No. 42 Spring 2013
Price £5.95
EGYPTIAN ARCHAEOLOGY
T he B ulletin of T he E gypt E xploration S ociety
Ancient Languages, Art, History and Archaeology Ancient Languages, Art, History and Archaeology Be inspired by our programme of superb five-day courses taught by experts. Ancient Languages, History Archaeology Be inspired by our programme ofArt, superb five-dayand courses taught by experts. Monday 15 to Friday 19 July 2013
Ancient Languages, Art, History and Archaeology Be inspired by our programme five-day courses THE PHARAOHS: MYTH AND Monday 15oftosuperb Friday 19 JulyREALITY 2013 taught by experts.
Dr Garry Shaw PHARAOHS: MYTH AND REALITYtaught by experts. Be inspired by ourTHE programme five-day Monday 15oftosuperb Friday 19 Julycourses 2013 OR Dr Garry Shaw THE PHARAOHS: MYTH AND REALITY HIEROGLYPHS: THE NEXT STEP OR Monday 15 to Friday 19 July 2013 Dr Garry Shaw Dr Bill Manley and Dr THE José-R. Pérez-Accino HIEROGLYPHS: STEP THE PHARAOHS: OR MYTHNEXT AND REALITY Dr Bill Manley and Dr José-R. Pérez-Accino Dr Garry Shaw HIEROGLYPHS: THE NEXT Monday 22 to Friday 26 JulySTEP 2013 OR Dr Bill Manley and Dr José-R. Pérez-Accino ART AND CRAFTS IN ANCIENT EGYPT Monday 22 to Friday JulySTEP 2013 HIEROGLYPHS: THE26 NEXT Mr George Hart ART AND CRAFTS ANCIENT EGYPT Dr Bill Manley Dr IN José-R. Pérez-Accino Monday 22and to Friday 26 July 2013 OR Mr George Hart ART AND CRAFTS IN ANCIENT EGYPT READING HIEROGLYPHS: INSCRIPTIONS FROM THE OLD KINGDOM OR 26 July Monday 22 to Friday 2013 Mr George Hart Dr Bill ManleyINSCRIPTIONS and Dr José-R. FROM Pérez-Accino READING HIEROGLYPHS: THE OLD KINGDOM ART AND CRAFTSOR IN ANCIENT EGYPT Dr Bill Manley Mr andGeorge Dr José-R. Pérez-Accino Hart READING HIEROGLYPHS: INSCRIPTIONS FROM THE Monday 29 July to Friday 2 August 2013OLD KINGDOM OR Dr‘COME, Bill Manley and DrHOW José-R. Pérez-Accino TELL ME THEY LIVED!’ Monday 29 July to Friday 2 August 2013OLD KINGDOM READING HIEROGLYPHS: INSCRIPTIONS FROM THE TECHNIQUES IN EGYPTIAN SETTLEMENT ARCHAEOLOGY ‘COME, TELL ME HOW THEY LIVED!’ Dr Bill Manley and José-R. Pérez-Accino Monday 29 Dr July toDrFriday 2 August 2013 Claire Malleson TECHNIQUES IN EGYPTIAN SETTLEMENT ARCHAEOLOGY ‘COME, TELL MEOR HOW THEY LIVED!’ Dr Claire Malleson Monday 29 July to Friday 2 August 2013 TECHNIQUES EGYPTIAN SETTLEMENT ANCIENTIN PERSIA: THEOR ACHAEMENIDARCHAEOLOGY DYNASTY ‘COME, TELL ME HOW THEY LIVED!’ Dr Claire Malleson Dr Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones ANCIENTIN PERSIA: THE ACHAEMENIDARCHAEOLOGY DYNASTY TECHNIQUES EGYPTIAN SETTLEMENT OR Drlectures; Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones Dr Claire Malleson Immerse yourself in lavishly-illustrated enjoy gallery talks in DYNASTY the British Museum and specialANCIENT PERSIA: THE ACHAEMENID OR access classes in the Petrie MuseumDr where relevant; socialise with fellow students and distinguished Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones Immerse yourself in lavishly-illustrated lectures; enjoy gallery talks in the British Museum and specialacademics; and if required, stay in reasonably-priced, local university accommodation. ANCIENT PERSIA: THE ACHAEMENID DYNASTY access classes in the Petrie Museum where relevant; socialise with fellow students and distinguished Immerse yourself in lavishly-illustrated lectures; enjoylocal gallery talks inaccommodation. the British Museum and specialDr Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones academics; and if required, stay in reasonably-priced, university US FOR SPRING STUDY DAYstudents and distinguished access classes in the PetrieJOIN Museum whereOUR relevant; socialise with fellow
academics; and if required, stay in US reasonably-priced, local university accommodation. Immerse yourself in lavishly-illustrated lectures; enjoy gallery talks in the British Museum and specialJOIN FOR OUR SPRING STUDY DAY 11 May 2013with fellow students and distinguished access classes in the Petrie Museum Saturday where relevant; socialise academics; and if required, stay in US reasonably-priced, local university accommodation. JOIN FOR OUR SPRING STUDY DAY LOST LANGUAGES: THE ENIGMA OF THE WORLD’S UNDECIPHERED SCRIPTS
Saturday 11 May 2013 Andrew Robinson with Professor John Bennet &UNDECIPHERED Dr Robert Morkot SCRIPTS LOST LANGUAGES:JOIN THE US ENIGMA OF THE WORLD’S FOR OUR SPRING STUDY DAY Saturday 11 May 2013 Andrew For Robinson withand Professor John Bennet Dr Robert a THE brochure booking forms contact&Lucia Gahlin:Morkot SCRIPTS LOST LANGUAGES: ENIGMA OF THE WORLD’S UNDECIPHERED Saturday 11John MayBennet 2013 bloomsbury@egyptology-uk.com Andrew For Robinson with Professor Dr Robert a brochure and booking forms contact&Lucia Gahlin:Morkot 020 7679 3622 LOST LANGUAGES: THE ENIGMA OF THE WORLD’S UNDECIPHERED SCRIPTS bloomsbury@egyptology-uk.com Bloomsbury Summer School, Department of History, AndrewFor Robinson withand Professor John Bennet Dr Robert a brochure booking forms contact & Lucia Gahlin:Morkot 020 7679 3622 UCL, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT bloomsbury@egyptology-uk.com Bloomsbury Summer School, Department of History, 020 7679 3622contact For a brochure and booking forms Lucia Gahlin: UCL, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT www.egyptology-uk.com/bloomsbury Bloomsbury Summer School, Department of History, bloomsbury@egyptology-uk.com UCL, Gower 020 Street, London 7679 3622 WC1E 6BT www.egyptology-uk.com/bloomsbury Bloomsbury Summer School, Department of History, www.egyptology-uk.com/bloomsbury UCL, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT www.egyptology-uk.com/bloomsbury
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 George Hart David Jeffreys John J Johnston Mike Murphy Chris Naunton Alice Stevenson John Taylor Advertising Sales Rob Tamplin Egypt Exploration Society 3 Doughty Mews London WC1N 2PG Phone: +44 (0)20 7242 1880 Fax: +44 (0)20 7404 6118 E-mail: rob.tamplin@ees.ac.uk Distribution Phone: +44 (0)20 7242 2268 Fax: +44 (0)20 7404 6118 E-mail: orders@ees.ac.uk Website: www.ees-shop.co.uk
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 Ltd Angard House, 185 Forest Road, Hainault, Essex IG6 3HU www.ccpress.co.uk
© Egypt Exploration Society and the contributors. No part of this publication may be reproduced without prior permission of the publishers. ISSN 0962 2837
Western Thebes: View from the entrance of the unfinished tomb MM504 (Carter No.82) to the southwest, over Deir el-Bahri and the first terrace of the temple of Hatshepsut. The tomb contains a number of ancient graffiti. Photograph: Chloé Ragazzoli.See pp.30-33.
Number 42
Spring 2013
Continuing Amelia’s legacy Patricia Spencer Margaret Drower David Jeffreys
2
EES Director’s Report for 2011-12 Chris Naunton EES Patrons
3
Sarah Belzoni’s grave restored Aidan Dodson EES news and events
4
The falcon necropolis at Quesna Joanne Rowland and Salima Ikram
5
Inset: Analysis of the faunal remains Lisa Yeomans
The Old Kingdom temples and cemeteries of Bubastis Eva Lange
8
Letters from the Delta: Edouard Naville and the EEF Hélène Virenque
12
Ramesside tomb-temples at Dra Abu el-Naga Ute Rummel
14
Diet and plant-use at Amara West Philippa Ryan and Neal Spencer
18
The Book of the Dead in Djehuty’s burial chamber José M Galán
21
Digging Diary 2012 Patricia Spencer
25
Kom el-Gir in the western Delta Robert Schiestl and Tomasz Herbich
28
Writing on the wall: two graffiti projects in Luxor Chloé Ragazzoli and Elizabeth Frood
30
Displaying Egypt and Sudan at the Manchester Museum Campbell Price
34
The Apries Palace Project Maria Helena Trinidade Lopes
36
Wadi es-Sebua: the temple of Amenhotep III Martina Ullmann
38
Bookshelf
41
Cover illustration. The sky-goddess Nut as shown on the ceiling of the burial chamber in the tomb of Djehuty (TT 11) at Dra Abu el-Naga. See pp.21-24. Photograph: José M Parra.
EGYPTIAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
Continuing Amelia’s legacy by Howard Carter and also to clean and re-house Petrie’s glass negatives from his earliest excavations for the Society. Full details of the 2012-13 Amelia Edwards Projects can be found at www.ees.ac.uk/news/index/200.html and electronic or printed leaflets are available on request from the EES London Office. In EA 40 we paid tribute to Margaret Drower as she celebrated her own centenary and David Jeffreys writes a personal recollection below of Peggy who died just a month short of her 101st birthday. Sadly the Society has suffered other losses recently. Kenneth J Frazer, who worked as surveyor on several EES expeditions, has died at the age of 98 and a tribute by Harry Smith can be found at www.ees.ac.uk/news/index.html (see also EA 25, p.44). Patricia Lloyd who died on 13 December 2012, aged 71, was the wife of our President, Alan Lloyd, and had a strong interest of her own in ancient Egypt. She will be remembered, and missed, by the many EES members who met her at events and on the Society’s tour to Egypt in March 2010. PATRICIA SPENCER
In 2008 the Egypt Exploration Society launched a new development initiative with the first Amelia Edwards Projects, named, of course, after our founder. The aim was to raise funds which would support directly several discrete, carefully budgeted proposals: fieldwork at Quesna and Karnak, and the Society’s Oral History Project. This initial appeal was so successful that the Amelia Edwards Projects have now become a regular part of the Society’s development strategy and the current fund-raising campaign offers members and friends of the EES the chance to support a wide range of projects, both in the field in Egypt and in the Society’s Archive. The 2012-13 projects include two opportunties to support geophysical exploration; at Karnak (to investigate early land formation at the site) and at Tell Mutubis in the Nile Delta. At Tell Basta a new project will record and publish the Old Kingdom cemetery and Eva Lange describes the background to the proposal on pp.8-10 of this issue. In the Society’s Archive, funds are needed to conserve and display the important collection of paintings
Margaret Drower Margaret Drower (known to everyone in the profession as Peggy) was an inspirational teacher to those of us who were her students at University College London in the 1960s and 1970s. She taught me during my undergraduate years (1970-75) in ancient near eastern history and invariably delivered lucid, considered and impeccably referenced lectures; but even more important were her tutorial sessions following the pitiful essays that I turned in to her (and bear in mind that there were no more than three students around in those days). Peggy was always charming, supportive, friendly and with a twinkle in her eye - but utterly ruthless, even brutal, when it came to detailed discussion - an approach that has always stayed with me and has been a model in my own academic career. I learned more from her, not just about the recorded evidence for past societies but also how to think, than almost any of my mentors at that time (with the obvious exception of Harry Smith). Many have noted that Peggy was the last living link to Flinders Petrie, and she was, of course, his biographer, but in my experience she was surprisingly reticent about those years - I have often wondered why. We had kept in touch on and off since my graduation and I like to think that she took an interest in our work at Memphis, initiated during the time when Peggy was Chairman of the Egypt Exploration Society, and other activities. Even though her hearing was deteriorating she would regularly appear in the front row at EES lectures to support speakers, many of whom were, like me, her former students.
Peggy Drower in conversation with Harry Smith and Sue Davies at a party in the EES Committee room at Doughty Mews in 2006
I was very glad to see Peggy briefly, with her great friend Diana Driscoll, just after her 100th birthday on 8 December 2011 (see also EA 40, p.2) - she was still amazingly alert mentally and as gracious as ever. DAVID JEFFREYS Margaret Hackforth-Jones (née Drower) was born in Southampton on 8 December 1911 and died in London on 12 November 2012. A full obituary was printed in The Times on 20 December 2012 and can be found (pay wall) at: http://tinyurl. com/d6xg7ds. For other personal recollections of Peggy, see: www.ees.ac.uk/news/index/202.html (by Patricia Spencer) and http://tinyurl.com/b7r2wx4 (by Jan Picton).
EGYPTIAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
EES Director’s Report for 2011-12
Chris Naunton delivering his report at the EES Annual General Meeting on 8 December 2012. Photograph: Robert Brown
The Society’s AGM in December took on a slightly different feel from EES general meetings of the past. Instead of being chaired by the President, this role was taken by Aidan Dodson, the Chair of the Board of Trustees, and responsibility for delivering the report on the 2011-12 year passed to me, as Director. In the twelve months since I took on the post I have given a great deal of thought as to where the Society is at present and where we want it to go in the future, so I began my presentation to the AGM by looking at the most recent year in the wider context of the last five, and then I looked to the future. Despite the many challenges we have faced in recent years, the outlook for the Society is very good. Following withdrawal of the British Academy grant, which made continuing our large-scale involvement at Amarna and Qasr Ibrim impossible, in 2008 and 2009 we took the opportunity to invest small grants in external projects, allowing us to support cutting-edge work. This interim measure enabled us to make an initial review of our research strategy and subsequently one of the projects supported, at Tell Basta, was adopted by the Society and was one of our expeditions in the field in 2011-12, alongside others at Kom el-Daba, Luxor, Memphis, Quesna, Sais and Tell Mutubis. Although the past five years have, inevitably, seen a reduction in expenditure on excavation and survey, we must remember that what is important is not the fieldwork itself but the results it produces. With that in mind we can be especially pleased with the investment made in our publications in recent years. Alongside JEA and EA, we have produced many more Excavation Memoirs and other site reports in the past five years than we had previously: 20 in 2007-12 compared
with 12 in 2002-07. Furthermore, eight Graeco-Roman Memoirs were produced in the same period, compared with three in the previous five years. We are now also providing much more in the way of short articles and photographs in print in the revamped EES Newsletter and online, where we have made more images available than ever before, along with our first videos. Our extensive use of social networks is helping us to bring the Society and its work to new audiences. Our events programme has expanded dramatically. In 2006-7 we hosted fewer than five events in the UK; by 2011-12 that number had grown to 25. As a result, attendance has increased and we are able to involve a greater number of speakers and cover a greater diversity of topics in many formats – not only the traditional lectures but also seminars, debates and evening classes. We have collaborated with numerous institutions and groups in hosting events in a wider variety of locations throughout the UK (and abroad) than ever before, reaching new audiences in person and also online through broadcasted seminars and discussions. In the Lucy Gura Archive thousands of images have now been digitised and a comprehensive catalogue of the material in the collection has been created, which is now in regular use by staff and researchers. In 2011-12 a project to provide new conservation-standard housing for thousands of original glass-plate negatives was completed. Most of this work has been funded directly by donations from members, demonstrating the value our core supporters place on the Society’s Archive. This material is complemented by the memories of those whose recollections have been recorded by our Oral History Project. We have substantially increased our investment in fundraising in recent years, and the annual campaign (see opposite) has now become a crucial source of additional funding for the various initiatives described here. In the next few years we aim to align all our activities more closely to the current strategy for engaging our various audiences. A new Fieldwork and Research Committee has recently been created to develop a strategy that will allow us to have the maximum impact in terms of new scientific information, but which will also prove fascinating to a wider audience. We are also developing a dissemination strategy to make new information accessible to both the scientific community and a wider audience. It’s been an exciting journey over the last few years and it’s not finished yet! CHRIS NAUNTON
EES Patrons Current EES Patrons for whose most generous support the Society is very grateful are: C T H Beck, Andrew Cousins, Martin R Davies, Christopher Gorman-Evans, Richard A Grant, George Huxley, Michael Jesudason, Paul Lynn, Anne and Fraser Mathews, Anandh Indran Owen, Lyn Stagg, Andrew Stewart, John Wall, Bryn Walters, John Wyatt and David Zahn. If you would like to become an EES Patron, please contact Roo Mitcheson: roo.mitcheson@ees.ac.uk
EGYPTIAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
Sarah Belzoni’s grave restored After the early death of Giovanni Battista Belzoni (1778-1823), his apparently Bristol-born wife Sarah (née Parker-Brown, 1783-1870: for both see Who Was Who in Egyptology, pp.52-53) initially continued to try to exhibit and publish his finds in London and Paris, but ‘retired’ in 1833 to Brussels, where she lived for over 30 years. In the mid-1860s she settled on Jersey, dying in Bellozanne Road, St Helier, at the age of 87 on 12 January 1870. The location of her grave was believed lost until it was ‘rediscovered’ in 2011 in the Mont à l’Abbé cemetery, St Helier, by the team effort of John J Taylor, Vic Geary and Anna Baghiani (see EA 40, p.36 with a photograph of the gravestones as found). Since the inscription and stones were badly weathered, an appeal was issued to raise funds for their restoration and thanks to the generosity of a local resident Philip Hewat-Jaboor, together with Mark Reynolds of Jersey Monumental Co, the gravestones have now been restored and were unveiled by the Constable of St Helier on 14 November 2012. As Chair of the EES Trustees and of the Egypt Society of Bristol, I was very
The restored gravestones of Sarah Belzoni: the smaller stone was originally the footstone. Photograph: Aidan Dodson
pleased to be invited to attend the ceremony. At her death, Sarah still possessed some of the watercolour copies of the decoration of the tomb of Sety I, originally used for making the scale models of the tomb exhibited by Giovanni and Sarah in London and Paris, plus some of her and Giovanni’s notebooks. These were bequeathed to her unmarried god-daughter Selina Belzoni Tucker, who died, aged 72, in Weston-super-Mare in 1893. She, in turn, left them to her cousin Sarah Ann Wilson (née Tucker, 18441921). Her son, Charles Edward Wilson (b.1872), gave the surviving Belzoni material to Bristol City Museum & Art Gallery in 1900. AIDAN DODSON
EES news and events Regular news updates are posted on our website, www.ees.ac.uk, which we would urge readers to consult regularly for up-to-the-minute information on all EES activities, including our current fieldwork and research. EES news can also be found on our Facebook page: http://tinyurl. com/eesfacebookpage. If you would like to receive our regular e-newsletter please e-mail: contact@ees.ac.uk On Saturday 8 December 2012, the EES Study Day Howard Carter: the man behind the mask, the Annual General Meeting, Annual Lecture and Christmas Party were held in the Brunei Gallery at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Speakers at the Study Day were Aidan Dodson, John Wyatt and Lee Young, Marcel Marée, and Marianne Eaton-Krauss. The Annual Lecture was given by Jacobus van Dijk (left), of the University of Groningen, on The Pre-royal Career of Horemheb or How the General became King. Photograph: Robert Brown. Right: members at the Christmas Party. Photograph: Dyan Hilton. The Society held another successful Study Day at York University on 1 September 2012 on the topic of The Journey to the Afterlife with talks from Maarten Raven, Stephen Buckley and Joann Fletcher, Garry Shaw, and Harco Willems. Right: Maarten Raven and Garry Shaw at the registration desk in the medieval King’s Manor where the event was held. Photograph: Tilly Burton.
