Amarna to Thebes, including the body of her father which was reinterred in KV 55. Simultaneously, the reigning queen prepared traditional funerary equipment for herself inscribed with the epithet ‘she who is useful for her spouse [=Akhenaten]’.These grave goods were appropriated at her death/disappearance after a reign of three years, and eventually reworked for use at the burial of her successor Tutankhaten/amun a decade later. Reviewers of the initial, scholarly version of Gabolde’s book (see W J Murnane in Orientalistische Literaturzeitung 96 (2001), pp.9-22; R Krauss and M Eaton-Krauss, Bibliotheca Orientalis 58 (2001), pp.91-97) took exception to several of his theses; notably to his identification of Zannanza with King Semenkhkare, since the Hittite record states that a king was already on the throne of Egypt when Zannanza arrived (see T van den Hout, Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische Archäologie 84 (1994), pp.60-88). While lauding Gabolde’s identification of texts proving beyond a doubt that there was a ruling queen among Akhenaten’s successors and numerous other details of importance for the history of the Amarna Period in his study (for example, his new reconstructions of the sarcophagi of Akhenaten and Queen Tiye), they judged his reconstruction as a whole improbable. In the interim, Gabolde has widened the gap between his and the standard version(s) of events.The caveat that concluded the popular German version of his synthesis (‘this scenario remains in some respects speculative, but it is not more improbable than earlier reconstructions) is missing from the French paperback where the phrase ‘sans doute’ occurs with frequency. Even though Gabolde continues to discount the relevance of estimating the age at death of the person whose remains were discovered in KV 55 (identified by him as Akhenaten), he nevertheless seems to be influenced by the two latest assessments (see Orientalia 68 (1999), p.387, citing the results - 18-22 years old - obtained by E Strouhal and N Iskander; and Joyce Filer’s estimate of 20-25, ‘... veering towards the lower end of this age range’ in EA 17, pp.13-14 ). In 1998 Amenhotep IV was 13-15 years old at his accession; now he is 10. Is Gabolde really convinced (p.49) that the peculiarities of Akhenaten’s physique as depicted among the

ARCHAEOLOGY

talatat accurately reflect the appearance of a gawky adolescent suffering from the onset of Barraquer-Simons syndrome? How can he fail to see that the plaster head Berlin 21299 which he identifies (p.29) as a portrait of a young boy/Akhenaten is the same person depicted in the head JE 59880 in Cairo from a heb-sed statue of Amenhotep III (see the exhibition catalogue Pharaohs of the Sun 46 and 204, no. 11)? His attribution of the painted bust of Nefertiti (illus. pp. 34-35) to the early years of the reign when she was a teenager ignores the presence of lines on her face that are unmistakable, though subtle, evidence of aging - quite apart from the fact that the bust’s reassignment to the Theban phase of the reign has unresolvable implications for the stylistic evolution of Amarna sculpture. Can Gabolde really be convinced that the figures of Meritaten in reliefs at Karnak showing her as an admittedly small-scaled, but nonetheless buxom woman wearing the same clothing as her mother and accompanying her in the practice of the cult of the Aten, represent a toddler, three years old at most? As for the babe shown in the arms of a nurse in the Royal Tomb (demonstrating, incidentally, that Amarna artists were quite capable of depicting infants), the orientation of the group associates the child, regardless of its sex, unequivocally with the corpse, and not with Akhenaten and Nefertiti, who are conventionally followed by their daughters in contiguous scenes. Gabolde interprets the statement in the text of the so-called restoration stela that Tutankhamun ‘appeared on the throne of his father’ to refer to the child-king’s appropriation of the famous gold throne, found among the treasures in his tomb, from Akhenaten. But surely the statement is metaphorical, and the ‘father’ in question is the god Amun, whose role as the king’s father is emphasized in the opening lines of the decree (for the entire text, see the translation of Murnane, Texts from the Amarna Period in Egypt, Atlanta 1995, pp.212-14). The book’s final section, ‘Temoignages et documents’, includes French translations of selected contemporaneous texts and of some modern quotations about Akhenaten, as well

