More lecture notes from Origins 3

Friday was a peculiarity on the organizational front at the Colloquium. Two lectures which should have been delivered before lunch were postponed, presumably because other lectures over-ran. Thanks to two unscheduled papers being delivered immediately after lunch I ended up missing the three lectures that I really wanted to hear, which were eventually slotted in after the two unscheduled lectures. Very frustrating! Apparently they managed to fit in the rest of the lectures in the remaining time, but I am told that the workshop summaries had to be severely curtailed as a result. All very peculiar.

Anyway, grumbles aside, and I am truly grateful for being there at all, here are the sketchy notes from four of the lectures that I managed to attend on Friday morning.



Michal Kobusiewicz, Jacek Kabacinski, Romuald Schild and Joel D. Irish
Burial practices of the Final Neolithic pastoralists at Gebel Ramlah, Western Desert of Egypt

Official short abstract from the Origins 3 website:

During the winter seasons 2000, 2001 and 2003 the team of the Combined Prehistoric Expedition discovered and investigated three separate clusters of burials located at the western edge of the Gebel Ramlah Playa situated ca 130 km west of Abu Simbel. Each cluster represents an extended family burial ground. Each one is composed of a number of richly furnished graves, most probably belonging to the individual families. Two types of burials were discovered: single primary inhumations; and multiple, secondary burials. As a rule the bodies were committed to the earth in a plait work container, in a flexed position, head west and facing south. Great care was taken to restore burials disturbed during successive interments. Among the grave goods are pottery and stone vessels, toilet sets, colorants, palettes, abundant jewelry and stone artifacts. Imported items from long distances prove far reaching cultural contacts. From the physical anthropological point of view the populations represents a North and sub-Saharan admixture. The three described cemeteries belong to the last Final Neolithic pastoralists who inhabited the drying savanna of what is today the Western Desert during the second half of the V-th millennium B.C.

The Combined Prehistoric Expedition has been excavating a number of Neolithic cemetery sites in the southern part of the Egyptian Western Desert. All were close to fossil playa lakes near Gebel Ramlah. Radiocarbon dates place the sites in the 5th millennium BC, the so-called "megalith building phase" at the site. The three cemeteries under discussion were E-01-2, E-03-1 and E-03-2.

The three cemeteries consisted of a set of densely clustered graves. None of the cemeteries exceeds more than 10m sq. Striking similarities between them means that they could be described together.

Although some were single burials there were a number of multiple burials, one having eight individuals in one grave. In a total of 33 graves 69 individuals were buried. Most were aged forty years or more, but children were buried as well. There were twice as many females buried than males. All showed signs of having had good health, with only mild illnesses recorded. there was no evidence of violence. The bodies were all buried in the same way: on their right sides, flexed with heads to the west, facing south with hands in front of their faces. There was usually a basket-like pit lining.

Some of the burials were accompanied by grave goods. In total 896 artefacts were recovered, 568 of which were single gifts. The greater number of grave goods were made of flint and agage and included plenty of arrowheads as well as scrapers, denticulates, Helwan type points, flakes and blades without retouch, granite axes, pesltes of sandstone, polished pebbles, beads of haematite, grinders, pendants (of chalcedony, limestone, petrified wood, ostrich eggshell, carnelian and bone), nose plugs of bone, palettes, bracelets of Red Sea shells and ivory, a sheet of mica, needles of fish bone, a Cowry shell, lumps of red and yellow ochre, limonite and malachite, bone differs of bovid and gazelle, long bone of cattle, containers of cattle horn, sandstone and ivory, a bivalve shell with traces of red ochre, calciform beakers, howls, pots of idfferent sizes and shapes, cups, fragments of black-topped pottery, a gneiss stone vessel, a miniature throwing stick and a sculpture of a tilapia fish made out of mica. The number of grave goods in female greaves was twice that of male or child graves. Children were accompanied by more palettes and shells but almost no pottyer. 80% of the grave goods were arranged near the upper part of the body. Where items were arranged at the lower part of the body they were located almost exclusively near the knees.

The multiple burials often consisted of disarticulated bones with some components missing. In one case at E-01-2 all five of the bodies appear to have been deposited at one time, perhaps an indication that they were returned here from another location. Where damage occurred to the remains in multiple burials there were often attempts to apparently repair the damage. Teeth, which presumably fell out of the jaw bones were replaced, sometimes in the jaws (often in the wrong place) and sometimes gathered together and placed in they eye socket or nasal cavity. It was suggested that this may indicate that it was important to keep all parts of the body assembled.