On 25 October 2012 the EES London Office had a visit from Kim Ryholt, Fredrik Hagen and Hratch Papazian, with undergraduate students on the Egyptology programme of the Department for Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen. After a brief talk on the history of the Society and its work in Egypt, they viewed material in the Library and Archive, including some of Petrie’s correspondence.
In November 2012 EES members visited Egypt on an exclusive tour organised for the Society by Ancient World Tours (www.ancient.co.uk) and accompanied by Chris Naunton. They visited many sites not normally open to the public and had the benefit of on-site talks from a number of Field Directors to whom the EES is very grateful. On the left, Francesco Tiradritti talks about his team’s work at the Theban tomb of Harwa and, on the right, Günter Dreyer describes the German Archaeological Institute excavations in the early dynastic royal cemetery at Abydos.
EGYPTIAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
The falcon necropolis at Quesna In 2012 the EES Minufiyeh Survey team excavated in the falcon necropolis at Quesna and revealed structures and artefacts which provided information on the building of the galleries themselves and their connection to Athribis as Joanne Rowland and Salima Ikram describe.
A view to the east during excavations; Omar Farouk, one of his team from Quft, and local workmen cleaning the mud-brick walls of the falcon gallery
from the evidence of scattered human bones, for burials cut into the walls, in the same way that they were cut into the walls of the mausoleum. The current excavations are still only in the upper layers of the fill of the corridors, but close inspection of the mummified remains in situ suggests that the mummies had been placed in layers, with libations, including oils and resins, poured over them. They were packed right up to the mud-brick walls and piled as high as the curve of the arches that covered the corridors. The densest contexts of faunal remains come from the corridors of the galleries, and analysis by Lisa Yeomans began in summer 2012 (see box on p.6). Earlier analysis by Peter Popkin of sparse skeletal material found in the entrance structure at the west of the gallery indicated the presence of shrews, but the majority of the bones were those of birds of prey, including falcons. From the limited areas excavated in 2012 within the
The extent of the Late Period falcon necropolis at Quesna was revealed in 2006 through a magnetic survey (see EA 38 p.10), following its initial discovery by the Supreme Council for Antiquities in the 1990s. This mud-brick building measures over 150m east to west, including at its western extent what may be an entrance structure. During the 2006, 2008, and 2010 seasons, the EES team opened a series of excavation trenches which began by investigating the entrance structure, revealing a series of corridors and arches that lead to a central room, linking with the east-west aligned corridors of the gallery. In 2012 further investigations clearly indicated, in the middle of the galleries, a more southerly series of corridors which were successfully located by 5m x 5m test trenches. The excavation also revealed possible side annexes, which run right up to what is thought to be the most southerly wall of the whole structure. Also in 2012, the surface area of the previously excavated (by the SCA) section of the falcon gallery was cleaned for planning and a new trench was opened directly to the east of this area. The most significant single finding there was that of a solid easterly wall, with abutting walls running further east. This may be the original eastern wall of the gallery, or, since the area to the east is as yet unexcavated, it might represent one of a possible series of extensions to the gallery. Future excavation will hopefully yield more information in terms of the date ranges for the original, and extended, parts of the gallery. As with the mud-brick mausoleum on the southern edge of the Quesna gezira the structure of the falcon necropolis has been damaged in antiquity with parts of the walls hacked into, probably,
The northernmost wall of the falcon gallery during recording. The white box indicates where a later burial might have been cut into the brickwork
EGYPTIAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
gallery, the majority of finds were those of mummified birds and other creatures (predominantly shrews), with egg-shell found in a few areas, including in a niche running alongside the probable final southern wall of the galleries. Clearly birds were being bred nearby and eggs, as well as birds of various ages, were being offered at Quesna. Within the falcon galleries, fragments of boxes that would have housed mummified birds were found together with a copper alloy figure of a shrew, which was probably originally set on top of a box of the same material containing the mummified remains of a shrew. In addition, a number of pieces of composite falcon figurines have been excavated, all thus far in copper alloy: beaks, claws, claws and legs, and even a head, but not a body itself. Possibly the bodies were of wood, with the details highlighted in metal. These might have contained actual mummies of raptors. The SCA investigations in the 1990s revealed complete figurines of Osiris, as well as falcon statuettes. An Osiris figurine of copper alloy was located in the entrance structure to the galleries in 2010, and a badly damaged faience statuette of a falcon was also found in 2012 in the corridors of the gallery. The issue of the species present is relevant for a number of reasons: the identity of the cult deity (or deities), whether the species represented might reflect the immediate environment at the time, and the possible seasonality of culling as some birds present might be transitory migrants to Egypt. Raptors and shrews are associated with the cults of Re and Horus as Horakhty, and are commonly found together, as in the Saqqara falcon catacombs, at Abydos, and elsewhere (see map in Ikram Animal mummies in ancient Egypt, AUC, 2005) as they represent the diurnal and nocturnal aspects of the sun god. Interestingly some ‘fake’ mummies were also part of the offerings. These consist of pieces of feathers that were covered with black resin/oil and carefully wrapped as ex-votos. Similarly, fragments of bone and feather were embedded in mud and wrapped in linen, which was then covered with
Analysis of the faunal remains Analysis of the faunal remains is still ongoing, but so far the remains of at least 391 birds are represented by the bones recovered from the necropolis with many more boxes of bones still to be examined. Falcons are by far the most common species to have been mummified and offered at the necropolis. Two sizes of falcon are present and represent at least two different species. The smaller and more frequent species is the common kestrel (Falco tinnunculus); rarer bones of a larger type of falcon are probably from peregrine falcons (Falco peregrinus). In addition, several other types of raptors are present from the Accipitridae family (kites, eagles, hawks and harriers) with further work needed to identify these bones to species level. A few bones of non-raptor birds were present, but 99% of the bird bones are of raptors. Aside from birds, shrews were also mummified and occasionally rodents when shrews were not available. Mummified shrews are commonly found in association with raptor mummies, representing the Lisa Yeomans nocturnal manifestation of the sun god.
the resin/oil libation. These were presumably parts of mummified birds that had fallen off but were regarded as being sacred and thus became legitimate offerings with the part symbolising the whole. A link between Quesna and Athribis (just 7km south of Quesna) is known from inscriptions on objects found previously within the mausoleum, such as a black stone Ptolemaic Period sarcophagus of Horudja - now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. This year’s excavations in the falcon necropolis, however, have provided inscriptional evidence that confirms the connection between the two sites, particularly in respect of the personnel involved in the organisation of the falcon necropolis during the Thirtieth Dynasty. The best represented of these individuals is Djedhor, referred to as Djedhor Pashed on later inscriptions and known from three statues/statue bases (Cairo JE 46341, OIM 10589 and Cairo 4/6/19/1) found at Athribis. Djedhor was the ‘chief guard of the double doors of Horus Khenty-Khety the great god, lord of Athribis’ (Sherman, JEA 67 (1981), pp.82-102), this cult being attested at Athribis from at least the Middle Kingdom onwards. Neither the mausoleum nor the
A jar stopper with a saucer, found in trench 12
A bird mummy jar with a small bowl used as a lid
Mud-sealing SF28, showing the text and the impressions of textile or string on the reverse
A copper-alloy giant shrew (above) and a bird leg in the same material (right)
EGYPTIAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
The upper part of a Horus stela from trench 13
poison of every male and female viper and all snakes! It is all this that I have done in the house of the Falcon. The like thereof had not (ever) been done by any man who came before’ (Sherman translation). An object that offers such protection is the ‘Horus on the crocodile’ stela shown resting against the shins of Djedhor on Cairo JE 46341, found in the falcon gallery at Quesna. Texts, most notably the Metternich Stela (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), describe how a spell should be recited over a Horus stela with the aim of deterring any biting snakes, or, indeed any threatening creatures of the desert. The upper part of a similar stela was found in the falcon gallery in 2012, although it is broken in the middle so it can only be presumed that Horus stands on a crocodile. The surviving text refers to Osiris, born of Isis, and to the reading of magical spells and the reciting of incantations. One aim for future seasons will be to try to identify embalming workshops and any breeding facilities at Quesna and we also hope to continue investigating the main galleries: to examine parts of the corridors down to floor level and to explore further to the east.
falcon necropolis at Quesna had been located when the Djedhor statues were found, but it seems reasonable to suggest that he was responsible for the organisation and running of the Quesna falcon necropolis. In 2012 four sealings, complete and fragmentary, were found in the gallery and their reverse impressions show that they had originally been pressed on to textile/string, to seal the commonly found ‘bird mummy’ jars at Quesna. Gypsum stoppers for such jars have been found frequently in the southern corridors of the gallery and in two instances they had ceramic saucers attached, indicating that the jar’s mouth would have been covered first by a layer of linen, followed by a saucer, and then finally sealed with gypsum, with a cord or strip of cloth tied around it, on to which the seal was affixed. The seal impressions all bear the same text and the following transliteration can be suggested: Wsir nb IAt-qb nTr aA Hri-ib Km(-wr) pA bjk. ‘Osiris, Lord of IAt-qb, Great God who is in Athribis, the Holy Falcon’. The rare place name of IAt-qb is attested on the offering table Turin 1751, which is contemporaneous with Djedhor (Sherman dates the statue bases to between 325 and 323 BC). The location Km(-wr), which may be read on the impression, is Athribis, and pA bjk, a very common designation of the holy falcon, is also found in Djedhor’s texts (Cairo JE 46341 and OIM 10589). The text on the base of OIM 10589 is translated by Sherman as ‘Honoured before Osiris Lord of IAt MAat; praised before the gods who are in the Necropolis on the North of the Athribite Nome’, and that is exactly where Quesna lies - on the northern edge of the Athribite nome (although at some points in history it belonged to the province north of Athribis). The text continues to record Djedhor’s building and embalming activities as well as his medical care: ‘in addition to that which I did in your house’ (alternative translation to that of Sherman), ‘in order to save every one thereby, from the
q Joanne Rowland is Director of the EES Minufiyeh Archaeological Survey and a Junior Professor in Egyptian Archaeology in the Egyptology Department of the Freie Universität, Berlin. Salima Ikram is Professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo. They are grateful to Karl Jansen-Winkeln (Freie Universität, Berlin) for the translation of the seal impression and comments on the place name, and to him and John Tait (Emeritus Professor of Egyptology, University College London), for their comments on the sealings and on the Horus stela. Photographs of the objects were taken by Geoffrey Tassie, who is also thanked for his insights into the construction of the gallery. Magnetic and radar surveys were carried out by Kristian Strutt of the University of Southampton and all faunal analysis by Lisa Yeomans and Peter Popkin. Funding for the spring and summer 2012 seasons was generously provided by the EES, with help from the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, who supported the second archaeological field school at Quesna in summer 2012.
EGYPTIAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
The Old Kingdom temples
and cemeteries of Bubastis Like many ancient Egyptian cities, Bubastis is best known for its importance during a particular historical period; in this case the time of the Libyan kings. The joint EES/Göttingen/MSA mission is now planning to investigate the city’s less well-known earliest history, as Eva Lange explains. Archaeological Institute expedition) which belonged to a Predynastic ruler of the late fourth millennium BC. The grave contained labels naming a place ‘Baset’ which is most probably to be identified with Bubastis. To date no remains of a Predynastic or Early Dynastic settlement have come to light at Bubastis, but a mud-brick tomb dated to the First/Second Dynasties was discovered north-east of the great temple of Bastet by Ahmed el-Sawi in 1970. At the end of the Second Dynasty, there was a centralisation of power in Egypt to allow direct royal administration of the Delta’s rich agricultural resources. New geographical units and royal estates were established, and were probably administered at the local level by pre-existing centres such as Mendes, Buto, Sais and Bubastis. Royal interest in the provinces was not restricted to their material prosperity, as royal patronage of several local cultinstallations can also be identified. Deities who seemed especially suitable as manifestations of the institution of kingship enjoyed a special royal interest for obvious reasons. However, in some cases it is hard to decide if the worship of a particular deity originated at a certain place or was transplanted from the residence to the provinces as part of a state policy on religion during the Old Kingdom. The date of the first association of the goddess Bastet with Bubastis is a rather complicated matter. As early as the Early Dynastic Period Bastet was an important goddess with royal associations, as is clearly attested through both depictions and inscriptions found on several stone vessels of King Hetepsekhemuy, discovered in the galleries of the Step Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara, where Bastet is shown as a lion-headed Map of the monuments of Tell Basta. The area of occupation of the Old Kingdom is marked in green
There are several rich documentary sources relating to the city of Bubastis (Tell Basta) during the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom. Although not generally well known, they provide useful information not just about the development of a Delta city at the formative period of Egyptian history but also about more general historical and social developments which took place throughout the Old Kingdom. The location of Bubastis at the junction of the Pelusiac and Tanitic branches of the Nile offered access to two important waterways of the Delta. Bubastis also had access to the Wadi Tumilat, the main route to the Sinai and Palestine. Such a location must have been very attractive to early occupants of the city since it allowed them to participate in the evolving inter-regional commercial exchange. Presumably as the result of this role as a major distribution centre for trade goods, Bubastis had already become an important settlement during the Predynastic Period. Evidence for this comes from inscribed labels giving the designations of the point of origin of grave goods in the Abydos tomb U-j (discovered by the German
EGYPTIAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
The Old Kingdom ‘Great Building’ during excavation. Photograph: Ahmed el-Sawi
goddess. But how old is the cult of Bastet at Bubastis? To date we have no archaeological evidence for an Early Dynastic temple of Bastet at the site and have to depend for early evidence on the analysis of written sources, which are not entirely conclusive. An indication as to the origin of Bastet may be given by the name of the goddess herself, as it is usually assumed that her name refers to ‘She from Baset’, but the earliest writings of her name suggest that it derives in fact from the ointment-jar with which it is most commonly spelled, and should rather be understood as ‘She of the ointmentjar’. Thus neither the early attestations nor the etymology of the name of the goddess provide us with definite clues for the start of her cult at Bubastis, which may not predate the beginning of the Sixth Dynasty. Regardless of its association with Bastet, the existence of a variety of Old Kingdom administrative and religious buildings shows that the city had been able already to develop and grow. In the present state of our knowledge, the areas containing Old Kingdom material are all situated to the north-east of the later city (the area shown in green on the map opposite). The most famous of these Old Kingdom structures are the ka-temples of the early kings of the Sixth Dynasty, but there are also the intriguing remains of at least one palatial building. The structure was labelled by its excavator, Ahmed el-Sawi, as the ‘Great Building’ and dated by
Reconstructed ground plan of the ‘Great Building’. Drawing: Eva Lange after Ahmed el-Sawi
him to the Third or Fourth Dynasty. It is located c.200m to the north of the kaenclosure of Teti. The mud-brick building, opening from an entrance in its north-east corner, contained an assemblage of rooms of differing layouts and functions - open halls, offices, stores and magazines. It may have served as a central staging area for goods brought from the surrounding district in the course of collecting taxes. Unfortunately today this area has been overbuilt by the growing city of Zagazig and is no longer available for study. By the end of the Old Kingdom Bubastis had become a major administrative centre and the cult place of a significant deity. It served an important role in the expanding system of royal domains and it was clearly in the interests of the kings to associate themselves with the economic power of the Bubastis temple by attaching to it the cult of their royal kas. Archaeological evidence shows that at least two kings connected their own cult-installations with the temple of Bastet: Teti, the first king of the Sixth Dynasty, who erected his ka-temple to the north-west of the Bastet-temple, and his successor, Pepi I, whose ka-temple is situated directly to the south of that of Teti. Today only the remains of the building of Pepi I are preserved and the relief from the temple’s entrance has the earliest known depiction of Bastet as the principal goddess of Bubastis. Copy by Labib Habachi of the relief on the entrance of the ka-temple of Pepi I
EGYPTIAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
Royal ka-temples are attested through written sources as early as the First Dynasty and continued into the late Old Kingdom. But while we have only sparse knowledge about the majority - no more than the bare mention of their existence in private and royal inscriptions - the available information about ka-enclosures of Pepi I is much more extensive and we know of at least six other such installations of the king throughout the country. While any settlement of the Old Kingdom remains unexcavated, cemeteries of the period provide us with information about its population. Important burial places of the Old Kingdom are situated to the north-east of the ka-temples (the ‘western’ and ‘eastern’ cemeteries) and were Detail of the decoration of the tomb of Ankhembaset in the eastern cemetery at Bubastis. excavated by Mohammed Ibrahim Bakr between Photograph: © Tell Basta Project 1978 and 1988. While all of the tombs were built of mud-brick, several types are distinguishable, from Nebsen (b): ‘Overseer of the Granite (workers), Inspector vaulted tombs with burial shafts leading to one or more of the Priests of Bastet, Nebsen(’s son) Nebsen’. chambers, to simple pit burials. The ‘western cemetery’ The ‘eastern cemetery’, also excavated by Mohammed especially was intensively used. Ibrahim Bakr, contains elite tombs of the late Old The stelae of three burials provide us with the names Kingdom, lined with decorated limestone slabs. The titles and titles of some elite inhabitants of the town: of the individuals buried there indicate that held high Nebsen (a): ‘Overseer of the Granite (workers), Nibastet positions in local administration as well as court titles. (’s son) Nebsen’ (tomb 1). Both cemeteries show that a temple for Bastet must have Meshetsh: ‘Inspector of the Priests’ (of Bastet/of the temexisted in the late Old Kingdom at Bubastis. ple of Pepi), ‘Inspector of the Seal-bearers of the Treasury, Almost all of the Old Kingdom tombs at Bubastis are privy to the secrets of the god’s treasure, Nibastet (’s son) unpublished and the Tell Basta Project has started to Meshetsh’ (tomb 17). co-operate with the original excavator to redocument and investigate the cemeteries. We hope that this will mark the beginning of a large-scale project focusing on the early periods of Bubastis that will complement our current investigations into the later stages of the history of this important city in the eastern Delta.