as a summary of recent archaeological activity at relevant sites. Gabolde´s geneaology of Akhenaten’s family, a bibliography, a list of illustrations (including measurements of objects but omitting museum numbers), an index, and photo credits follow. The book is admirably produced with illustrations of uniformly good quality, and is reasonably priced at around €12. MARIANNE EATON-KRAUSS Charlotte Booth, People of Ancient Egypt. Tempus, 2006 (ISBN 0 7524 3927 8). Price: £20. The author of this publication seeks to examine the life-styles of the ancient Egyptians through the ‘biographies’ of 20 individuals from all periods of Egyptian history. This is a remarkably brave venture considering that our knowledge of the lives of people from ancient Egypt is severely limited by lack of biographical source material. In a few cases, the bare biographical details are given in inscriptions which tell us only what the owner or the heirs wished posterity to know and may not be relied on for accuracy. A balanced account cannot be obtained. The book begins with a very brief introduction on the roles of men and women in ancient Egypt. The author then chooses for her consideration seven kings (Tety, Ahmose I, Akhenaten, Tutankhamun, Horemheb, Ramesses II, and Ramesses III), two queens (Hatshepsut and Cleopatra), three officials (Imhotep, Senenmut, Rekhmire), a group of three plus wife from Deir el-Medina (Ramose, Kenhirkhepseshef and his wife Naunakhte, and Paneb), four priests (Khnumnakht and Nakhtankh [treated together], Natsefamun and Horemkensi), and two priestesses (Asru and Taimhotep). One might say that they are the usual suspects, as most have been treated elsewhere in more detail. Indeed, a glance at the bibliography at the end of the book shows only secondary sources so basically the biographies are summaries of already published material treated from the author’s point of view. The book ends with a short index. Each biographical section is headed by a snappy sub-title whose accuracy is sometimes dubious. The full account of ‘Teti: the assassination of an Old Kingdom king’ reveals that he may in fact have died of natural causes. In ‘Senenmut: lover of an Egyptian queen’ the author admits that the ‘love’ is based on the one erotic graffito which may or may not refer to the queen and may well be a political not an amatory comment. ‘Ramesses II: the greatest king of the New Kingdom’ would be well pleased with his description, as would Kenhirkhepeshef who is stated to be an early historian long before the writing of history was invented. There are a number of errors in perception and fact. Akhenaten is said to have married Nefertiti because his traditional bride, his sister Sitamun, was unavailable having been taken by her father. In fact the king was not obliged to marry his sister, as the marriage of Akhenaten’s own parents proved, and, in any case, he had plenty of other sisters if he had wanted one. Cleopatra’s son is claimed to have been named Caesarion when this was only an

EGYPTIAN

ARCHAEOLOGY

Membership Matters Lucy Gura Archive.The EES Archive, housed at Doughty Mews, contains records (photographs, negatives, plans, epigraphic copies, correspondence and notes) from the 125 years of its fieldwork in Egypt. Although highly valued by the Society, and frequently consulted by researchers, the EES has never been able to find the necessary financial resources to allocate funds for expenditure on the Archive. In Autumn 2005, the Society was contacted by Mr and Mrs Alan Gura whose daughter Lucy had been a member of the Society but had died earlier in the year, at the tragically early age of 43. As a result, a most generous donation of £40,000 was made to the Society from Lucy’s estate which will form a ‘restricted fund’ specifically for work on the Society’s Archive. Lucy’s mother, Pat, writes: ‘Although Lucy’s approach to the study of Egyptology was both indirect and informal, her interest was long-standing and in recent years became more Lucy Gura. Photograph by Mike serious and probing. Her chief resources were the British Spike, reproduced courtesy of Museum, the British Library and the Egypt Exploration Mr and Mrs Alan Gura Society. As a linguist, Lucy applied herself diligently to the study of hieroglyphs and as a graphic artist she relished the art of ancient Egypt. These enthusiasms, together with an insatiable appetite for ancient myth, drew her increasingly into a more focused in-depth study of such aspects of ancient Egyptian culture.Whilst her deep and genuine absorption in this ancient civilisation was personal rather than professional, her own freelance art work was extended and enriched by it. Lucy would have welcomed with enthusiasm the prospect of increasing the accessibility of the EES Archive and would have been proud to have her name associated with it’. In Lucy’s memory, and in appreciation of this most generous donation, the Archive has been renamed in her honour. Progress reports on the work being undertaken will appear in future issues of EA.