These were probably extended family burial grounds and were almost cerntainly associated with the settlements near the fossil lake, one of which shares the same date range. One of the settlements was only 18m away.

The assemblage of black topped ripple pttery with microliths is, according to an observation by Maria Gatto, typical of Nubian sites.


Kit Nelson and Eman Khalifa
Implications for the origin and dispersal of black-topped pottery

Official short abstract from Origins 3 website:

The earliest date for the emergence of Black Topped pottery is from the Egyptian Western Desert. It is part of a pastoral life way that includes a developed ceremonial system. By Naqada II, Black Topped pottery is widely distributed throughout the Egyptian territories. This process, that includes changes in distribution and role in society, is explored using variables such as environment, associated radiocarbon dates, subsistence base and context. These data together demonstrates a dynamic system of change and adaptation that moves beyond a pastoral origin to the emergence of the Egyptian State.

The paper began with a summary of the four main stages of activity at Napta Playa before going on to an analysis of the black-topped ware.

Early Neolithic (Al Jerar)

• Microlithic, small bladelets, Ounan Harif points
• Wild plants and possibly domesticated bovids
• Intensified hunter-gathering type economy
• Rocker-stamped pottery
• Only bowls (reference Gatto 2007)

Middle Neolithic (7300-6500BC)

• Few sites
• Pits
• Hearths
• Smoothed over rocker stamped pottery
• Microliths and flakes
• Wild plants
• Domesticated bovids, sheep and goat
• Continuation of lithic and pottery traditions from the Early Neolithic
• E-75-8
• Stratified site
• Alternating layers
• Earliest black-topped pottery in Layer 8, c.6031bp
• Directly comparable with E92-9
• Pottery includes
• Beakers
• Clays which are Nile and Qussier local rather than local alluvial
• Higher firing temperatures and black-topped technique introduced
• Surface treatment includes smoothed burnished and slipped rather than plain unsmoother rocker stamped
  

Late Neolithic

• Megaliths, cattle burials, tumuli and stone circle
• Very few houses, deflated open air hearths, large roasting pits
• Change in lithic tradition
  
• First appearence of lithic side-blow technique
• Microlithic blades replaced in part by the new technique
  
• Variety of pottery
  
• First red/brown ware
• Black topped
• red burnished
• Unslipped red
• Wild plants
• Domesticated bovids and sheep/goat
  

Final Neolithic

• Still being defined
• Wells
  
• Deflated hearths
• Site E-00-1
• Agro-pastoral
  
• Pottery
• Few red/brown pottery pieces
• Ripple ware
• Black topped
• Unslipped red
• Qussier-Clastic
• Grey
  
• Shale-tempered
• Geological deposits

Analysis by faunal specialist Gautier has concluded that during the Middle Neolithic a variety of animals were represented including gazelle and wild hare but that by the Late Neolithic the dominant species were domesticated cattle and small stock.

There was a break betweeen the middle and late Neolithci periods due to an arid spell. A cultural layer without pottery appears - this maybe due to poor preservation but it may also be that no pottery was in use at that time.

Habitation, pottery traditions and lithic traditions were conspicuously different between the Middle and Late/Final Neolithic periods.

It was suggested that Nabta was part of a large system which included sites along the Nile. however those sites are only preserved in the desert. It is possible that groups were coming into Nabta over a period of time or that groups clustered along the Nile during periods of hyper aridity before returning to the desert when the climate improved. In the final stages of the Neolithic there were no habitations recorded, which suggests that groups were increasingly mobile. Perhaps groups were now Nile-based but used Nabta for managing herds.

The black topped pottery was part of a larger Nubian tradition which possibly included the Badarian.



Heiko Riemer
Subsistence, territory and contacts of of the Sheikh Muftah pastoral nomads during the 3rd millennium BC: a view from the desert


I managed to miss the first couple of slides, not having realized that the conference had resumed (an opera/theatre type five minute warning would have been great!). But Heiko Riemer always gives an excellent presentation and this was a fascinating lecture looking at the Sheikh Muftah pastoral occupation of Dakhleh Oasis in the 4th to 3rd Millennium BCE.