Ground plan of the western and eastern cemeteries. Plan by Mohammed Ibrahim Bakr and Helmut Brandl 10
q Eva Lange is the Director of the EES/University of Göttingen/MSA Tell Basta Project and is Assistant Professor in the Institute of Egyptology at the University of Würzburg. She would like to thank all the team members working with the Project, and Egyptian colleagues of the MSA for their enduring support. Illustrations: © Tell Basta Project
EGYPTIAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
ANCIENT WORLDS SUMMER SCHOOL 29th July – 9th August 2013
The University of Liverpool’s Ancient Worlds Summer School returns for its fourth year in 2013. With teaching by University staff, learn about Egypt and the ancient world from the experts, with privileged access to their current research. This year’s courses include: Hieroglyphs, Coptic, Latin, Greek, Sanskrit and Akkadian from Beginner Level Investigating the Past Current Research in Egyptology, Archaeology and Ancient History at Liverpool Residential and non-residential packages are available, with prices starting from £150 for one week For further information on these and other courses, visit the website http://sace.liv.ac.uk/ancientworlds/2013-liverpool-ancient-worldssummer-school/ Or contact the organiser: Dr Glenn Godenho Office: 0151 794 2475 Email: ggodenho@liverpool.ac.uk
11
EGYPTIAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
Letters from the Delta: Edouard Naville and the EEF The Lucy Gura Archive is a vital source of information on the Society’s early years. Hélène Virenque describes her research on the Naville correspondence, funded by a 2010 EES Centenary Award. in Europe - the letters show a close relationship, based Among the numerous mainly on their common interest in ancient Egypt and the letters held in the EES conservation of its heritage. In his letters, Naville regularly Lucy Gura Archive is an included the latest report on his excavations or the draft important and regular of an article to be published in The Times or the weekly correspondence between Academy: ‘I enclose nine pages of notes on the necropolis of Tell el the Swiss Egyptologist Yahoudieh which is the first result of my excavations [...]. I hope Edouard Naville (1844it will not give you too much trouble in reading it; it is of course 1926) and the first very bad English written currente calamo, but I hope you will two EEF Honorary find in it the necessary material for a Times article’ [20th March Secretaries, Amelia B 1887, EES Lucy Gura Archive V.e.15]. Amelia edited Edwards and Reginald Naville’s texts, especially the language, and sent them to S Poole. They contain the most suitable publication. By spreading as widely as Portrait of a young Edouard Naville. many details about his Photograph © Fondation Naville possible news of the latest discoveries, the earliest being fieldwork in Egypt, his of ‘biblical sites’ in the eastern Delta, she constantly aimed relations with his colleagues and all the steps he had to attract new subscribers to the Fund. to take to publish his illustrated Memoirs. My current However, their views about the removal of monuments research project focuses on the period 1879-92, from from sites on behalf of the Fund evolved rather differently. the first contacts between Naville and the founders of For Amelia, it was essential to bring back statues, stelae the Fund until the end of his excavation work in the and small objects to reward benefactors or institutions Delta. Thanks to an EES Centenary Award, I was able in different countries whose donations funded the last year to digitise more than 250 letters written in excavations. Petrie understood this almost perfect English and, fortunately, policy and frequently, with the mostly in beautiful handwriting. I permission of the Egyptian Service then started to transcribe them and des Antiquités, brought back to research their content to identify the England small objects found during sites, monuments, objects and scholars his fieldwork. Naville, on the other mentioned. I would like here to give hand, thought that such behaviour an insight into the first results of this was incompatible with the original work in progress, looking at the close aim of the Fund, as he tried to relation between Naville and Amelia explain to Amelia in a letter: ‘I Edwards and by contrast, the Swiss revert to your letter, and you will allow epigraphist’s strained relations with me, dear Miss Edwards to tell you that his colleague Flinders Petrie. The I do not share your point of view as to letters also shed a new light on the the great desirability of carrying away underestimated role of Naville’s wife [a] great many small things, say several Marguerite in the preparation of his thousands in order to enrich a score of publications. museums […]. I very well understand Guided by Gaston Maspero’s advice, that the system of plunder as you call Amelia Edwards played a major role it promotes the welfare of the Fund in in the recruitment of Naville as an England; but you must not forget that excavator for the newly created Egypt it greatly endangers it in Egypt; and it Exploration Fund, and he was always might easily someday wreck the entente appreciative of her support. Although cordiale which we have always had they did not see each other very often Letter from Marguerite Naville to Poole, 15th March - only at the Annual General Meeting [1886]. [EES Lucy Gura Archive V.d.6]. © Egypt with the [Egyptian] museum’ [14th February 1887, EES Lucy Gura of the Fund or during conferences Exploration Society 12
EGYPTIAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
Postcard from Naville to Amelia Edwards, 7th March 1887. [EES Lucy Gura Archive V.e.12]. © Egypt Exploration Society
Archive V.e.8]. Naville’s views were influenced by his wish to maintain good relations with the French Egyptologists who controlled the Service des Antiquités, as well as with officials of the Egyptian Museum, then at Bulaq. Since the departure of his friend Maspero in 1886 Naville had had a less friendly relationship with Eugène Grébaut, the new Director of the Service. Petrie features in this correspondence particularly around the end of the year 1886 when the English archaeologist decided to resign from the Fund. Originally, Naville regarded Petrie as a colleague, even a friend, and during their first excavations in the Delta he consulted him about small finds and ceramics, and paid visits to Petrie’s fieldwork to have a look at the epigraphic material. Both men were complementary, using different methods, a fact Naville always had in mind. He pointed out their differences in a letter to Poole: ‘I consider that the English public is much more interested in Petrie’s work than in mine. I do not feel the least jealous about it; I consider it as quite natural. He is an Englishman, I a foreigner. He makes exhibitions of what he finds; I make none. He is more archaeologist than I am. I believe he is a great loss to the Fund’ [25th November 1886, EES archive V.d.19].
Edouard and Marguerite Naville, in the garden of their estate at Malagny near Geneva. Photograph © Fondation Naville
Naville also believed that inscriptions provided the most important evidence to establish the historical context of a site, and, in this, his approach to archaeology clearly differed from Petrie’s, as the letters show: ‘I have here a little box containing little pots, scarabs, bronzes, and flint implements which I found at Khataaneh and Tell el Rotab. I am quite ashamed of sending you that; but Mr. Petrie said the pottery is interesting. I should give the whole for a bit of inscriptions’ [Letter to Poole, 4th April 1885, EES Lucy Gura Archive V.c.15]. Eventually, within this early correspondence eight letters in French are written by Marguerite Naville - born de Pourtalès - who married Edouard in 1873. She is known for the beautiful drawings she made for her husband’s Memoirs, although she is not always mentioned among his collaborators in their introductions. Thanks to the EES archive we know that she was also deeply involved in the numerous editing stages of each publication. She used to adapt the squeezes or facsimile drawings and re-draw them with a pantograph at home, took care of the last verifications and checked the proportions, labels, scales and the final layout of the plates. She was an efficient assistant to Edouard and both the Fund’s Secretaries always showed confidence in her thorough work. By this historiographical approach, Naville’s letters reveal new aspects of his excavations and his collaborators as he initiated archaeology in the Delta. In the case of large projects, as for instance at Bubastis, the correspondence reveals new information about the context of many excavated monuments and will enhance existing publications. It is also an opportunity to enlarge our knowledge about the distribution lists regarding the objects sent to museums in Europe, the United States and as far afield as Australia. q Hélène Virenque is a Research Associate at the Ecole pratique des hautes études, EA 4519 ‘Egypte ancienne, archéologie, langue, religion’ (Paris). For her research on Naville’s correspondence, she received in 2010 an EES Centenary Award and in 2011 the Prix Max Serres of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (Paris). She would like to thank the EES, especially Chris Naunton and Patricia Spencer, as well as Jean-Luc Chappaz (MAH, Geneva) and the Naville family for their constant support.
Edouard Naville in later life. Photograph © Fondation Naville 13
EGYPTIAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
Ramesside tomb-temples at Dra Abu el-Naga The DAI Cairo project investigating the southern part of the extraordinary double tomb complex K93.11/K93.12 had its seventh season in the autumn of 2012. Ute Rummel reports on the most recent discoveries and their implication for the study of the Theban ritual landscape. The aim of the long-term German Archaeological Institute (DAI) project at Dra Abu el-Naga, exploring especially the tombs of the Second Intermediate Period and the early New Kingdom, is to trace and understand the development of a necropolis (EA 7, pp.6-8, EA 10, pp.34-35). In addition to the in-depth study of individual tombs more general questions are pursued such as the interrelations between tombs, their spatial distribution and their context within a defined landscape. In 1993 a large double tomb complex was included in the investigation. Work started in its northern part, K93.11 (see EA 14, pp.4-6), since the interior’s layout suggested the rock architecture was cut in the early New Kingdom. Archaeological work of subsequent years revealed that this tomb had been reused by the High Priest of Amun, Ramsesnakht, who held office during the reigns of Ramesses IV to Ramesses IX. Ramsesnakht remodelled the earlier tomb into a tomb-temple, the remains of which were discovered in the fill of the forecourts. He created two open courts by adding a mud-brick pylon at the eastern end of the terrace and the inner court was turned into a peristyle with 26 sandstone columns some topped by Hathor capitals. This capital type is an element of temple architecture which had not previously been attested in a New Kingdom tomb context. In the course of the excavations, thousands of sandstone relief fragments came to light, mostly from the inner court’s former wall casing. They show that the main subject of the decoration was the communication of the High Priest with the gods, particularly the Theban Triad and the
Fragment of a Hathor capital from K93.12
sun god Re-Horakhty. The absence of any remnants of his funerary equipment suggests that Ramsesnakht was not buried in K93.11, which seems rather to have functioned as a private mortuary chapel. In 2006 the excavation of the neighbouring K93.12 was begun. One of the major results was the discovery that this tomb had been taken over by Ramsesnakht’s son and successor, the High Priest Amenhotep. He had fashioned the place into a similar tomb-temple, equipped with a peristyle in the inner forecourt, and here some of the columns also once bore Hathor capitals. The wall decoration of Amenhotep’s inner court, too, was dominated by religious themes depicting scenes of worship, offering ceremonies and festival processions. Unlike the situation in K93.11 numerous pieces of Amenhotep’s burial equipment were found in the subterranean chamber, including wooden shabtis, inscribed pottery vessels and fragments of his wooden coffin. The most striking feature of the complex was discovered in 2010 and is still under investigation: at the southern limit of Amenhotep’s first court are the remains of a lateral pylon with an adjacent causeway. Both features are in this configuration unique for a New Kingdom Theban tomb. The ascending causeway, more than 7m wide and originally c.60m in length, is lined on both sides by a wall of limestone boulders. Wooden shabti of the High Priest Amenhotep from the burial chamber of K93.12
Part of a representation of the god Khonsu from K93.11 14
EGYPTIAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
K93.12: Priest carrying a ram-headed holy vase of Amun
Text fragments displaying parts of a speech of the High Priest Amenhotep
It links K93.11 and K93.12 to a minor wadi (Shig elAteyat) that descends the hill and leads, at the height of Meniset (the temple of the deified Amenhotep I and his mother Ahmose-Nefertari), to the central processional route of the west bank. Thus the double tomb complex incorporates two axes: the east-west orientated main axis of the rock-cut tombs and a transverse north-south axis. The latter runs through the lateral gateway into Amenhotep’s first courtyard and continues through into the neighbouring complex of Ramsesnakht, who created this monumental layout with two axes. These structural features allow us to draw new conclusions on the integration of K93.11/K93.12 into the
rites of the Valley Festival and hence on the composition of the local ritual landscape in the Twentieth Dynasty. A closer look at the situation of Meniset reveals an interrelation between this temple and the double tomb complex. Meniset’s axis runs north-south, in contrast to all other known ‘Million Year houses’ along the cultivation’s edge. Its projection ends in the forecourt terrace of the two tombs which illustrates that the two monuments are related. The Ramesside causeway adjacent to the wadi leading towards Meniset constitutes the final segment of a direct processional connection to this temple. This connection was created for a ritual purpose: during the Valley Festival the shrines of Amenhotep I and Ahmose-
K93.12. View of the lateral pylon and the remains of the adjacent causeway
15
EGYPTIAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
Probable depiction of the deified Amenhotep I as a youth from the inner court of K93.11. The ink graffito mentions the word maHat -‘tomb’
Fragment from K93.12 depicting the flagpoles of a temple pylon, presumably Karnak or Meniset, the temple of Amenhotep I and Ahmose-Nefertari in Dra Abu el-Naga
Nefertari were most probably carried from their temple up to the tombs of the High Priests, who, naturally, were empowered to (re-)direct the festival’s course. One fragment of Ramsesnakht’s relief material suggests, moreover, the existence of a small cult installation for Amenhotep I in the inner court of K93.11 which could
have been the cultic focus of the shrines’ visit. It shows the face and forehead of the deified Amenhotep I in his rare iconography as a youth and might be part of a mural cult image of the king. Furthermore, it has a hieratic ink graffito mentioning the word ‘tomb’ (maHat) – which might
Satellite image illustrating the suggested processional connection between the tomb complex of K93.11/K93.12 and the temple Meniset (red) and Meniset’s central axis (yellow). The yellow circle on the far right indicates the lateral gateway of the temple of Seti I. Photograph © GoogleEarth 16
EGYPTIAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
refer to its find spot, thus identifying K93.11 as the tomb of the depicted king. The identification of K93.11 as the tomb of Amenhotep I has long been suggested by Daniel Polz, amongst others, because of the obvious interrelation between Meniset and K93.11/K93.12 which had been designed as a double tomb complex from the outset. A pathway leading up to the tombs’ forecourt terrace - perhaps even a connecting way to Meniset - had presumably already existed in the early Eighteenth Dynasty. In the framework of Ramsesnakht’s remodelling of K93.11 the ascending pathway was structurally developed. The result of his building activity was an outstanding example of a New Kingdom tomb-temple implanted into one of western Thebes’ most sacred places. In their uniqueness regarding architecture and temple semantics K93.11 and 12 form the missing link between the typical Ramesside temple-shaped tomb and the monumental Late Period tomb complexes in the Asasif. The above observations add new data to the discussion of the Valley Festival’s itinerary. They clearly show that Dra Abu el-Naga was an important festival stage that was traversed after the procession had left the Seti temple which, from the Nineteenth Dynasty, was the divine barque’s first stop after having crossed the Nile from Karnak. Looking at the orientation of the Middle Kingdom tombs at el-Tarif, facing the ancient necropolis
road north of Seti I’s temple (which, moreover, features a lateral gateway in its northern enclosure wall), this road must have been a major processional axis from the Middle Kingdom onwards. This challenges the prevalent Egyptological assumption of a land- or waterway running from the Nile perpendicular to the valley temples of Deir el-Bahri. The existence of such a transverse route would raise the question of how and at what point the area north of it (Dra Abu el-Naga, which is known to have been an important festival stage especially in Ramesside times) was incorporated into the festivities. Despite the abundant pictorial and textual evidence of religious festivals we are not well informed about the actual course of processional land- or water-ways on the west bank. Ongoing geoarchaeological and geophysical research such as the EES Theban Harbours and Waterscapes Survey (EA 38, p.3, EA 41, pp.21-24) will help to fill this knowledge gap and deliver a solid basis for the reconstruction of the sacred landscape of Western Thebes. q Ute Rummel is a Research Associate at the German Archaeological Institute Cairo (DAI) and director of the excavation project in K93.11/K93.12. She would like to express her sincere gratitude to the entire excavation team, especially to Susanne Michels (University of Heidelberg), who is one of the project’s main supporters. Special thanks go to Angus Graham (EES) and Alban-Brice Pimpaud (MSA; MAFTO) for fruitful discussions on the Theban land- and waterscapes. Unless otherwise stated all images Š DAI Cairo (www.dainst.org)
Das Opferritual des ägyptischen Neuen Reiches Sylvie Cauville | Mohammed ibrahim Ali
Band I: Texte. Band II: Ăœbersetzung und Kommentar
ItinĂŠraire du visiteur
N. Tacke
4 $BVWJMMF . *CSBIJN "MJ
This PhD thesis from FU Berlin (in German; with a preface by Jan Assmann and an English summary) provides the first complete edition of “The Offering Ritual of the Egyptian New Kingdomâ€?, formerly known as “Ritual for Das Opferritual des ägyptischen Amenhotep Iâ€?. The ritual’s liturgy covers the daily offerNeuen Reiches ing of food to Amun-Re in Karnak and comprises 51 spells for the daily cult and 17 additional spells for certain religious festivals. Part I contains a full synopsis of the liturgical texts in hieroglyphic transcription, based on a new reconstruction of the two separate Papyri Cairo CGC 58030 and Turin CGT 54041, Papyrus Chester Beatty IX, the texts of respective scene sequences in the temples of Karnak, Abydos and Medinet Habu, as well as ca 400 other textual sources from all periods of Egypt’s religious history. Part II consists of a full translation, commentary and critical apparatus of the Egyptian texts, together with an in-depth analysis of the ritual, covering its theological, historical and practical aspects, and placing it into the context of other rituals and religious structures of Ancient Egyptian religion. In that sense, the book does not only fill a long-due desideratum in Egyptology but also provides new insights relevant for audiences in the fields of theology and history of religions.
Comme elle est belle, cette ville apparue au sein des eaux ! Elle existe depuis le commencement, alors que la terre Êtait dans la nuit et les tÊnèbres. Elle est un havre quand on vient du sud, une rade quand on vient du nord.
O R i E N TA L i A L O vA N i E N S i A A N A L E C TA
i. TExTE
OLA 222
Band I
PEETERS
von
NIKOLAUS TACKE
Peeters
Celui qui a adorÊ l’Isis de PhilÌ a un sort heureux, non pas seulement parce qu’il devient riche, mais parce qu’en même temps il obtient une longue vie.
t 0SJFOUBMJB -PWBOJFOTJB "OBMFDUB t 9*7 Q 7*** Q WPM t *4#/ t FVSP
Nombreux en effet sont ceux qui ont foulÊ le sol sacrÊ ; ils ont immortalisÊ leur prÊsence et leur ferveur en hiÊroglyphes, en dÊmotique, en grec, en latin, en copte, en arabe — en français aussi, tels les braves de Bonaparte, et même en italien avec les envoyÊs du pape de Rome.