President. At the Society’s AGM on 9 December 2006, Julian Horn Smith was elected President of the EES. Sir Julian was a director of Vodafone Group plc from 1996 and made many business visits to Egypt. He is now Chairman of the Sage Group.

Bookshelf (continued from p.43)

Travels, the Description de l’Égypte, and elsewhere. The commentary benefits from such rich sources as Napoleonic correspondence and the book, as a whole, reminds the reader how influential Denon’s work was to early nineteenth century Egyptology. Indeed, scholarship has traditionally prioritised the mighty Description when, in fact, it was Denon’s work which appears to have created more of a stir in nations such as Great Britain in the early 1800s. With these positive characteristics made explicit it should be noted that Russell has provided another translation of Denon’s work with limited commentary. While this commentary offers touching insight into events, such as the aftermath of the Battle of Abukir, it falls short of greatly expanding our knowledge of the historical context surrounding Denon’s life, his work, or the Napoleonic invasion. Russell has also chosen not to use a system of referencing, making it difficult to separate Denon’s translated words from the author’s additions, and making it impossible to follow up on interesting points by means of the cited bibliography. These limitations aside, however, Russell has provided a striking account of an important event to Western European politics, European cultural development, and the history of Egyptology. ANDREW BEDNARSKI

unofficial nickname, most probably never used by her. His name was Ptolemy Caesar. Caesar’s daughter was not by the childless Calpurnia but by his first wife Cornelia. The references which complete the volume are on the whole a good guide to any reader who wishes to seek further information on the lives which have been featured here. MORRIS BIERBRIER Terrence M Russell, The Discovery of Egypt, Vivant Denon’s travels with Napoleon’s army. Sutton Publishing, 2005. (ISBN 0 7509 4145 6). Price: £20.When Napoleon invaded Egypt in 1798 he brought with him over 100 learned men who, along with facilitating the colonisation of the country, took to studying every facet of the nation. At the fore of this savant corps was Dominique Vivant Denon. Upon his return from the campaign, well ahead of the other scholars, he published an account of his adventure, in French in 1802 and English in 1803. Travels in Upper and Lower Egypt proved an instant success throughout much of Western Europe. The work’s initial popularity was due to the fact that it was not only a readable account of the military exploits of the Napoleonic army that had ravaged much of Europe, but it also provided information

on and images of a country that had proved difficult for Europeans to explore. As noted by Ibrahim Ghali in 1986, for approximately one and a half centuries Denon’s Egyptian exploits were continually in print. As the frequent translations and reprinting of Travels demonstrate, the work continues to excite and inspire. Russell’s book keeps to this tradition, providing the reader with a vivid, abridged translation of the narrative, interspersed with historical commentary. Russell begins with a rapid sketch of Denon’s life before Napoleon and his eventual involvement in the campaign. In keeping with the division of chapters organised in the 1803 English edition, Russell then chronicles Denon’s progress through Egypt. The topics covered include: the 1798 departure and voyage of the French fleet; the army’s landing at Alexandria; the famous Battle of the Pyramids; the Battle of the Nile; exploration in Lower Egypt; his journey through Middle and Upper Egypt; the voyage to the Red Sea; and Napoleon and Denon’s eventual departure from the land of the Nile.The work then ends with a very brief, four-page discussion on the legacy of Denon and the French military’s work before providing the reader with a useful bibliography. Russell captures Denon’s flair, and the prose is complemented by many illustrations from

Donors’ Event. On Saturday 14 October, 2006, after the Society’s Study-Day on The Sacred Animal Necropolis at Saqqara, a reception was held at the British Academy to thank all those who had given donations to the Society’s Excavation Fund. Andrew Bednarski welcomed donors to the event and David Jeffreys, newly returned from the Memphis field season, then spoke about the challenges faced by expeditions working in Egypt today. EES London Office. At the end of December 2006 Andrew Bednarski, who had been Librarian and Membership and Outreach Secretary since September 2004, left to take up a post at ARCE in Cairo as Assistant Director of the Egyptian Museum Registrar Training Program. His successor is Karen Exell, who has an Egyptology doctorate from the University of Durham and experience of teaching and museum work. She will be at the London Office until October 2007 when Chris Naunton returns from research leave.