Peeters
Publishers and booksellers http://www.peeters-leuven.be bondgenotenlaan 153 b-3000 leuven peeters@peeters-leuven.be
95868_Adv_Tacke_Cauville_179x130mm.indd 1
PEETERS
Cette phrase, vieille de deux millÊnaires, pourrait être Êcrite aujourd’hui, et de fait temps et espace sont suspendus pour quiconque voit surgir PhilÌ au milieu des eaux miroitantes sous le soleil. PhilÌ, bout du monde pour les Égyptiens et les Grecs anciens, est le point de rencontre culturel des civilisations mÊditerranÊennes et des Nubiens venus des profondeurs de l’Afrique. -FT UBCMFBVY RVJ E�DPSFOU TFT UFNQMFT SFnÒUFOU DFUUF QPTJUJPO TUSBU�HJRVF EF M Île des temps anciens : les dieux de Nubie, de PhilÌ même, d’ÉlÊphantine côtoient, en s’y JEFOUJmBOU QBSGPJT DFVY EFT N�USPQPMFT SFMJHJFVTFT EF M ²HZQUF -F NZUIF EF M �UFSOFM SFUPVS E 0TJSJT FU EF MB DSVF EV /JM EPOOF TPO IBSNPOJFVTF DPI�SFODF Ë DFUUF TZOUIÒTF thÊologique. Une promenade dans cet Êcrin lumineux, tout diffÊrent des grands sanctuaires à la NBTTF �DSBTBOUF FU BVTUÒSF GBJU SFUSPVWFS M FODIBOUFNFOU RV FYQSJNF VO WJTJUFVS contemporain des PtolÊmÊes et des CÊsars :
Texte
PEETERS
PhilĂŚ
t *7 Q t *4#/ t FVSP
17
19/12/12 13:06
EGYPTIAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
Diet and plant-use at Amara West British Museum fieldwork at Amara West, the administrative centre of Upper Nubia in the New Kingdom, is focusing on investigating the lived experience of the ancient inhabitants. Philippa Ryan and Neal Spencer describe initial insights gained from the archaeobotanical remains. The Egypt Exploration Society excavations at Amara West (1938-39, 1947-50) unearthed the well-preserved remains of an Egyptian town of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties, with inscriptions from one building (E.13.2) indicating that the town was the seat of the ‘Deputy of Kush’, i.e. the administrative centre for colonial control of Upper Nubia from around 1285 to 1070 BC. A British Museum research project, instigated in 2008, is investigating unexplored parts of the town, and two nearby cemeteries. Through study of the artefact assemblages, small- and large-scale changes to domestic space, and a range of scientific analyses (faunal and plant remains and residues, bioarchaeological research, geoarchaeological sampling and investigations into climate change and water channels), it is hoped to gain a better understanding of the lived experience in an ancient Egyptian town, particularly in terms of health, diet and the ambiance of the built environment. The urban architecture at Amara West is typically Egyptian, as are the majority of the artefacts (including pottery); the presence of a formal temple, official residence and storage magazines may imply a redistributive agricultural system similar to that known from contemporary Egypt. However, a circular building consistent with Nubian architectural traditions, cooking pots produced in indigenous style and certain funerary traditions (tumuli, funerary beds, flexed burials) reflect the interaction - within the town - between Egyptian
River bank vegetation near Amara West, including Tamarix
and Nubian peoples and their respective cultures. The evidence for diet and plant-use at a household level provides one way to investigate the extent of any Egyptian influence over the day-to-day life of the local population. Now located on the north bank of the Nile downstream of Sai Island, Amara West was originally situated on an island. South of Aswan there are fewer suitable areas for traditional floodplain agriculture, and such an island setting was most probably very important in terms of food production. Geoarchaeological studies led by Mark Macklin and Jamie Woodward indicate that the smaller river channel on the north side of the town may have dried up towards the end of the second millennium BC. This would have led to windblown sand engulfing the
Tamarix growing in the desert close to Amara West 18
EGYPTIAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
Houses E13.3-N (left) and E13.3-S (right)
site, greatly reducing available agricultural land. By the eighth century BC settlement had become concentrated on the opposite river bank, as it is today, posing the question of whether it was climate change rather than pharaonic Egypt losing control of the region which prompted the abandonment of Amara West. Seeds, cereal grains and crop-processing by-products (chaff, straw) survive at Amara West through charring. Such remains typically represent everyday detritus, for instance from plant foods accidentally falling into hearths and ovens during cooking, or debris from food-processing being thrown into fires. Seeds can also enter the charred record through the use of animal dung burnt as fuel. Desiccated plant remains, such as wooden furniture, are predominantly preserved at Amara West from postNew Kingdom burials in the cemetery. It is possible that a drier site environment, following the failure of the secondary river channel and the ending of Amara West’s island setting, may have produced better preservation conditions.
Plan of houses E13.3-S and E13.3-N, showing locations of ovens, hearths and grinding emplacements
Phytoliths provide another source of archaeobotanical evidence: these micro-remains are formed within some plant taxa when soluble silica taken up in groundwater is deposited within or between certain epidermal cells. Silica casts of plant cells are then released into sediments when plants decay or are burnt. Unlike charred seeds, phytoliths are not dependent upon burning for survival, and so provide spatial information about plant activities in a greater range of site areas, such as rooms away from ovens. Charred seeds survive from a wider array of plant types, but phytoliths more frequently provide information about plant parts such as leaves and stems, furnishing us with information about non-food plant uses. In cereal grasses, phytoliths can distinguish seed bracts (chaff) and stems (straw), enabling the detection of crop-processing locations. Samples from house floors, ovens, hearths and alleyways in both a large extramural villa (E12.10, see EA 35: 25–7), and smaller contiguous housing within the walled town (houses E13.3-N and E13.3-S) have allowed a preliminary assessment of plant use in the Ramesside town.
Oven room from villa E12.10
Plan of villa E12.10 19
EGYPTIAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
Roofing fragment from house E13.4, showing plant impressions
region, together with environmental and technological factors involved in horticulture. Only the larger houses had significant storage capacity so it is possible that the smaller dwellings were provided with cereals from the large magazines found across the site, especially in the Nineteenth Dynasty. Crop-processing waste within the villa and smaller houses indicates that emmer wheat was stored in spikelet form and that the post-harvest cerealprocessing stage of de-husking (the removal of the bracts enclosing the grains prior to grinding) took place within the home. Cereal de-husking took place in a dedicated room in the villa, but in multifunctional spaces in the smaller houses, usually in the front room. Plants were also used for temper in construction materials, for weaving and of course for fuel. Fragments of mud roofing material indicated, through impressions, the range of plants used to cover rooms (and occasionally support upper floors), including beams and branches of wood, woven mats, and loose leaves and stems (from grasses, sedges or rushes). Plant material occasionally survives in these impressions in the form of macroscopically visible silica skeletons (conjoined phytoliths). These phytoliths reveal that sedges (wetland plants that might have grown along Nile banks or irrigation ditches) and cereal straw bundles tied with string made from sedges were employed in the roofing. Wooden objects, principally from the tombs, charcoal (Caroline Cartwright) and textile fragments (Marei Hacke) are also being analysed. At this preliminary stage, it seems that the agricultural system was analogous to that practised in contemporary Egypt, and that the population would have accessed and consumed plant resources in much the same way. Further work will compare various site phases to look at any temporal differences in the control of storage and distribution, the overall plant diet, and how any changes may be connected to environmental shifts.
Above left: charred barley grain from ash deposit in house E13.3-N (VPSEM image: Caroline Cartwright) Above right: Charred wheat grain from a hearth in E13.3-S (VPSEM image: Caroline Cartwright) Left: Woody leaf multicell phytolith from ashes within an oven in villa E12.10, scale bar 50 microns
Alongside fish, sheep/goat, cattle and pigs, bread and beer would have been staple food sources, complemented by legumes and fruits. The key cereals were emmer wheat (Triticum dicoccum) and hulled six-row barley (Hordeum vulgare), found in the form of grains and crop-processing waste. There is no evidence yet for the exploitation of local African grasses (domesticated or wild sorghum and millets) that might indicate indigenous dietary practices. Other food crops included lentils (Lens culinaris), melons (Cucumis melo), and watermelons (Citrullus lanatus). Flax seeds (Linum usitatissimum) were possibly used for their oil, or stem fibres for making cloth. Small legumes from the Trifolieae tribe (which includes clover) were probably fodder crops. Wild fruits included the sycomore fig (Ficus sycomorus), doum palm (Hyphaene thebaica), Grewia tenax and Christ’s thorn (Ziziphus spina-christi). Interestingly, some intact charred fruits have survived, rather than just being present as seeds. It may be that this preservation is created by the dryness of some fruits prior to charring. Dates and grapes are notably absent, and the predominance of local wild fruits may reflect the greater aridity in this
Doum palm trees (Hyphaene thebaica) growing close to Amara West 20
q Philippa Ryan is studying plant remains from Amara West with Caroline Cartwright (both of the Department of Conservation and Scientific Research, the British Museum). Neal Spencer, Director of the Amara West Project, is Keeper of Ancient Egypt and the Sudan at the British Museum. For further details on the project visit: www.britishmuseum.org/AmaraWest. Thanks are due to the National Corporation of Antiquities & Museums (Sudan), and to the Leverhulme Trust. Photographs Š The British Museum.
EGYPTIAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
The Book of the Dead in Djehuty’s burial chamber A Spanish-Egyptian mission has been working in the central area of Dra Abu el-Naga since January 2002 (see EA 25, pp.38-40 and EA 35, pp.32-35). José M Galán reports on the recently discovered painted burial chamber of the tomb-chapel of Djehuty (TT 11). The tomb-chapel of Djehuty, Overseer of the Treasury and Overseer of Works under the joint reign of Hatshepsut and Tuthmosis III, is located in the central area of Dra Abu el-Naga, at the northern end of the Theban necropolis. When a Spanish-Egyptian mission started working there in January 2002 the inverted T-shape funerary chapel was cleared only as far as half-way along the central corridor. The innermost room was filled almost to the top with debris that had fallen through two large holes in the ceiling, connecting with two tomb-chapels hewn into the hillside less than a metre above Djehuty’s, at the second level of tomb-chapels. In 2007 we were finally able to excavate the innermost room, which is decorated in high quality raised relief displaying the most significant moments of Djehuty’s ideal funerary rituals. The right side is entirely occupied by a funerary shaft which descends vertically 8.15m to a broad chamber which was filled with debris up to 1m high. The walls are well cut, although not smooth, and most of the surface has been blackened by smoke from one or more extensive fires lit inside, probably before or during the Twenty-First Dynasty. At the rear end there is a second shaft, 3m deep with well-cut walls, which show no signs of fire. It had about 1m of debris at the bottom, and, contrary to what would have been expected considering that the chamber had been reused at least in
Gold earrings found at the bottom of the second shaft
the Twenty-first Dynasty and that it was cleared at the end of the campaign sponsored by the Marquis of Northampton (January 1899), seven gold earrings of early Eighteenth Dynasty style were found, together with six spacers of a girdle (four carnelian, one turquoise and one made of gold). At the southern shorter side there is an entrance to a second chamber measuring 3.65m x 3.50m x 1.55m. It was originally designed to be smaller, 2.70m x 2.60m, with the entrance centred in the north wall, but at some point the rear/south wall and the left/east wall were pushed back almost 1m. The stonemasons never finished the extension, leaving the surface of the two new walls rough, a pile of small limestone chips in the corner, and two pots with mortar lying on the floor. The other two walls, the west and the north, which were part of the first design, as well as the original area of the ceiling, remained untouched, coated with a layer of mortar and a layer of gypsum stucco, and totally covered with passages from the Book of the Dead. The text is written in cursive hieroglyphs, in columns from left to right and following a retrograde direction. The composition began at the eastern and southern walls, but this first section was completely destroyed when the extension started to be cut, so the preserved text starts from the left end of the west wall, continues on to the north wall, and finally jumps up to the ceiling. The first set of preserved chapters consists of the so-called ‘transformation spells’, BD 7886-81A-88-87, which are accompanied by vignettes. They are followed by chapters referring to Djehuty’s aspirations to join the solar barque on its journey, with the last one, BD 102, including a vignette showing Djehuty already on board the barque and standing behind Reconstruction, by Carlos Cabrera, of Djehuty’s chapel and tomb (TT 11) the falcon-headed sun god. 21
EGYPTIAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
Eighteen parts of Djehuty’s body listed in BD 42, written on the ceiling
The burial chamber of Djehuty as found in 2009
22
EGYPTIAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
Above and below: vignettes accompanying the ‘transformation spells’ of BD 86–81A–88–87
BD 102 vignette, showing Djehuty on the solar barque behind the falconheaded god, Re-Horakhty
The night sky goddess Nut represented in the centre of the ceiling
Layer of stucco pushed out from the wall’s surface by the limestone salts 23
EGYPTIAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
Chapter BD 149, the list of the fourteen mounds of the Netherworld, is written in the lower register of the walls to be spatially closer to the underworld, revealing a meaningful location for at least some of the chapters, an intention that can also be appreciated on the ceiling. The original area of the ceiling was divided into five registers. After BD 42, which includes the division of the body into eighteen parts from top to bottom, come the chapters concerning the ‘knowing the souls/powers’ of the holy towns of Hermopolis, Pe and Nekhen, and the Westerners and Easterners in the sky (BD 114-112113-108-109). Following them is BD 125, in which the deceased enters the Hall of Justice. BD 125 tends to be written towards the end on papyri, while here it occupies the most important spot in the chamber, the middle register of the ceiling, on both sides of the large size central figure of the goddess Nut. As far as we can tell, the burial chamber of Djehuty is one of the earliest preserved compilations of the Book of the Dead that includes this chapter, which soon after would become very popular. The figure of the night sky goddess Nut (see front cover), wearing a tight dark blue dress, takes up the very central part of the ceiling. She has her arms raised and stretched open in a protective pose, as if embracing Djehuty’s coffin and mummy lying beneath her. The texts at either side of her body express Djehuty’s wish that this situation will actually happen: (A) Words spoken by the overseer of the Treasury of the King, Djehuty: ‘[Oh mother] Nut, spread yourself over me, may you place me among the imperishable stars which are in you, as I shall not die. (B) Raise me up. I am your son. Remove the weariness from me. Protect me from he who shall act against me. These two brief petitions are written on a yellow background and are not retrograde. In fact, they are not taken from the Book of the Dead (written here on a white background), but from formulae written on coffins, as is also the case for the embracing figure of Nut. The number of scribal mistakes would indicate that the text was written in haste. The loose brush strokes with which the vignettes’ figures were depicted - the lack of
detail, precision and later corrections - also indicate hasty work. Moreover, the extension of the burial chamber was left unfinished. Djehuty probably died between year 17 and year 20 of the joint reign of Hatshepsut and Tuthmosis III, which makes his burial chamber one of the earliest Eighteenth Dynasty decorated burial chambers that has been preserved. It is probably dated a few years after Senenmut’s lower tomb (TT 353), but slightly before that of Amenemhat (TT 82), who seems to have been partly responsible for the text written in Useramun’s burial chamber (TT 131). Djehuty’s composition also predates that of Nakhtmin (TT 87) and Amenemhab called Mahu (TT 85). The Book of the Dead of Djehuty (TT 11) preserves a total of thirty-six chapters and is one of the earliest long compilations of spells. Its significance is increased by its archaeological context, its three-dimensional display and its precise dating. Percy Newberry was inside the burial chamber for at least three days in February 1899, copying the text, according to his notebook now kept at the Griffith Institute, Oxford. Why he never published a word about it is an intriguing question. Djehuty’s burial chamber, 12m below ground level, is very close to the water table. The high humidity inside (80% when we first came in, and 27ºC) has caused the reactivation and migration of limestone salts to the surface of the walls, pushing out the layer of stucco in certain areas, particularly in the lower level of the walls. To maintain stable environmental conditions, the burial chamber is kept closed and it is opened only when a specific task needs to be conducted inside. Moreover, the ceiling has a serious structural problem with a large gap in its central area. Vibration, perhaps produced by human activity outside, in the area around the monument, or by an earthquake, is the main danger to the stability of the chamber’s structure. To prevent more of the ceiling from collapsing, an iron support has been set up inside the chamber. Was Djehuty ever buried in his tomb? Unfortunately, it remains uncertain, since no object bearing his name has been found. The burial chamber contained no trace of a coffin, linen or funerary equipment, and there is no sign of robbers moving things around or fire having been lit. The early Eighteenth Dynasty material was found in the antechamber (painted pottery and fragments of a black coffin) and at the bottom of the second shaft (earrings and girdle spacers), indicating that if he was ever buried in his tomb he was probably deposited in the antechamber, where his burial was later looted and burned. q José M Galán is Research Professor at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Madrid, and Director of the Spanish-Egyptian mission at Dra Abu el-Naga. Barbara Lüscher (Basel) has been of great help in the identification of the BD chapters. The expedition is now sponsored by Unión Fenosa Gas and the Spanish Ministry of Culture. Photographs: José M Parra and José Latova. Drawing: Carlos Cabrera.
Iron structure erected in the chamber to prevent more ceiling collapse 24
EGYPTIAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
Digging Diary 2012 Summaries of some of the archaeological work undertaken in Egypt during 2012 appear below. The sites are arranged geographically from north to south. Field Directors who would like reports on their work to appear in 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. Institutions and Research Centres: ARCE American Research Center in Egypt; BM British Museum, London; CFEETK Franco-Egyptian Centre, Karnak; CNRS French National Research Centre; DAI German Archaeological Institute, Cairo; FNRS National Fund for Scientific Research, Brussels; IFAO French Institute, Cairo; MMA Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; MSA Ministry of State for Antiquities, Egypt; OI Oriental Institute, University of Chicago; SCA Supreme Council for Antiquities, Egypt; Swiss Inst Swiss Institute for Architectural Research and Archaeology, Cairo; UMR, USR research groups of the CNRS. SUMMER 2012 (May to September) Lower Egypt Buto: The Univ of Poitiers team, led by Pascale Ballet and in cooperation with the DAI, continued excavation of the bath complex (see EA 40, p.16) on the ‘English Kom’, identifying the remains of the cistern where the water used in the bath was stored and establishing the E limit of the Roman bath. Surveys on Kom A followed the testing in spring 2012 of a new method of extensive survey and mapping on an area of over 11,000 sq m. A first aim of the survey is to establish, for the Kom A area initially, the limits of the late (LP to the beginning of the Islamic Period) phases of occupation of the town. Material excavated previously in squares P5, P6, P7, P9 and P11 was studied. http://herma.labo. univ-poitiers.fr/spip.php?article186/
Tell el-Ruba (Mendes): The Pennsylvania State Univ expedition, directed by Susan and Donald Redford, continued work on Temple T, c.110m due
Abu Sir. Statue of Nefer as a scribe. Photograph © Miroslav Bárta N of the façade of the great temple of Banebdjed. The temple seems to have been designed to house the diorite sarcophagi (17 in number) which were pulled out of the temple and now lie scattered to the S. It is tempting to interpret this structure as a burying place for the mothers of the sacred rams. A quadripartite shrine at the E end of the temple presumably housed statues of the four avatars of Banebdjed. Two foundation deposits were found intact, naming King Amasis of the 26th Dyn. The building seems to have been abandoned by the close of the first century AD, but was re-occupied (as a barracks?) in the 5th and 6th centuries AD. Abu Sir: The mission, directed by Miroslav Bárta, of the Czech Institute of Egyptology of Charles Univ, Prague, excavated an intricate complex of 5th Dyn tombs, including the 4m deep columned court of a princess, created by adjusting a natural step in the bedrock to create the S wall - the other walls are of limestone blocks. The four columns have hieroglyphic inscriptions naming the ‘King’s daughter ... Sheretnebty’. In a corridor which runs from the SE corner of the court towards the E, and in the S wall of the court are the entrances of four rock-cut tombs. Two (probably reign of Djedkare Isesi) have been explored; of the ‘Chief of Justice of the Great House’, Shepespuptah, and
an ‘Inspector of the Palace Attendants’ Duaptah. The other two tombs belong to the ‘Overseer of the Scribes of the Crews’ Nefer and an official named Ity. Nefer’s false-door is still in his tomb which also contains a serdab with four statues of the owner, one as a scribe. Five statues were found in the serdab of Ity. Three large limestone naoi with engaged statues are placed between the tombs’ entrances. Fragments of a false-door bear parts of the titles and the name of the King’s Daughter Sheretnebty. http://egyptologie.ff.cuni.cz Saqqara: The Waseda Univ expedition, under the general direction of Sakuji Yoshimura and led in the field by Nozomu Kawai, resumed excavation c.500m SE of the ‘Khaemwaset’ outcrop NW of the Serapeum. Investigating anomalies detected by the 2009 geophysical survey revealed an unfinished shaft with a side room in its SW wall. The room had no extant remains but burned quartzite chips and OK pottery sherds within a thick layer of sand with charcoal suggest that it was used for a burial. Large natural boulders of quartzite, some with traces of wedge slots, were found in the area and investigation nearby also revealed small pits probably used for quarrying quartzite stones. Upper Egypt Karnak: Archaeological research and restoration programmes continued inside the precinct of Amun-Re under the auspices of the CFEETK (MSA/CNRS USR 3172) directed by Mansour Boraik and Christophe Thiers. Excavation, led by Mansour Boraik, continued in the area of the Roman bath, NW of the first pylon, revealing impressive structures and Ptolemaic houses. At the Ptah temple, the work led by Christophe Thiers and Pierre Zignani was devoted to conservation and restoration, especially of the N chapel, on the outer walls of the temple, on the second entrance gate (Shabaka) and on the Ptolemaic kiosk. Mohammed Naguib (MSA) studied the pottery from the Roman baths while Catherine Defernez (CNRS) and Stéphanie Boulet (FNRS-Univ Libre, Brussels) studied the pottery found in the areas of the Ptah temple and the chapel of Osiris Nebdjefau. Elizabeth Frood (Oxford Univ) worked on the Ptah temple graffiti, using reflectance transformation imaging photographs (see pp.3437). Nadia Licitra studied pottery and finds from the Treasury of Shabaka and Aurelia Masson (BM)
Egypt Exploration Society Expeditions
SUMMER/AUTUMN Sais (Sa el-Hagar): The mission directed by Penny Wilson (Univ of Durham) extended excavations in the Ramesside-TIP area of the site at Kom Rebwa, to find the limits of the Ramesside magazine attached to a house from Excavation 1, and to examine the amphorae and other material in it. A large N-S wall had been constructed over the magazine at a later date and cut into the magazine, disturbing the contents in the process. The wall, however, must date to sometime in the TIP when a sequence of houses was built up against it. The wall may be one of the structures associated with the city of Sais as it rose to power in the TIP. A new type of double cobra figure made of fired clay was found in the TIP levels. www.dur.ac.uk/penelope.wilson/sais.html. Minufiyeh Governorate: At Quesna the team directed by Joanne Rowland (Freie Univ Berlin) opened a new trench (14) in the GR cemetery, locating and analysing 50 burials, showing a slightly higher proportion of females than males, and only five sub-adult burials. Analysis
(www.ees.ac.uk) suggests injuries related to activities but there are no indications of serious illness. The few ceramics associated directly with the burials were mainly Roman. In the falcon necropolis (see pp.5-7) trenches 12 and 13 in the probable southernmost area of the gallery were re-opened and extended so that the corridor system could be planned together with the area directly N (excavated in the 1990s). The previous excavation limits were located and a new trench (15) opened at the E limit, where a supposed N-S cross wall was uncovered which might have originally been the back (E) wall of the falcon necropolis - the entrance is at the W end. The walls running E-W from this wall are abutting and of different thickness to the main E-W running walls of the structure. Small finds included mud seals with impressions, fragments of bird figurines, a fragment of a faience falcon and a copper alloy figurine of a shrew. Preliminary ceramics analysis suggests a LP to Ptolemaic date range. A small trench excavated along the E side of the OK mastaba contained no archaeological
25
material, suggesting that there was no E offering chapel. http://minufiyeh.tumblr.com Tell Basta:The EES/Univ of Göttingen/MSA team, led by Eva Lange (Univ Würzburg), continued excavation in the entrance area of the Bastet temple, where Ptolemaic casemate buildings had previously been found, revealing the well-preserved walls of another casemate (LP/early Ptolemaic) continuing to the S. A new square was opened on the main axis of the temple to investigate the route of the dromos described by Herodotus. Traces of a limestone street substructure were found at the E limits of the square. In very disturbed GR layers a pink granite triad statue of a king (possibly Ramesses II) between two gods had been deposited after the destruction of the dromos. A complete 3D scan was conducted in the cemetery area (see pp.8-10) N of the temple. White light scans were made of parts of the Nectanebo II shrines and statues of Ramesses II in the temple of Bastet. http://tellbasta.tumblr.com/
EGYPTIAN
Dime. One of the lions which decorated the gutters of the temple of Soknopaios. Photograph courtesy of the University of Salento studied pottery from the Priests’ quarter near the Sacred Lake. Laurent Coulon (CNRS) checked the epigraphic drawings of Osirian chapels and Laetitia Gallet undertook similar work for the Eastern Temple. In the Open Air Museum, the team led by Antoine Garric finished construction of the Netjerymenu shrine. www.cfeetk.cnrs.fr/ Western Thebes: The Univ of Arizona Egyptian Expedition, now directed by Pearce Paul Creasman, continued its excavations at the 19th Dyn female king Tausret’s ‘temple of millions of years’, located immediately N of the Temple of Merenptah. The expedition excavated the temple sanctuary (which has remained largely undisturbed since antiquity) and made significant advances in understanding post-NK occupations at the site. Evidence continues to mount that the temple of Tausret was very close indeed to completion, and a suggestion can now be offered that the sanctuary at least might have been completed before the temple was destroyed. Future work is planned for 2013 W of the temple proper to resolve outstanding questions regarding the nature of subsequent site use(s), especially what now seems to be a clear LP burial enterprise at the site. www.egypt.arizona.edu AUTUMN 2012 (October to December) Lower Egypt Buto: The DAI team, directed by Ulrich Hartung, continued work on the ED settlement enlarging the excavation area to the W to clarify the location of the entrance (or one of the entrances) of the large building complex, constructed during the second half of the 1st Dyn over earlier remains, and which was at least partly destroyed by a heavy fire in the mid-2nd Dyn. The occupation phases differ considerably regarding their architectural layouts and their pottery assemblages. So far within the new trench the continuation of the W part of the outer wall of the complex has been revealed but the area of the presumed entrance is still covered by two round Saite Period installations, probably kilns. www.dainst.org/en/project/buto Buto region: The Regional Survey around Buto (Tell el-Farain), directed by Robert Schiestl, continued work in the area between Buto and Kom el-Gir (c.5km NE of Buto) as well as at Kom el-Gir itself, where the magnetometric mapping by Tomasz Herbich, was continued (see further pp.28-29). Within the GR settlement a large rectangular enclosure with thick walls was discovered. Next to this is the corner of another structure probably a Roman fort. Between Buto and Kom el-Gir auger core drilling produced no evidence for archaeological levels at three sites (marked as small tells on early Survey of Egypt maps), nor did a small test trench to investigate a large angular feature visible on an old aerial photograph in fields between Buto and Kom elGir, and partially confirmed by magnetometry in 2011. www.dainst.org/en/node/24238?ft=all Kom el-Ahmar (Beheira): A new archaeological mission of Siena Univ, under the scientific direction of Emanuele Papi and directed in the field by Mohammed Kenawi, concentrated excavation in the central mound where the foundation of a stone structure (between 3rd ad 7th centuries AD) was
ARCHAEOLOGY
found beside a small oval basin. Of the amphorae excavated 55% were imported. Naukratis: A BM expedition, directed by Ross Thomas, began work at this site which was the earliest, and for a period the only, Greek port in Egypt. Previous fieldwork by Petrie and Gardner (1884-86), Hogarth (1899-1903) and Coulson and Leonard (1970s-80s) had concentrated on the central areas of the town so the main objectives of this preliminary season were: to undertake geophysical prospection in fields free of crops to investigate if any structures are preserved around the central area; to create an accurate topographic map using GPS technology, including plotting recent SCA excavations directed by Mohammed Ali Hakim; to make a surface survey of pottery; and to train SCA inspectors in the use of the survey equipment. http://tinyurl.com/byywtho Tell Ibrahim Awad: The Allard Pierson Museum Mission conducted a study season, led by Willem van Haarlem. Documentation, photography and restoration were completed in anticipation of an excavation season next year. Tell el-Daba: The Austrian Institute Cairo team, led by Irene Forstner Müller, undertook a study season, continuing research on material from area R/III (pottery, sealing impressions and flints). The team also reorganised work on the objects which had been accumulated in recent years, especially on the small finds, scarabs and sealing impressions from Ezbet Helmi. The study project on the Minoan frescoes, directed by Manfred Bietak and Constance von Rüden, also continued. www.oeai.at Heliopolis (Matariya): The SCA/Egyptian Museum Georg Steindorff, Univ of Leipzig team, directed by Aimen Ashmawy and Dietrich Raue, continued excavation at the shopping mall project ‘Suq el-Khamis’, discovering more fragments of an Aten temple. The precinct’s S enclosure walls were investigated. A geomorphological survey provided evidence for a sequence of layers over 9m deep, reaching strata of the 4th millennium BC. Geophysical measurements were tested in the area around the obelisk of Senwosret I. Upper Egypt Dahshur: The MMA expedition, led by Dieter Arnold and Adela Oppenheim, excavated around the N chapel of the Senwosret III pyramid. The chapel remains themselves have been excavated in previous seasons but the surrounding debris mounds contain pieces of the structure, which provides the best-preserved example of such a decorative programme from either the OK or MK. The chapel consisted of a single N-S oriented room decorated with offering scenes carved in raised relief by master artists. A large section of the W wall has been digitally reconstructed and will help in determining the original length of the structure. Thirty-one post-NK (probably Ptolemaic) burials were also excavated, a few containing partially preserved wood coffins and cartonnage. Study continued of the decoration of chapels of queens and princesses, of non-royal offering tables and of NK visitors’ graffiti. www.metmuseum.org Dime (Soknopaiou Nesos); The expedition of the Univ of Salento (Lecce), led by Paola Davoli and Mario Capasso, completed clearance of the W side of the Soknopaios temple (ST 20). Two groups of large blocks belonging to the roof drainage system of the temple were found; two large limestone gutters, two imposing lions and two supports. The lions resemble similar ones at Dendera temple and show that the Soknopaios temple, now preserved to only 1.5m in height, was originally completed to the gutter level. A floor of grey limestone is perfectly preserved over the whole area. It is a renovation of the original floor, built during a Roman Period phase of restoration of the external bottom of the W wall of the temple. A pottery survey (Neolithic to
26
NK), led by Sylvie Marchand (IFAO), was carried out in a wide area to the W of Dime, confirming the presence of a NK settlement, of which only a few scattered graves, ceramics and some artefacts survive. The geomorphological survey started in 2007 was continued. www.museopapirologico.eu/snp Middle Egypt: The ongoing survey of ancient quarries and mines by James Harrell (Univ of Toledo) discovered several previously unknown limestone quarries between Luxor and Minya. The largest (apparently NK) extends 2.6km along the N side of Gebel el-Alawanieh promontory (the N arm of the Abydos embayment). Other limestone quarries found include two (NK or LP) near the White Monastery at Sohag, one (OK or MK to NK) near el-Ghirizat village, and one (Roman) near Minya at Nazlet Hussein Ali village. Numerous previously reported but unstudied limestone quarries between Assiut and Sohag were mapped. Evidence for 12th Dyn quarrying of redand-white limestone breccia was discovered near Akhmim at the modern quarry at el-Issawia Sharq. This is the largest and most accessible occurrence of this stone in the Nile Valley and may also have been an important source in antiquity. El Sheikh Ibada (Antinoopolis): The workplan of the Istituto Papirologico «G. Vitelli» Univ of Florence mission, directed by Rosario Pintaudi, had to be changed on arrival at the site, which was in a bad condition. Sebbakhin had found some papyri, leading local villagers to dig in the N necropolis and some other marginal areas of the town, leaving a trail of disaster and destruction. Some archaeological fieldwork was possible: in the far NE extension of the N necropolis where Gayet had already excavated several burials; in the area beside the presumed E gate of the town, where additional chambers of the so-called ‘cloister’ were unearthed; and at a new site where the main N-S and E-W streets crossed each other. The number of classical building elements lying on the ground at the crossroads - bases, capitals, column shafts, etc. - suggested this might be the location of the Roman governor’s residence, and a pair of Late Antique Attic column bases were excavated probably belonging to a large vestibule with a partly preserved pavement behind. Amarna: At the expedition house the Amarna Project team, directed by Barry Kemp and Anna Stevens, transferred paper records of the artefacts excavated since 1979 into an electronic database.. processing well over half of the total of c.24,000 records. A further area of the Great Aten Temple was cleaned and planned: part of the first court that had been filled with offering tables and where the outlines of many of them are still visible on the surface of the gypsum foundation bed. This work was undertaken as a field school, run in cooperation with the Institute of Field Research (California) and the MSA. Further excavation at the S Tombs Cemetery included a new area at the furthest end of the cemetery. The additional 93 skeletons recovered bring the total for all seasons to c.370. Conservation of the wooden coffins, some decorated, continued. www. amarnaproject.com.
Amarna. A coarse mud anthropoid child coffin, with well preserved ropework. South Tombs Cemetery. Photograph © The Amarna Project
EGYPTIAN
Abydos South: A Univ of Copenhagen mission, directed by Hratch Papazian, and with Gregory Marouard (Univ of Chicago) as assistant director, completed a survey season of the OK pyramid of Sinki, funded by the Danish Institute in Damascus and the Dansk Ægyptologisk Forskningsfond. The team surveyed and mapped the area surrounding the pyramid and carried out a preliminary analysis of surface finds. Efforts will now focus on safeguarding the core of the archaeological zone from encroachment by the expanding nearby village and its fields. Koptos: The expedition of IFAO/Univ Lumière Lyon 2, directed by Laure Pantalacci, concentrated work on the small chapel of Ptolemy IV Philopator identified last year. The area around the preserved pavement (4.6m x 2.25m) of the building was cleared, yielding c.300 new fragments of the decorated walls. At c.4 m to the N of the chapel, the N section of the Ptolemaic temenos wall protecting the temple of Min and Isis was exposed. As had already been recognised in the E section, the Hellenistic enclosure had been levelled in Roman times and new buildings constructed over it. www.ifao.egnet.net/archeologie/coptos/ Western Thebes: 1. The DAI expedition, led by Ute Rummel, continued work in the double tomb complex K93.11/K93.12 at Dra Abu el-Naga, (see pp.14-17), concentrating excavation on the first forecourt of K93.12, where five further negative impressions of column bases were discovered. This shows that both the first court and the second/inner court had columned peristyles - a testament to the monumental nature of this tomb-temple complex. Two ‘satellite’ shaft tombs (K12.1, K12.2) immediately above the NW corner of K93.11 (used if not cut in the TIP) were examined. Many 21st to 22nd Dyns burial remains were found in the tombs’ forecourts showing the site’s importance as a post-NK burial place. Parallel to the excavation, pottery analysis, documentation and architectural survey were continued and the anthropological study of human remains (in cooperation with the Univ of Bern, and the European Academy, Bolzano/Bozen, Italy) was carried out. Restoration of the excavated mud-brick structures was started. www.dainst.org 2. The Strasburg Univ expedition, directed by Claude Traunecker, has been studying the Asasif tomb of Padiamenope (TT 33 - 25th/26th Dyn) since 2005, when it was reopened having been bricked up c.1990 to protect it from bats. Padiamenope came from a Theban family close to the priests of Montu from Armant, and was a specialist in royal and crown rituals. His tomb is the largest in the Asasif necropolis and study of the decoration of its 22 rooms has already revealed significant new information. The architectural plan is inspired by both the KV royal tombs and rooms in 6th Dyn pyramids. Already in antiquity part of the tomb was used as a subterranean cultic place and as a library for Theban savants. 3. The Missione Archeologica Italiana a Luxor, led by Francesco Tiradritti, resumed excavation in the
ARCHAEOLOGY
courtyard of the Funerary Complex of Harwa (TT 37) and Akhimenru (TT 404), exposing further lime kilns, dated by ceramic evidence to the 3rd century AD. This confirms the date already inferred for activity in the complex, including the disposal of plague victims whose corpses were first deposited inside the first pillared hall of the Tomb of Harwa then burned in the middle of the courtyard. Coffins (26th Dyn - 2nd century AD) were used as fuel both to produce lime and to burn the corpses. www.harwa.it Armant: The joint IFAO/CNRS-Univ Montpellier 3/USR 3172 mission, directed by Christophe Thiers (CNRS, USR 3172-CFEETK) continued cleaning destruction layers of the Montu Temple focusing on the junction between the pronaos and the naos. A granodiorite male statue (96cm tall, probably Ptolemaic) was uncovered in the debris (including reused MK blocks) of the naos foundation. Cleaning of the pylon revealed layers of mud-brick filling the inner sandstone structure. Romain David (Montpellier Univ 3) continued study of late NK-Late Roman ceramics. Sébastien Biston-Moulin (USR 3172-CFEETK) continued the epigraphic survey of reused NK blocks, especially of Tuthmosis III. Thierry De Putter and Christian Dupuis (geologist) surveyed the different kinds of limestone used at the site from the early MK to the Roman Period, from three quarries: Gebelein (E and W bank) and Turah-Maasara. Hassan el-Amir (IFAO) continued the conservation and restoration programme. Christophe Thiers completed the survey of loose blocks of a propylon of Ptolemy VI Philometor. http://recherche.univ-montp3.fr/egyptologie/ermant/
Gebel el-Silsila: An international team directed by Maria Nilsson (Gothenburg Univ) began an epigraphic and topographic survey on the E bank. Plans were made showing the locations of quarry marks, inscriptions and topographic details of the main (probably early Roman imperial) quarry. A smaller nearby quarry is textually dated to the reign of Claudius. 54 stone ruins in strategic locations overlooking the quarry were recorded. NK hieratic texts were documented in one of the galleries. http:// gebelelsilsilaepigraphicsurveyproject.blogspot.co.uk/
Tell Edfu: The OI team, directed by Nadine Moeller, focused on two new areas on the ancient tell. Along the E side of the tell, near the temple enclosure wall, Gregory Marouard excavated OK levels (disturbed by sebbakh digging) containing domestic remains and underground silos. Below, are several OK enclosure walls providing new information on the N limit of the 5th Dyn and perhaps also for earlier OK occupation phases. Excavations also focused along the N limit of the tell where another series of late OK and FIP town walls has been investigated including settlement remains constructed against the interior of the enclosure wall. Several phases of storage installations including silos have been excavated as well as the remains of some smaller rooms. In one of them was found a deposit of clay sealings which show imprints of button and scarab seals. These settlement remains can be dated to the FIP
Abydos South. Surveying at the pyramid of Sinki. Photograph © Hratch Papazian
27
Armant. A granodiorite statue of a (Ptolemaic?) private individual. Photograph © IFAO/CNRS/ University of Montpellier 3 and early MK. Four 15m long benches were constructed in the open air museum W of the temple to protect c.330 inscribed and decorated stone blocks, study of which is continuing. www. telledfu.org
El-Ghonameya: The OI expedition, directed by Gregory Marouard, continued work at the small OK stepped pyramid, 5km S of Edfu, completing cleaning and mapping on the E side of the pyramid, where foundations of a small shrine or offering place were discovered. Cleaning on the W side of the pyramid exposed the lower courses, revealing a small graffito, probably NK. A brief survey was conducted in the desert N of the pyramid to identify the source quarries for the pyramid’s stones and a few late 3rd Dyn/early 4th Dyn pottery sherds were collected. A 250m long brick wall, supported by an ARCE Antiquities Endowment Fund award, is being constructed around the pyramid area to protect the site from encroachment. www.telledfu.org Aswan (Syene): The joint team of the Swiss Inst and the MSA Aswan, headed by Cornelius von Pilgrim and Mohammed el-Bialy, and directed in the field by Wolfgang Müller, concluded the investigation of the town wall of Syene and continued excavations in the SE corner of the fortified town (Area 2). In several courtyards surrounding a sanctuary-like building of early Ptolemaic date more than 100 animals of various species had been buried in shallow pits. The skeletons of the animals, predominantly rams, but also sheep, goats, dogs, cats, birds and other species, were mostly complete and showed no signs of mummification. Further MK rock inscriptions have been rescued from a construction site E of the Temple of Domitian. www.swissinst.ch Elephantine: The DAI/Swiss Inst team, led by Stephan J Seidlmayer, Felix Arnold and Cornelius von Pilgrim, continued investigation of the town wall and concluded the excavation of late-Roman houses S of the Khnum Temple. The older phase of a short section of the town wall discovered two years ago to the N of the island’s museum was further investigated and dated to the 12th Dyn. It was rebuilt most probably in the 13th Dyn and partially repaired in the 17th Dyn. www.swissinst.ch Hisn el-Bab: The first season of Austrian Inst, Cairo excavation, directed by Pamela Rose, at this late Roman and early medieval fortified site on the E bank close to Philae, undertook smallscale clearances at the N end of the Late Roman enclosure. A small underlying Roman fortification or watchtower (probably 4th-5th centuries AD) was found, as well as remains of a three-roomed structure and an adjacent burnt kitchen area (with well-preserved ceramics and abundant organic material). Associated coins date the structure and kitchen area to the early 7th century AD. The project has funding from the Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung. www.oeai.at Thanks to Miroslav Barta, Paola Davoli, Barry Kemp, Hratch Papazian and Christophe Thiers for providing photographs.
EGYPTIAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
Kom el-Gir in the western Delta The second season of geophysical research at Kom el-Gir revealed houses, street plans and a previously unknown temple enclosure, as Robert Schiestl and Tomasz Herbich describe. Kom el-Gir is c.5km north-east of Buto (Tell el-Farain) in the western Delta, c.20ha in extent, and is not overbuilt by modern constructions. The pottery on the surface of the tell is predominantly of Roman date, although auger core drillings have revealed some possibly Ptolemaic or Early Roman sherds as well as Late Roman material. Kom el-Gir is being investigated as part of the Regional Survey around Buto (see EA 40, pp.18-20), conducted under the auspices of the German Archaeological Institute, Cairo (DAI). Informative results had been expected from the geophysical survey since at almost all previously surveyed Delta tells magnetometry had been very successful, as, for example, at Buto (EA 24, pp.14-17) and Tell elBalamun (EA 29, pp.16-19 and EA 41, p.13). Moreover, GoogleEarth images indicated a good state of preservation of structures, especially on the western part of the tell, and their presence very close to the surface. Some 9ha of Kom el-Gir have now been prospected by magnetometry in the western and central part of the site, using fluxgate gradiometers and with measurements taken in a grid with a density of eight measurements per square metre (0.25m x 0.50m). On the magnetic map, the layout of a densely built-up settlement is visible, characterised by a north-east to south-west grid of streets, some laid out in straight lines, while others deviate from the grid and run in gentle curves. In some areas the structuring of the settlement is clear; for example, in the west narrow rows of buildings between 8m and 10m wide are set between parallel streets. Many individual house plans can be recognised throughout the settlement.
Satellite image (ŠGoogleEarth 2009) showing Buto/Tell el-Farain (bottom left corner) and Kom el-Gir (upper right corner)
A large rectangular enclosure interrupts this dense arrangement of houses. An area 115m wide and at least 177m long is enclosed by walls which are between 4m and 5m wide. The south-eastern end of the enclosure is obscured by a wide strip of magnetic anomalies, possibly corresponding to ancient rubbish. At two points the walls were investigated by auger core drillings and proved to be of sun dried mud-brick and still extant to a height of at least 3m. The area inside the enclosure is, unfortunately, not very clear, and in parts it is heavily disturbed. Based on the thickness of the walls and the shape and the size of the enclosure, it is most likely to be a temple enclosure. A wide strip which is visible running north-west from the north-western wall of the enclosure may be a dromos. Outside this enclosure, to the south-east, the corner of another structure is visible. The lengths of the walls (c.5m thick) uncovered so far are 84.8m south-west to north-east and 42m north-west to south-east. On the exterior of its north-west corner and projecting from the wall is a rectangular structure, most probably a tower, measuring c.10m x 12m. Further towers or bastions may also jut out from the walls. As Magnetic prospection at Kom el-Gir in October 2012. Photograph: Robert Schiestl only a small part of this structure has to date 28
EGYPTIAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
Satellite image (ŠGoogleEarth) of Kom el-Gir with the magnetic map superimposed
it is hoped to finish the magnetic map of Kom el-Gir, giving us a more complete picture of the inside area of the enclosure and of the structure at present interpreted as a fort.
been covered by magnetic survey its interpretation can only be tentative. We would suggest, however, that it may be a Roman fort. While Egypt is rich in Roman forts, none so far has been found within the Delta. Its relationship to the large enclosure is not clear and it may be built over the south-eastern end of the enclosure. The accumulation of rubbish surrounding the fort certainly seems to cover the enclosure walls. In the coming season
q Robert Schiestl is Director of the DAI Regional Survey around Buto and Tomasz Herbich is a researcher at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Science, and since 2011 has been Deputy Director of the Institute. 29
EGYPTIAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
Writing on the wall: two graffiti projects in Luxor At an EES Seminar in June 2012 (available to view at: www.ustream.tv/recorded/23505099) Chloé Ragazzoli and Elizabeth Frood presented their work on the study of ancient graffiti. Here they describe their respective research projects in Theban tombs and at the temple of Ptah at Karnak. Ancient graffiti practices are very distant from modern stereotypes of furtive, subversive scribblings and vandalism. In antiquity, literacy was an elite privilege and writing on the wall was an accepted way to fashion and display one’s identity.The study of ancient graffiti, a rapidly developing area of research, offers a range of insights into the meaning, development, and appropriation of space. Leaving one’s name in a place is a way to appropriate it. For example, Egyptians carved thousands of graffiti along desert expedition routes and in mining and quarry sites, laying claim to strategic places that were at the margins of their political and cultural control. Comparable practices existed in built environments such as temples and tombs. Two projects in Luxor - in Theban tombs and in the temple complex of Karnak - study how graffiti created ‘contact zones’ in which social groups presented crucial aspects of their identity. The use and meaning of graffiti also changed over time, as did the use and perception of the spaces in which they were inscribed. Visitors’ inscriptions in Theban tombs are ink graffiti (also called dipinti) that were left by those who ‘came to see the tomb’, to quote the texts themselves. Current work
Tomb of Antefiqer, corridor, north wall, scene of hunting: the graffito, containing an offering formula, is inscribed on the top of a calving oryx
on related contexts in Memphis by Hana Navrátilová and in Asyut by Ursula Verhoeven shows the extent of the practice in the New Kingdom. Since 2010, Chloé Ragazzoli has been collecting graffiti in Theban tombs, focusing on their integration within previously existing decorative programmes. Written in elegant hieratic, these graffiti interact directly with tomb decoration, using depictions of prayer and offerings on behalf of the tomb owner and of those who inscribed the graffiti, who often added their own names and biographical epithets. These
Entrance of the tomb attributed to Antefiqer (TT60) on the hill of Sheikh Abd el-Qurna. Photograph by Dimitri Laboury 30
EGYPTIAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
Tomb of Antefiqer, corridor, north wall, scene of fowling and fishing: visitors inked their graffiti between the legs of the three fishermen
Tomb of Antefiqer, corridor, south wall, scene of pilgrimage to Abydos: the graffiti are inked at the stern of Antefiqer’s boat
authors usually present themselves simply as ‘scribes’ and do not indicate what institution they belonged to. All can be dated to the New Kingdom, when a new social prestige was attached to scribal status, and scribes had a pre-eminent role in literary texts, especially the Late Egyptian miscellanies. The study of graffiti allows us to observe the cultural and social identity promoted in these literary works in an archaeologically secure context. Two tombs, among many included in the project, illustrate this potential. Work in the tomb attributed to Antefiqer, vizier of Senwosret I, already known for the thirty-six graffiti published by Alan H Gardiner in 1920, yielded thirty-one additional inscriptions. This tomb on the top of the hill of Sheikh Abd el-Qurna is the only surviving decorated chapel from the Middle Kingdom in the necropolis and may have been unique already in the New Kingdom. This case shows how those who left the graffiti in the New Kingdom could enhance their shared high-cultural identity through appropriating a place that was already to them a historical monument. An unfinished tomb (MMA 504 = Carter 82) above the temples of Deir el-Bahri (see photograph on p.1) offers a different case of a professional community adopting a space as their own. The tomb is known locally as the ‘dirty cave’ because of two erotic graffiti inked on its walls. Seventy-four graffiti have now been copied from this tomb, including drawings, scenes modelled on traditional
MM504 – west wall, near the entrance: a representation of Senenmut drawn according to traditional rules of monumental display
MM504 – west wall, cluster of graffiti. To the right there is a praying figure accompanied by the name of Aakheperresoneb, priest of the funerary temple of Tuthmosis I
MM504 – a section of the eastern wall with a variety of graffiti, including two erotica 31
EGYPTIAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
types, signatures, and funerary offerings, in addition to the erotica. Many visitors signed their graffiti with their titles, which show that most of them belonged to the staff of the nearby funerary temples of Tuthmosis I, Hatshepsut and Tuthmosis III. These men may have appropriated this place because of its pleasant view across the valley and the shade and fresh breezes it provided. Although it might seem surprising to find prayers and offerings together with more secular drawings, the ensemble shows how graffiti can display the interests and preoccupations of a
particular community: an erotic graffito creates a feeling of connection between the graffitist and his intended audience, as can the appeals to scribes that are included in two of the more ‘traditional’ graffiti. We hope to continue work at Deir el-Bahri in spring 2013, as well as to record further tombs in the Theban necropolis and at Deir el-Medina. The graffiti recorded by Elizabeth Frood in the precinct of Amun-Re at Karnak transformed temple areas in ways comparable to those in tombs, but the temple texts are often more laconic. Her project builds on the extensive work on the Karnak graffiti undertaken by Claude Traunecker, who has donated the related archive, including photographs, drawings and analyses, to the Griffith Institute, Oxford. The first phase of the project centres on the hieroglyphic, hieratic and figural graffiti on the gates and exterior walls of the temple of Ptah in the northern area of the precinct. The demotic graffiti are being studied by Didier Devauchelle and Ghislaine Widmer. Recording the temple of Ptah has been a major project of the Franco-Egyptian team at Karnak since 2008 (see EA 38, pp.20–24), and their continuing work in this area will influence the interpretation of the graffiti. Over a hundred graffiti have been recorded in the temple. Most were inscribed during the first millennium
Recarved graffito scene of Thoth before Ptah and Hathor, surrounded by and overlaying hieratic and hieroglyphic graffiti, on the south exterior wall of the Ptah temple, Karnak. Photograph:© CNRS-CFEETK/ Pauline Batard
Graffito scene of Thoth and Ptah, surrounded by other hieratic and hieroglyphic graffiti, on the south exterior wall of the Ptah temple, Karnak Photograph:© CNRS-CFEETK/Pauline Batard
Hieroglyphic graffito of the scribe Ashakhet on the south exterior wall of the Ptah temple, Karnak. Photograph:© CNRS-CFEETK/Pauline Batard
32
EGYPTIAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
BC, and all are incised rather than inked, although some bear traces of paint and plaster, and included elements that had been inlaid. The majority, which cluster on the temple’s south exterior wall, probably date between the late New Kingdom and the Late Period. These graffiti mostly consist of hieratic or hieroglyphic personal names accompanied by the titles ‘scribe’ or ‘wab-priest’ without any institutional affiliation. In this they resemble the tomb graffiti; perhaps these titles were all that was needed to assert status and membership of the small community of temple staff who moved through and were active in the area. Some exceptions carved high on the wall include filiations, titles connected with the temple of Khonsu and the treasury, and a record of involvement in an unspecified, probably ritual, event. Their elevation indicates the presence of buildings, or the use of scaffolding or ladders to reach the blocks, so their carving was not clandestine. The most prominent graffiti are two formal scenes carved near the original ground level. One, which was recarved extensively, shows Thoth standing before Ptah and Hathor, while the other shows effigy-form figures of Thoth and Ptah. Both were carved over earlier graffiti. The scenes were brightly painted, and both are surrounded by holes, perhaps drilled to support frames or other additions. All this points to much investment in their visual impact. A ‘graffiti zone’ belonging to
Kathryn Howley and Julia Troche taking Highlight RTI captures of graffiti on the south exterior wall of the Ptah temple, Karnak, in September 2012
the temple staff who worked or rested in this area was formalised into a focus of religious action and devotion through the addition of scenes. It is not yet clear whether the less formal graffiti were visible during the ‘life’ of the scenes. During the September 2012 season, photographer Kathryn Howley experimented with highlight reflectance transformation imaging (RTI) for some graffiti. This photographic technique, which creates detailed models of surfaces, offers much promise for clarifying the relative chronology of overlapping graffiti and whitewashing, as well as securing readings for very faint or palimpsest inscriptions. These diverse, yet complementary, corpora illustrate how texts and images assert claims to space by individuals and groups. The study of graffiti makes it possible to map their circulation within monuments and to assess changes in the way these spaces were used. Finally, graffiti reveal a spectrum of writing practices in monumental contexts, blurring boundaries between formal hieroglyphic and informal hieratic inscriptions. q Chloé Ragazzoli is the Lady Wallis Budge Junior Research Fellow in Egyptology at University College, University of Oxford. The work at Deir el-Bahri is now a project of the Polish Centre for Mediterranean Archaeology. She would like to thank the Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale, the Polish Centre for Mediterranean Archaeology, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (UMR 8167) and the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres for support of her project. Elizabeth Frood is University Lecturer in Egyptology at the University of Oxford. Her work at Karnak is a project of the Centre Franco-Égyptien d’Études de Temples de Karnak (Ministry of State for Antiquities-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique USR 3172). She would like to thank Claude Traunecker for initiating the project, and Ibrahim Soliman, director of the temples of Karnak, Christophe Thiers, director of the USR 3172-CFEETK, Pierre Zignani, Sébastien Biston-Moulin, Awad Abdel Radi Mohamed and everyone in Karnak for their help and support, and Kathryn Howley and Julia Troche (Brown University) for their work on the project. Photographs by the writers unless otherwise indicated.
Hieratic graffito of the scribe Prenakht high on the south exterior wall of the Ptah temple, Karnak, mentioning his parents and dated to year 15, last day of the 4th month of peret. Photograph:© CNRS-CFEETK/ Pauline Batard 33
EGYPTIAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
Displaying Egypt and Sudan at the Manchester Museum In October 2012, to coincide with the centenary of its first Egypt gallery, the Manchester Museum opened three new Ancient Worlds galleries. Campbell Price describes the redevelopment. introductory gallery addresses these The Manchester Museum holds questions through guide characters: more than 16,000 objects from mainly living archaeologists, but ancient Egypt and Sudan, making also Flinders Petrie himself and an it one of the largest collections in ancient Egyptian tomb-robber. the UK. The core of the collection Egyptian mummies have long - and the building which still houses been one of the Museum’s main it - is largely due to the generosity of attractions. Manchester has been one man: Jesse Haworth. A wealthy synonymous with mummy Manchester cotton merchant, studies since Margaret Murray’s Haworth became interested in unwrapping of the Two Brothers Egyptology after reading Amelia in 1908 and the subsequent work of Edwards’ 1877 book A Thousand the Manchester Egyptian Mummy Miles up the Nile. Edwards Project from 1973, led by Rosalie corresponded with Haworth and David. The old galleries showcased encouraged him to channel his the results of these investigations, interest into financial support for and displayed no fewer than 14 the excavations of Flinders Petrie human mummies. These displays after he had parted company with the EEF. As a result, a key strength Painted limestone relief block, showing King Ahmose I being were, however, dark and gloomy of the Manchester collection is the embraced by Osiris. From Abydos. Donation of the EEF. spaces that some museum visitors Acc. No.3303. Photograph: Oliver Smith found intimidating. In contrast, sound archaeological provenance the new galleries have been designed to allow more of many of its objects. In particular, Petrie’s work at the natural light and reveal much of the building’s original town sites of Kahun and Gurob produced many domestic neo-Gothic architecture, previously hidden by boarding objects that shed light on aspects of day-to-day life. and curtains. On each side of the main Egyptian Worlds The 2012 redisplay of the Egyptology and Archaeology gallery, backlit panels are used to imitate the colours of collections at Manchester provided an opportunity to sunrise and sunset in the north-east of Africa. reassess museum visitors’ experiences and expectations. This gallery presents Egyptian and Sudanese material The new Ancient Worlds galleries begin with an chronologically, from Predynastic to Islamic times, exploration of ‘how we know’ about objects from the past, within which individual themes are developed relating be they from Egypt, Greece or Roman Manchester. An
A late Middle Kingdom tool kit, found during Petrie’s excavations at Kahun. Acc. Nos.200-206. Photo © Paul Cliff
A dense display of shabti figurines, illustrating changes in colour over time.
34
EGYPTIAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
Mummy of an ibis, with image of the god Thoth. Acc. No.11501. From the EES excavations at Saqqara. Photograph © Paul Cliff
temples. Manchester-based scientific investigations into Asru’s health are explained by Rosalie David. A separate space presents the Museum’s striking collection of Roman Period mummy portraits, masks and two portrait mummies. When the Museum consulted the public, visitors expressed a desire to see more objects go on display in the new galleries. Reducing the large number of human mummies which had previously been on display allowed many more objects - some of which had been in storage for many years - to be placed on view. An ‘Exploring Objects’ space, on the galleries’ upper level, includes dense visual displays to highlight concentrations within the collection: hundreds of shabti figurines, stone vessels, jewellery and Roman glass. Another section addresses how museums organise collections, presenting traditional typologies, alternative interpretations, and addressing imitation and forgery. An innovative computer interface allows visitors to interact virtually with fragile pieces which are never usually handled. Digitally-accessible content throughout the galleries includes a wide range of new photography, video and audio clips, and 360o images of key objects. It is hoped that, in keeping with the Museum’s early appeal to a broad section of society, Ancient Worlds will provide new ways to experience objects in the collection. While celebrating Manchester’s pioneering contribution to the scientific study of Egyptian human remains, the Museum’s Egyptology collection is well-placed to challenge the persistent stereotype of the ancient Egyptians as having been morbidly obsessed with death. The new galleries, therefore, represent a significant reorientation towards life in ancient Egypt and Sudan, allowing a new generation to share Petrie’s own astonishment that ‘it is hard to realise that over 4,000 years have glided by since those houses last echoed to the voices of their occupants’.
Detail of the rim of a predynastic C-ware bowl, decorated with hippopotami. From El-Mahasna. Donation of the EEF. Acc. No.5069. Photograph © Paul Cliff
to strengths in the collection. These include renowned Middle Kingdom objects: medico-magical material (including key objects from the ‘Ramesseum Tomb’), the intact ‘Two Brothers’ tomb group from Deir Rifeh, and tools from the pyramid builders’ town of Kahun. In addition to items from Gurob and Amarna that illustrate life in a New Kingdom royal city, the displays include often-overlooked material from western Thebes. The museum’s most popular mummy, the Twenty-Fifth Dynasty Chantress Asru, is placed in the context of Late Period funerary beliefs, and the role of women in
q Campbell Price is Curator of Egypt and the Sudan at the Manchester Museum. For more information on the collection and new galleries, visit: www.ancientworlds.co.uk and read Campbell’s blog at: http:// egyptmanchester.wordpress.com. He is grateful to Karen Exell, who was responsible for conceptualising the Egyptian Worlds gallery, and to all the staff at the Museum who contributed to the project.