Acknowledgements All archaeological fieldwork and research in Egypt is carried by permission of the Egyptian Supreme Council for Antiquities. Contributors to Egyptian Archaeology gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the SCA Secretary General, Dirctors General and local Officials and Inspectors. 44

The Egypt Exploration Society New Publication AMARNA PALACE PAINTINGS Fran Weatherhead EES Excavation Memoir 78. Forthcoming, Spring 2007. ISBN-10: 0-85698-166-4. ISBN-13: 978-0-85698-166-1. Price: £60 (EES members: £50). The city of El-Amarna (Akhetaten, ‘The Horizon of Aten’), the capital and residence of the Heretic Pharaoh Akhenaten, is a site of unique interest. Apart from its importance in the development of urbanization in Ancient Egypt and its significance in its religious history, it has many riches to offer the art historian. The religious revolution of Akhenaten brought with it significant changes of emphasis and iconography which give the art of the period a freshness and immediacy which has few parallels at any other stage of Pharaonic civilisation. Fran Weatherhead’s volume is devoted to the study of one of the most important aspects of this artistic tradition - the large corpus of painting which has largely lain either unpublished or only partially known to the scholarly world. In a painstaking and thorough assessment she has worked through all the surviving documentation and has been able to produce an outstanding study of the material, frequently providing new insights even into pieces which have long been known. There is no doubt that this book is a major contribution to the study of the art of the Amarna Period and will retain permanent value as a corpus and analysis which will almost certainly never be superseded.

This and all in-print EES publications can be purchased from Oxbow Books, Park End Place, Oxford OX1 1HN. Phone: +44 (0)1865 241249. Fax: +44 (0)1865 79449. E-mail:orders@oxbowbooks.com. Website (with both sterling and US dollar prices): www.oxbowbooks.com

Binders for Egyptian Archaeology Binders for Egyptian Archaeology are again available and can be purchased from the Society. Each binder holds ten issues of EA and is black-bound and embossed on the spine with the title and the winged disk logo which appears at the top of each page of EA. The binders are individually boxed. Price: £10 per binder, including postage (UK: second-class mail. Abroad: surface mail) Orders should be sent to: EA Binders, The Egypt Exploration Society, 3 Doughty Mews, London WC1N 2PG.

Complete your collection of Egyptian Archaeology Back issues of Egyptian Archaeology (apart from issues 1, 2 and 4 which are out of print) are still available, with most issues having been reduced in price to £2, and can be purchased by post or online from Oxbow Books (details as above) or in person at the Society’s London or Cairo Offices.

‘John Romer’s book on the Great Pyramid does justice to one of the wonders of the world... Romer’s study is of great interest and wonderful reading, and it should appeal to those with an amateur interest in ancient Egypt as much as to the professional Egyptologist’ William Kelly Simpson, Emeritus Professor of Archaeology, Yale University

‘...this book offers a refreshing and distinctive approach based on sound scholarship and written in a style that often strikes a spark in the reader’s imagination.’ Barry Kemp, Professor of Egyptology, University of Cambridge and author of Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilisation

HB • 978-0-521-87166-2 • April 2007 • GBP 25.00

Features

About the Author

• Uncovers the 1000 year old mysteries of the Great Pyramid.

John Romer has worked as an archaeologist in Egypt over four decades and has made many TV and radio documentaries, to international critical acclaim.

• Reveals the most recent research and decades of personal study. • Underlines the extraordinary talents and the originality of the ancient Egyptians • Written by an internationally-renowned author possessing broad expertise in archaeology, architecture and stone-working • Illustrated throughout with specially-drawn figures and diagrams and photographs, including many unfamiliar and intriguing old images

www.cambridge.org

Find out more about The Great Pyramid at