Portrait of a man, possibly a soldier. Provenance unknown. Roman Period. Acc. No.11306. Photograph © Paul Cliff 35
EGYPTIAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
The Apries Palace Project A Portuguese mission has been working in Kom Tuman at Memphis since 2000, at the site known as the ‘Palace of Apries’. Maria Helena Trinidade Lopes summarises the findings to date and the project’s future objectives.
The Palace of Apries, view from south to north
The concession assigned by the SCA to the mission from the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa in Portugal comprises an area of approximately 220,000 sq m, including the Palace of the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty king Apries and its associated ‘mercenary camp’ on Kom Tuman. The site is to the north of Mit Rahina, south of the modern cemetery on Kom Aziz, and bordered to the south-west and west by the village of Ezbet Gabry. The Palace rises at the north-west corner of the area, built on a mud-brick foundation platform, 13.66m high. The Palace and its attached military camp were first excavated by Flinders Petrie in 1908-10, although both his identification of the ‘camp’ as such and his assumption that the two structures are contemporary have been queried since. In 1976, Barry Kemp investigated the Palace, confirming some of Petrie’s theories, and in 1989 the EES ‘Survey of Memphis’ team, directed by David Jeffreys and Lisa Giddy, carried out 18 probe drills south-west and north-west of Kom Tuman, revealing that the west side foundations were much deeper than those recorded by Petrie. Finally, in 2000, our team began to investigate this important site more thoroughly. Several different aspects of archaeological work were initiated during the first season. One of the most important was to establish a network of topographic
The top of the Palace with the village of Ezbet Gabry in the background
stations in order to map the visible remains and to plot the site on to the existing cadastral survey network. A series of drill cores was taken from the east side of the monument and a preliminary photographic record of the visible sites and monuments was prepared. The areas coded by the ‘Survey of Memphis’ were described and their condition noted. The survey and the excavation of the site started in 2001, first in the north area between the Palace and the north enclosure wall, and in following years also in the east and south areas. In the north area, we studied the palace structures to understand better the stability of the construction. The remains of the Palace include several types of columns and capitals in limestone, which were photographed, measured and referenced in the general co-ordinate frame of the site. In the east we found an open
The mercenary camp, view from west to east 36
EGYPTIAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
Topographic 3D map of the Apries Palace
area with a well and a white pavement and a ‘kitchen’ area, with some burnt structures associated with domestic ceramics. In the south area we identified two storerooms, next to a limestone door, from the Late Period. In the 2002 season 3D mapping of the site was completed as was planning of the north enclosure wall - the only visible remains of the wall that surrounded the entire Palace area. In 2009, the southern area of the Palace (6,200 sq m), known as the ‘Petrie ramp’, was investigated using ground penetrating radar (GPR). Cross-analysis between the geophysical and topographic survey enabled us to differentiate areas and to identify potential objectives for future excavation. During these years of fieldwork all the excavated material was fully recorded and studied, showing that it dates mainly from the New Kingdom to the Late Period, but with evidence from earlier periods and some material dating to the Late Antique Period. This extensive date-range for excavated materials is not surprising since Memphis was Egypt’s capital city and was occupied throughout the country’s long history. Today, after 10 years of work, we can identify three major areas of occupation at Kom Tuman: in the north an area related to the Palace and the platform that supported its structure; in the east a settlement area where the mercenaries of Apries’ army lived; and in the south a storage/support area where we found some structures probably related to the palace warehouses. In future we hope to investigate further the occupation of the mercenary camp and its relationship to the Palace; Kom Tuman should yet reveal more of the history of Egypt’s ancient capital during the Late Period.
Geophysical prospection in the southern area, showing the high concentration of gravel and a significant variation in morphology
2009. General view of the south excavation area with the limestone and mud-brick storage structures q Maria Helena Trindade Lopes is Director of the Portuguese Mission at the Apries Palace in Kom Tuman, and Professor of Egyptology at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities (FCSH), Universidade Nova de Lisboa. The author is indebted to the SCA for their authorisation and support of the work. This project is supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia. Photographs and images: Apries Project, Portuguese Mission in Kom Tuman, Memphis.
A photographic montage of the mud-brick structures and limestone elements from the Apries Palace 37
EGYPTIAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
Wadi es-Sebua: the temple of Amenhotep III Wadi es-Sebua in northern Nubia is known mainly for the temple of Ramesses II but the much smaller temple of Amenhotep III is little known and is now submerged by the waters of Lake Nasser. Martina Ullmann describes the recent rediscovery of wall paintings from the temple. The east-west oriented speos temple of Amenhotep III at Wadi es-Sebua is situated c.200m south of the original site of the now-relocated Ramesside temple, and consists of a small rock-cut sanctuary with, in front, several rooms, built mainly of mud-brick, two courtyards and a dromos leading towards the riverbank. The rock walls in the speos and the cliff face in front of it had been covered with a thin layer of mud plaster, lime-washed as a base for the decoration. In the early twentieth century remains of the wall decoration were still preserved in the main hall, on the façade of the speos and in the speos itself. Shortly before the flooding of the area in 1964 seven panels of the wall decoration were removed, placed in wooden frames, and deposited in the basement of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Since this operation had never been properly documented and published, the knowledge of it became lost and the whereabouts of the paintings were not generally known until November 2008 when, after a two year long search, I was able to identify them in the Museum’s basement. In October 2010 all seven panels were digitally photographed and a small series of test cleanings took place, enabled by a grant from the Antiquities Endowment Fund of the American Research Center in Egypt. The preserved panels are: The sanctuary’s façade, south and north part (nos.1–2 on the plan). The largely destroyed upper registers showed Amenhotep III standing with offerings before a deity, most probably Amun. In the lower registers minor deities present offerings. Three accompanying inscriptions mention
The temple of Ramesses II in 1962. To its left are the remains of the mudbrick temple of Amenhotep III. Photograph: Martin Davies
the bringing of the products in favour of ‘Amun, the Lord of the Ways’. The sanctuary’s east wall, south and north of the entrance (nos. 3–4). These two severely damaged panels consist of two vertical lines with the names and titles of Amenhotep III, beloved of Amun. The south and north wall of the sanctuary (nos. 5–6). Both of the partly damaged side walls show the king – presumably originally with libations and incense – in front of the enthroned Amun with traces of his reworked name and epithets in front of him. Between them, offerings are set up, with a large offering list above. The west wall of the sanctuary (no. 7): In the right half of the rear wall, which is largely destroyed at the top, Amenhotep III is shown before the enthroned Amun. In the left half of the rear wall, which is damaged at the top and the southern edge and largely destroyed in the lower part, a vulture, wearing the white crown, is shown, hovering with folded wings above a clump of papyrus, with shen-rings in its claws. Above each of the wings are two feathered cartouches of Amenhotep III. At the far left a ram’s head rests on a high pedestal, surmounted by an ostrich feather fan. The
Plan of the temple of Amenhotep III at Wadi es-Sebua (based upon I Hein, Die Ramessidische Bautätigkeit in Nubien, Göttinger Orientforschungen, IV. Reihe: ������� Ägypten 22, edited by F Junge and W Westendorf (Wiesbaden 1991), pl. 7).
38
EGYPTIAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
The west wall of the sanctuary. Left: as photographed in situ in1964 by Martin Davies. Right: in 2010 as preserved on the panel. Photograph Katy Doyle
accompanying inscription is to be read as ‘Amun-Re, Lord of the [sky]’. Comparison of the paintings with photos taken in the 1960s shortly before their removal shows that some parts have been heavily damaged in the meantime. What makes the rediscovery of the paintings especially valuable is the fact that the decoration on the façade and inside the rock-cut sanctuary shows numerous alterations which bear witness to several phases of reworking. Cecil Firth in 1910 had already described traces of earlier paintings and Christiane Desroches Noblecourt in her book Le Secret des Temples de la Nubie, gives three drawings of the paintings on the rear wall of the speos which she assigns to three subsequent phases but without distinguishing between visible traces and reconstruction. One of the main goals of the ongoing project, therefore, is an in-depth investigation to achieve a reliable reconstruction of the different decoration phases of the innermost part of the temple. The remains of the wall decoration encompass three different phases of decoration, reflecting cult activity in the temple from the reign of Amenhotep III until at least
the reign of Ramesses II, probably even longer, but with two breaks in the cult focus. In the first phase the main deity was ‘Amun, Lord of the Ways’, as shown in the inscriptions on the façade of the speos. On the left half of the rear wall Amun was shown sitting in front of an offering table and oriented towards the left. Traces of the yellow throne, red body and yellow feather crown can be seen beneath the papyrus clump and the vulture of the later phases. In the middle of the rear wall a vulture with the white crown hovering above a clump of papyrus was in the first phase placed more to the right (see the black feathers from the wing of the vulture of the first phase underneath the enthroned deity of the later phases). In the right half of the rear wall within the first phase Amenhotep III was shown presenting a water cup to the vulture goddess. Most probably, the large offering scenes on the side walls of the speos were also dedicated to Amun during the first phase of the decoration. In the second phase cult activity in the temple shifted from Amun to a falcon-headed deity with the double crown. This is shown by the remains of such a god
The panel of the north wall of the sanctuary in 2010. Photograph: Katy Doyle 39
EGYPTIAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
Left half of the west wall showing traces of the phase 1 enthroned Amun beneath the papyrus motif of phases 2-3. Photograph: Martina Ullmann
Such an emphasis on the royal cult fits extremely well into the historical context of the later reign of Amenhotep III and the time of his successor Amenhotep IV/ Akhenaten and representations of Amenhotep III as a falcon are well documented in statuary and in relief. Several temples in Nubia provide evidence for a cult-receiving function of a divine manifestation of Amenhotep III, as at the temple at Soleb, where Amun-Re and Amenhotep III as a god called ‘Nebmaatra, Lord of Nubia’ with his own distinctive iconography were the main deities. The god ‘Nebmaatra, Lord of Nubia’ seems also to have been part of the pantheon in the temples at Sedeinga and Sesebi. This second phase of decoration dates most probably to the last decade of Amenhotep III’s reign when a new cult in the sanctuary of Wadi es-Sebua, oriented towards the king in his divine manifestation as Horus, could have been motivated by the first Sed Festival in the king’s 30th regnal year. During the reign of Akhenaten all remaining traces of the god Amun inside the temple decoration were removed, including the name of Amun within the cartouches of Amenhotep III. Apart from this the decoration seems not to have been altered. In the third phase, either executed as early as the time of Tutankhamun or later in the reign of Ramesses II, the decoration within the speos was reworked to focus cult activity once more exclusively on the god Amun. The cult-receiving deity in front of the offerings on both side walls became Amun again, and similarly on the right half of the rear wall. The falcon head on the pedestal at the far left was changed into a ram’s head surmounted by an ostrich feather fan, representing Amun. Thus the emphasis of the first phase of decoration was re-established with Amun once more the main deity of the temple, primarily in his specific local aspect as ‘Lord of the Ways’.
Part of the west wall showing traces of two different decoration phases underlying Amun: the black feathers of the vulture goddess of phase 1 beneath the upper part of the god’s body of phases 2 and 3; traces of a black wig and a double crown in white and red including the red volute in the upper part which most probably belong to a falcon-headed deity of phase 2. Photograph: Martina Ullmann
underneath the (third phase) depictions of Amun on the side walls of the speos, and by modifications on the rear wall of the speos. The vulture above a papyrus clump motif was moved to the left, making way on the right half of the wall for an offering scene of Amenhotep III – carried over unaltered from the first phase – in front of an enthroned falcon-headed deity wearing the double crown. To the left of the papyrus clump, a pedestal was introduced in the second phase upon which a falcon-head crowned by a sun disc rested, representing the sun-god Re-Horakhty. Who was this enthroned falcon-headed deity? His name is not preserved but he is probably Amenhotep III in his function as a living Horus or living sun god upon earth.
q Martina Ullmann is an Egyptologist at the Institute of Egyptology at Munich University. Thanks are due to Zahi Hawass, Wafaa el-Saddik, and Sabah Abdel-Raziq for the opportunity to work in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo and to photographer Katy Doyle and conservators Luigi de Cesaris (†), Alberto Sucato, and Emiliano Ricchi. The work in October 2010 was financed by ARCE’s Antiquities Endowment Fund. The writer is extremely grateful to Martin Davies, Vice-President of the EES, who generously provided her with photographs from Wadi es-Sebua taken by him in 1962 and 1964 and to Aidan Dodson who brought the existence of this rare material to her attention.
Test cleaning at the west wall. Photograph: Martina Ullmann 40
EGYPTIAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
Bookshelf Garry J Shaw, The Pharaoh: Life at court and on campaign. Thames and Hudson, 2012 (ISBN 978 0 500 05174 0). Price: £24.95. This book is intended to explain what it meant to be a pharaoh - a concept that one often struggles to rationalise with the uninitiated (or students). Dr Shaw thus opens this volume with a chapter on the evolution and ideology of pharaonic kingship itself. In doing so he ranges from the mature mythology of the New Kingdom Book of the Divine Cow and the Osiris myth, through the equivocal evidence from the Predynastic Period, to highlighting the ideology implicit in a wide range of texts and images from the broader swathe of Egyptian history. The only significant omission here is any discussion of the distinction between the ‘ordinary’ divine king and the cases of ‘full deification’ exemplified by the post-jubilee Amenhotep III, where we can find Amenhotep III-theking worshipping Amenhotep III-the-god. The next chapter provides a summary overview of Egyptian history, highlighting specific issues of kingship. While in such a book one has no expectation of extensive discussion of debatable issues, one would have liked to have seen a few more strategic ‘probablies’ and ‘possiblies’ to hint at areas that are still controversial. We then move on to the mechanisms of succession. The divine birth sequences of Hatshepsut and Amenhotep III are mentioned, together with the implications of Papyrus Westcar for divine paternity and delivery of the future king, before moving to more concrete issues such as wet nurses, tutors, the significance of a potential official’s education alongside royal princes and that education itself. The careers of princes are then considered, and then actual modes of succession, both regular and irregular, the latter including such causes célèbres as the murders of Amenemhat I and Ramesses III. Apropos ‘regular’ successions, one would like to have seen something on the implications of the ‘presentation to the people’ episodes described by Hatshepsut and Ramesses II for the potential need for a formal nomination of the heir, likewise the apparent legal implications of the act of burial for the status of an heir (cf. the scene of Ay burying Tutankhamun in KV62). This chapter concludes with a useful summary of what is known about the coronation ceremony. Chapter 4 concerns ‘Being Pharaoh’, and takes the king from wakening, through his ablutions, food, clothes and official, ritual, sporting and leisure activities. This draws on both literary and archaeological sources, the latter including particularly those derived from the extant palace remains of the New Kingdom and a wide range of textual and artistic sources. The chapter also deals with the legal and administrative aspects of kingship, including a summary of the organisation of government in the New Kingdom, together with royal women and the harem. In the latter section, it would have been helpful to
qualify the assertion that there was only ever one Great Wife (what about Amenhotep III, Ramesses II and Ramesses III with their multiple contemporary Great Wives?), likewise the alleged broad prohibition of princesses marrying commoners during the New Kingdom (the evidence cited is explicitly about their exclusion from marrying foreign potentates). The next chapter deals with the king as warlord, covering a wide range of material from the Old Kingdom to the Third Intermediate Period, although, of course, leaning heavily on texts and representations of the New Kingdom. Royal cities follow, comprising principally discussions of Memphis, Thebes, Amarna and Qantir, supplemented by a boxfeature on Tanis, Tell Basta and Sais, and then a chapter on royal tombs and the rituals of death. This gives a high-level overview of the development of kings’ sepulchres from the earliest times through to the Late Period, together with funerary rituals and the furnishings of the tomb. Although there are mentions and brief descriptions of the various funerary compositions found in royal tombs through the ages, there is not the expected consideration of the posthumous destiny of the royal spirit and the way it differed from that of the ordinary person. Although one admits that a fully satisfying conspectus is difficult, something of the range of conceptions seen from the Pyramid Texts onwards would have been a most helpful addition to this part of the book. The final chapter covers the Ptolemies and Roman emperors in their roles as Egyptian kings, although this is largely in the form of an historical narrative, rather than an attempt to tease out how far these foreigners – and, in the case of the Romans, ‘absentee landlords’ as well – fitted into the pharaonic archetype. On the other hand, there is an interesting discussion over the identity of the ‘last’ pharaoh, with Diocletian identified as the most appropriate candidate. As is today customary in this publisher’s
41
works, box-features are used throughout the book to highlight issues complementing the main text. These include the institution of co-regency, the royal titulary (which is in significant need of expansion), female kings, royal pets, diplomacy and royal health. In the last-mentioned, Hatshepsut is confidently diagnosed with cancer, diabetes and obesity – without noting the distinctly doubtful identification of her alleged mummy. It might also have been useful to have extended cover to the severely arthritic Psusennes I. An extensive summary chronology is provided, with brief biographies of a number of kings (the choice of whom is somewhat obscure). In some cases there is a mis-match between this summary and dates given in the main text: e.g. the summary gives Smenkhkare and Neferneferuaten respectively one and three years as Akhenaten’s co-regents, yet the main text gives Smenkhkare three years with no mention of Neferneferuaten. Also, the summary gives a (now-disproved) eight-year overlap between Psusennes II and Shoshenq I, yet the text states that there was a direct succession. One notes that in both summary and text, the dates given imply an (uncommented) interregnum between the Twentieth and Twenty-First Dynasties – presumably a misprint? A chapter-by-chapter bibliography is also included, providing an excellent basis for further reading. The book is attractively produced, with many colour illustrations that complement the text well, and will provide a useful introduction for the novice. However, as noted above, it ducks engagement with a number of the knottier issues surrounding pharaonic kingship and thus slightly disappoints as a true evocation of ‘being Pharaoh’. AIDAN DODSON David Stuttard and Sam Moorhead, 31 BC: Antony, Cleopatra and the Fall of Egypt. British Museum Press, London 2012 (ISBN 978 0 7141 2274 8) Price £9.99. This publication is the second of what would appear to be an ongoing series of books from British Museum Press, examining specific turning points in the ancient world, and follows on the heels of AD 410: The Year that Shook Rome published in 2010 by the same authors. It is a slim but heavily illustrated volume, detailing the circumstances leading up to the Battle of Actium and culminating in the death of Cleopatra VII. It is a period of Egyptian history which has been covered many times previously and has, arguably, been the most frequently popularised through works of literature, theatre, film and television. With more academic relevance, in the last few years these events have been addressed in volumes examining the figure of Cleopatra VII, herself, from authors as diverse as Sally Ann-Ashton, Joyce Tyldesley, Diane Kleiner and Michael Foss, together with revised and reissued editions of earlier works by Mary Hamer, Lucy-Hughes Hallett and Patricia Southern,
EGYPTIAN
not forgetting the much lauded biography from the Pulitzer Prize winner Stacy Schiff. Indeed, even a partial discussion of recent volumes on the fall of the Ptolemaic dynasty would take up the rest of this review. This present volume, however, endeavours to take a somewhat different tack in that the authors concentrate less on the ‘enigma’ of Cleopatra and seek, instead, to re-imbed the events more fully within the broader context of the diplomatic and political milieu of the Mediterranean in the first century BC.
ARCHAEOLOGY
In so doing, the authors marshal their material in a manner which leads inexorably towards Antony’s fateful defeat and Cleopatra’s suicide. It is, effectively, the recitation of a chronologically ordered series of actions and events with a definite and stated outcome; consequently, unlike history, but in common with all good tales, this book has an identifiable beginning, middle and end. The book is certainly immensely readable and at times has the flavour of the treatment for a film script: characters are introduced, their personal histories sketched in, allowing them to play their parts before retiring from the action and, crucially, each chapter is given a sub-heading indicating the passage of time and the changing locations. It is not only in these respects, however, that the text appears determinedly cinematic. There is also an amusing literary conceit: each of the chapter titles takes its name from a film featuring the American actor Humphrey Bogart. This is evidently more than mere coincidence, as the chapter titles range from the obvious African Queen directed by John Huston in 1951 to the rather more obscure Big City Blues directed by Meryn LeRoy in 1932, in which the actor has only a brief, un-credited role. One can only assume that the authors are aficionados of Bogart’s work; certainly Stuttard, as a founder member and former director of the theatre company Actors of Dionysus, has a clear and active interest in the performing arts. However, any specific connection between Bogart and the material
at hand is lost on this reviewer. Given the aforementioned chapter subheadings, it seems faintly redundant to record the contents of each chapter in this review; suffice to say that events move much as one would expect for this oft-told tale, with the first chapter being set aside to provide a description of Alexandria in ‘mid-September 31 BC’, setting out the geography of the portcity and its significance, cultural and historical, within the ancient Mediterranean. The book serves as a useful introductory volume to the material and it draws heavily upon quotations from classical sources. However, these are presented as straightforward evidence with no real discussion of any bias or, indeed, of the fact that so many of the authors quoted, such as Plutarch (AD 46-119) and Cassius Dio (AD 150-235) were writing some considerable time after the events they describe. Whilst the substantial use of classical sources is to be applauded, this particular reviewer would have preferred more userfriendly endnotes, which are presented in the tiniest of fonts. If there is a problem with the wealth of colour illustrations, it is only due to the size of the book, 210mm x 148mm, and the fact that many of the largely well-chosen images would have benefited from being printed on a larger scale. The map of the ‘Roman Empire during the late Republican Period c.50-31 BC’ on pp.6-7 suffers particularly in this regard, with most of mainland Greece disappearing into the gutter fold.
LEILA BOOKS * ESTABLISHED IN CAIRO IN 1960 AS A SUBSCRIPTION AGENT AND BOOKSELLER. * SPECIALISTS IN SERVING ACADEMIC RESEARCH LIBRARIES & SCHOLARS. * WE SUPPLY BOOKS & PERIODICALS [STANDING ORDERS AND SUBSCRIPTIONS] WORLDWIDE. * We offer a 25% discount on orders received from individual members of the Egypt Exploration Society for the Institut Francais D’Archaeologie Orientale du Caire (IFAO) publications. [LEILA BOOKS is the distributor and agent of IFAO]. * Send us your email address to receive our news information for all new publications published in Egypt in the field of EGYPTOLOGY and ARCHAEOLOGY. Email: leilabks@link.net; Leila@leilabooks.com; Fax: +202-23924475. Tel: +202-23934402 - +202-23959747. Mailing address: P.O. Box 31 Daher, 11271 Cairo-Egypt; Visiting address: 39 Kasr El Nil Street, 2nd Floor, Cairo. Website : www.leilabooks.com
42
EGYPTIAN
There are also some slight problems with the labelling of certain illustrations, as evidenced by the identifications of Cleopatra and Caesarion from the Temple of Hathor at Dendera on p.83, and references to the god ‘Menthu’ strike one as a somewhat archaic rendering, perhaps because the authors are experienced Classicists rather than Egyptologists. One does rather wonder about the book’s title, which trumpets ‘the fall of Egypt’, thus ignoring the rich cultural developments of Egypt’s subsequent lengthy involvement with Rome, in a manner, which reminds one of Alan Gardiner’s dismissal of Egyptian history after Alexander the Great’s successful incursion in 331 BC. Whilst one can see how such a title may be more appealing to a general reader and, indeed, publisher, than Antony, Cleopatra and the Fall of the House of Ptolemy, it seems unnecessarily restrictive and misleading. The one-page timeline presented at the beginning of the book compounds this, ending as it does with Caligula’s murder of Ptolemy of Mauretania in AD 40. For a book which is evidently intended as a robust primer for the subject, it might have been useful for the epilogue to have indicated more fully Egypt’s continuing, and special, position within the Roman Empire and Egypt’s adoption of Octavian, later Augustus, and his successors as Kings of Upper and Lower Egypt. In conclusion, then, the book is a chronological introduction to the material and to certain of the classical sources for the more general reader and therefore doubtless serves
ARCHAEOLOGY
its intended purpose, although one might have hoped, in the circumstances, for a lengthier and more in-depth list of publications in the ‘Further reading’ section. JOHN J JOHNSTON Miroslav Bárta, Journey to the West. The world of the Old Kingdom tombs in Ancient Egypt. Univerzita Karlova, 2012 (ISBN: 978 8 073 08383 0). Price: £21.00. A royal pyramid usually springs to mind when one thinks of the Old Kingdom, and yet the limited amount of information available about kings and their cults pales in comparison with what we know about their elite subjects. Nonetheless, while there are many books about pyramids, there is little available in the more popular literature about the tombs of the ancient elite. Tombs are of course covered in general books about tomb architecture and funerary practices, but authors rarely provide detail for those who wish to learn much more. It was with this aim that Bárta set out to write this book; as he puts it, ‘to outline general trends in the history of the non-royal tomb development of the period’. (p.10). The book is divided into nine unnumbered chapters. ‘People from the desert’ (pp.15–46) deals with the development of Egypt up to the beginning of the Early Dynastic Period. ‘The new destinies of the dead and sacrificed’ (pp.47–87) considers the Early Dynastic tomb development while ‘Six steps to divinity’ (pp.89–120) covers the important developments of the Third Dynasty. ‘The
Who Was Who in Egyptology
great and the greatest’ (pp.121–153) describes Fourth Dynasty private tombs and ‘Sons of the sun’ (pp.155–194) deals with the Fifth Dynasty, including much unpublished material from the author’s fieldwork and that of his Czech colleagues. The Sixth Dynasty is the subject of ‘The sun sets in the south’ (pp.195–228) which includes a most interesting discussion of the role of climate change in the decline of the Old Kingdom. The final chapters are thematic; thus ‘The struggle with death’ (pp.229–258) discusses important issues of the ideas about the afterlife in the Old Kingdom, and how the practicalities were handled, while ‘The dry message of the beer jars’ (pp.259–293) takes a look at writing, administration and how the state functioned, as well as issues associated with the economy, including observations from the author’s own research. ‘The Gift of the Nile’ (pp.295–319), as its name suggests, is about the constant association of the river with the development of Egypt, but also issues of diet and agriculture. Although this is the last chapter, the book does stop rather suddenly, leaving the reader wondering if he has missed the real conclusion! At the end is an extensive bibliography by chapter and subject. There is an enormous amount of information here, and for those interested in these tombs it will amply repay reading all 342 pages. But as I read, I found myself constantly wondering for whom it was written. I wondered at times whether there is more detail here than the Egyptophile would want or could
Ankh Antiquarian Books
Edited by Morris L Bierbrier
Est. 1989 Australia’s leading bookseller for new and second-hand Egyptology and Ancient History publications.
First published in 1951, edited by Warren R Dawson, Who Was Who in Egyptology is a standard reference work for anyone interested in the history of Egyptology. From the earliest travellers to scholars and excavators of more recent times, the book contains biographical details of the lives and careers of those who have shaped the discipline, with photographs of many of its subjects. The second edition, edited by Eric Uphill, was published in 1969 and the third, edited by Morris Bierbrier, in 1995. This fourth edition, again edited by Dr Bierbrier, contains many new and revised entries and a wider range of photographs than in previous editions.
We also stock a wide range of gifts, cards and magazines including Egyptian Archaeology, KMT and Minerva and have an eBay store: http://stores.ebay.com.au/Ankh-Antiquarian-Books
Ankh Antiquarian Books has been pleased to be associated with the Egypt Exploration Society since 1990 and is the Society’s authorised bookseller in Australia and NewZealand. We stock many EES publications and promote the Society. Proprietor: Jennifer A Jaeger, BA Ankh Antiquarian Books PO Box 133 Darling Victoria 3145, Australia Phone: 61 398881990
ISBN: 978 0 85698 207 1. 2012.
Price: £35. EES Members: £25.
E-mail: jennifer@ankhantiquarianbooks.com.au
The Egypt Exploration Society 3 Doughty Mews, London WC1N 2PG, United Kingdom. Telephone: +44 (0)20 7242 2266. Fax: +44 (0)20 7404 6118. E-mail: rob.tamplin@ees.ac.uk On-line shop: www.ees-shop.com
www.ankhantiquarianbooks.com.au
43
EGYPTIAN
easily process while for the student and the Egyptologist, the detail in the book could be blunted by the lack of notes or references in the text. There is so much interesting, insightful and indeed provocative information here that the experienced Egyptologist is likely to ask over and over again, ‘where did that come from?’. It is, however, not easy to find the source without further work. One simple example will suffice. On pp.96– 97 is ‘It is worth noting that his [Djedefre’s] pyramid complex was the tallest one of all, and so the closest to the sun’. Really? This does need qualification; was it taller, or on the highest ground, or the steepest? Sometimes a scholar is mentioned, but one searches in vain in the bibliography for that chapter for the source - so on p.102 the author refers to the work of Spence, but what? (similarly Anthes on p.105, or Franke on p.276). About the only in-text references are quotes; I note that on p.270, Kemp 1989 and on p.275, Lehner 2000 are not in the bibliography, at least for the chapter in question. Minimal use of references is inevitable in a popular book, but the amount of information here is tantalizing and leaves one wanting more. Fuller indexes would aid access to this mine of information. Bárta’s work is impeccable. If you are interested in the Old Kingdom, or in the development of the Egyptian tomb, buy this book! NIGEL STRUDWICK Stephanie Moser, Designing Antiquity: Owen Jones, Ancient Egypt and the Crystal Palace. Yale University Press, 2012 (ISBN 978 0 300 18707 6), Price: £40. Designing Antiquity is the latest addition to Stephanie Moser’s highly regarded catalogue of work researching the portrayal and reception of ancient cultures. Building upon her own theories of archaeological representation, Moser continues to address the impact of ‘popular’ or non-scholarly engagement with ancient Egypt in particular, aiming to understand how our knowledge and perceptions of antiquity have been constructed over time. Having previously explored matters of representation in museum displays and art history, in this latest study she turns her attention to the Crystal Palace and how this major public exhibition of the mid nineteenth century generated new and controversial ideas about ancient Egyptian art. Moser identifies the design of the Egyptian Court, one in a series of Fine Arts Courts exhibited at the Sydenham Crystal Palace in 1854, as a key event in the history of Egyptology. As large-scale, walk-through recreations of architecture from the ancient world the Courts were designed to encourage a very different kind of interaction with the past, to educate and instruct the public through entertainment in a subject thought to be the preserve of scholars. Moser explains how the significance and impact of this type of representation has often been overlooked by academics, due largely to its basis in popular culture but also to its association with the commercial rather than the scholarly world. To redress this balance Moser guides the reader eloquently through the historical context of the Egyptian Court exhibit, its
ARCHAEOLOGY
design, reception and finally its legacy in both the popular imagination and Egyptology as a discipline. At times Moser’s study adopts a more biographical tone, exploring the life and work of Owen Jones (1809-1874), the architect responsible for designing the Egyptian Court. Here Moser reflects on Jones’ early travels to Egypt as inspiration for his designs, and situates Jones within an influential network of Egyptologists including John Gardner Wilkinson and Joseph Bonomi, as well as fellow artists Jules Goury and David Roberts. Moser succeeds in her aim to reveal Jones’ ‘unique, but completely unacknowledged, contribution to the formation of ideas about
ancient Egyptian art’. Of particular interest are Jones’ advanced theories on the symbolic relationship between art and society, his questioning of Egypt’s place in the evolution of art, and his achievement in re-introducing colour to the ancient Egyptian palette – controversial acts that provoked much criticism from his Victorian contemporaries. One of the most fascinating and enlightening aspects of Moser’s research is the wealth of archival evidence collated and presented to the reader. The analysis of this unique collection is at its strongest in chapters four to eight where Moser discusses various ‘Contexts of Viewing’, addressing both the scholarly and public consumption of the Egyptian Court. With material ranging from photographs and illustrations to guidebooks, literary and artistic responses and popular press coverage, Moser creates a fully immersive and holistic account of the exhibition that is rich with detail. Furthermore, this beautifully illustrated book provides the colour and vivacity needed truly to reflect the visual impact of this groundbreaking exhibit, allowing the reader to engage with the debates of design and ornamentation that surrounded it. In analysing the representation of ancient Egypt as visual culture Designing Antiquity incorporates current theories from both art history and museum studies. As such, Moser presents a multi-disciplinary discussion of archaeological representation that is both accessible and engaging. The publication of this study and its addition to Moser’s 44
repertoire is certainly timely; as a wellreferenced resource Designing Antiquity stands as a valuable contribution to the history of Egyptology and the study of British Egyptomania, both of which are dynamic areas of research growing rapidly within the discipline. ALICE E WILLIAMS Patrizia Piacentini (ed.), Egypt and the Pharaohs. From the Sand to the Library. Pharaonic Egypt in the Library and Archives of the Università degli Studi di Milano. Skira Editore, Milan, 2010 (ISBN 978 8 857 20834 3). Price £70.00. In 1999 the University of Milan acquired the extensive library of the eminent Egyptologist Elmar Edel and included among the many thousands of books was a large amount of archival material - notebooks, photographs, copies of texts, correspondence, etc - amassed by Edel during his long career. As the editor describes (p.63ff of the first volume), this was the start of the Egyptological Archive collection at Milan University which has since been augmented with the archives of (among others) Alexandre Varille, Victor Loret, James Quibell and Bernard Bothmer, making the Milan Archive, which is still acquiring material, one of the most extensive and valuable sources of information for the history of Egyptology. To describe this two-volume box-set with the conventional book-review phrase of ‘lavishly illustrated’ would be to do it an injustice. It is much more than an attractive ‘picture-book’ as it reproduces a wealth of photographs, letters, notebooks and other documents, many of which shed new light on people, places and excavations. The Loret archive, for example, includes not only his own records of the 1898 discovery of the cache of royal mummies in the tomb of Amenhotep II but also Montet’s photographs and field notes from his 1940s excavation of the Tanis royal tombs. The two volumes contain essays on the collections in the Milan Archive and also on early excavations, such as Mariette’s work at Saqqara. There are discussions of ‘Egypt in Modern Culture’ and the digitisation of archival material. For this reviewer the most interesting section is ‘The Dawn of Museums and Photography in Egypt’ which includes a history of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, not just back to its well-known predecessor at Bulaq but to its very beginnings in unsuitable reused buildings in the Ezbekieh Gardens and at the Citadel. The essay by Piacentini includes plans, descriptions and photographs of the Bulaq Museum, which opened in 1863, and of the early days of the present purpose-built Egyptian Museum, which opened in 1902. Particularly interesting is the discussion of the Museum’s ‘sale room’ where ‘objects already present in the collection’ could be purchased up until the 1970s. On pp.36-37 of the second volume a page of the sale-room’s register is illustrated, with photographs of the objects sold and the names of the purchasers. At £70 this box-set may seem expensive, but it is well worth purchasing not only for its wonderful illustrations but also for the amount of new information it contains. PATRICIA SPENCER
The Egypt Exploration Society New and Recent Publications Late Roman Glassware and Pottery from Amarna and Related Studies Jane Faiers This is the second volume on the Monastic site of Kom el-Nana at Tell el–Amarna and brings up to date the excavations carried out there. The first volume contained mainly unstratified pottery and no glass and included some of the Late Roman sites around Amarna. This volume brings together the stratified pottery and both stratified and un-stratified glass and includes more Late Roman sites around Amarna which were visited by Robert Miller in 1988 and Barry Kemp in 1995. Due to the incomplete nature of the excavations at present, (only around a third of the monastery has so far been excavated) and the time elapsed since abandonment, the conclusions reached on the dating of the site may well have to be revised in future. In the meantime, the collections of pottery and glass will, hopefully, prove useful for those working on these in the Middle East and especially in Egypt. EES Excavation Memoir 102. 2013. ISBN: 978 0 85698 212 5 Price: £65. EES members: £55
The Survey of Memphis VI. Kom Rabi’a: the late Middle Kingdom (levels VI-VIII) Lisa Giddy This sixth volume in the ‘Survey of Memphis’ series describes the late Middle Kingdom levels excavated in the 1980s at Kom Rabi’a, Memphis, by the Egypt Exploration Society team. Following an introduction outlining the Society’s work at Kom Rabi’a and summarising the extant Middle Kingdom remains at Memphis as a whole, there is a detailed description of the late Middle Kingdom stratigraphy revealed at Kom Rabi’a, accompanied by in-text figures illustrating the salient characteristics of each level in the six sectors investigated. Complete lists of the contexts excavated and objects discovered are provided. There follows a reconstruction of events across the site, and a final essay evaluating the importance of Kom Rabi’a for our understanding of late Middle Kingdom Memphis. EES Excavation Memoir 94. 2012. ISBN: 978 0 85698 192 2. Price: £65. EES members: £55
Akhenaten’s Workers: The Amarna Stone Village Survey, 2005-2009. Volume I: The Survey, Excavations and Architecture Volume II: The Faunal and Botanical Remains, and Objects Anna Stevens, with other contributors From 2005 to 2009 a survey and excavation project was undertaken at the Stone Village, a small settlement on the eastern desert plain of Amarna, not far from the Workmen’s Village. This was the first concerted effort to record this site, and introduce it into the story of Amarna. The fieldwork revealed a community of labourers likely engaged in tomb-cutting and related projects, but of lesser social standing the occupants of the Workmen’s Village. The piecing together of diverse strands of archaeological evidence sheds light on their experiences, the Stone Village serving jointly as a new source for the study of Amarna’s vernacular urban architecture. The results of the fieldwork are presented in two volumes, the first devoted to the survey, excavation and architecture, and the second to the faunal and botanical remains, and objects. Volume I EES Excavation Memoir 100. 2012. ISBN: 978 0 85698 208 8. Price: £65. EES members: £55 Volume II EES Excavation Memoir 101. 2012. ISBN: 978 0 85698 209 5 Price: £65. EES members: £55
EES publications can be purchased from: The Egypt Exploration Society 3 Doughty Mews, London WC1N 2PG, United Kingdom. Telephone: +44 (0)20 7242 2266. Fax: +44 (0)20 7404 6118. E-mail: rob.tamplin@ees.ac.uk On-line shop: www.ees-shop.com