Official Abstract from Origins 3 website:

Archaeological evidence accumulated from more than 70 Sheikh Muftah sites in Dakhla Oasis by the Dakhleh Oasis Project (DOP) has uncovered a late prehistoric community of pastoral nomads which is primary restricted to the oasis area. It was suggested that they never attempted to go out into the desert as a consequence of the diminishing rainfall during the 4th and 3rd millennium BC. Recently the excavation at El Kharafish about 25 km north of Dakhla by the ACACIA project indicates that additional hunting activities in the near desert surrounding the oasis were accomplished during the spring season. However, ACACIA surveys in the wider desert vicinity north and south of Dakhla do not indicate any substantial activity far out in the desert, although the survey data reveal some short-term ventures to a distance of about 50 km or even more. Species identification of animal dung illustrate that goats were kept in the desert regions. Clayton ring depots found far away from the oases may point to long distant contacts through the deserts.

Heiko Riemer looked at the way in which the landscape was used by the Sheikh Muftah occupants. The core area, based on the oasis itself, was described, with examples of some very rich sites given, but the larger question is how far the people of the oasis actually traveled and what sort of relationship there was between the core and secondary areas.

The main area so far discovered outside the core zone was the El Kharafish area, which is located on the top of an escarpment. Excellent preservation of botanical remains indicated that the area was occupied int he late winter or Spring when the grass was freshly green. This is confirmed by the presence of gazelle remains, the females of which were in the last stages of pregnancy. 2500 pot sherd were excavated, representing bowls, cups and jars, as well as 100 Clayton rings and disks. Of the lithics there were 365 tools, 165 cores, 7625 flakes and 60,000 chips. That these were not short term campsites is indicated by the fact that all stages of tool production were present. There were no domesticated animals represented in the bone record but a huge amount of dung pellets are thought to have been goat, sheep or Ammotragus lervia (Barbary sheep), but probably goat, given the other evidence from Dakhleh.

The evidence therefore suggests that the Sheikh Muftah groups had a home base in Dakhleh Oasis, which was the only direct source of water, but that El Kharafish was used during the Spring as part of the annual economic cycle for herding and most importantly hunting.

Herding activities are also recorded to the south of Dakhleh Oasis, upt to 70km away.

More distant relationships have been considered on the basis of the distribution of Clayton rings made out of typical Sheikh Muftah fabrics with their typical course shale temper. Links over greater distances are possible but the evidence does not appear to be conclusive.



John Darnell
The wadi of the Horus Qa-a

Official abstract from the Origins 3 website:

During more than twelve years of work in the Egyptian Western Desert, the Theban Desert Road Survey has discovered many predynastic rock art and inscription sites on the ancient routes of the southwestern desert of Egypt. At a number of these sites inscriptions are in clear association with other remains of human activity and occupation. Although many of the dating techniques for rock art are at best of uncertain value (Bednarik 2002), the sites in the Theban Western Desert that occur in conjunction with archaeological remains allow a cultural attribution. The interrelationships of rock art, habitation, ritual, and burial sites within the Rayayna desert provide an important template and test model for those attempting to understand similar assemblages of petroglyphs and archaeological material within an extensive landscape (compare essays in David and Wilson 2002). The area also provides an excellent opportunity to relate models of archaeological site formation with models of rock art site development, and the interrelationships between such sites and the landscape in which they are located.

The early sites in the Rayayna desert allow one in turn to test the reliability of models proposed for other cultures in an attempt to use formal methods to “provide a structure for the placement and nature of this imagery on the landscape” (Hartley and Vawser 2000). Hartley and Vawser describe “places with rock-art that …serve as ‘check-points during movements across the desert terrain’ as assisting in orientation to locales of water or other necessary resources,” a possibility that the work of the Theban Desert Road Survey has specifically addressed.

The Rayayna material places us in the unique position of being able to grasp at least a portion of the “emic” significance of the rock art through diachronic evidence. The later developments of some of the motifs into pharaonic iconographic elements which are explicitly explained in later textual material provides an opportunity to avoid some of the pitfalls of subjective “etic” interpretation which are otherwise inevitable when one is dealing with pre-literate societies. The use of rock art in Upper Egypt as a means of marking places and commenting upon terrestrial and cosmic processes and events appears to have led to the increasing “symbolic” nature of Upper Egyptian cultures, a necessary precursor, if not direct antecedent, to the development of true writing in Egypt.

The motifs and use of rock inscriptions in the Theban Western Desert reveal the development of a complex repertoire of religious symbols. These symbols and the more abstract concepts they could communicate allowed the individual artist/communicator to comment on the terrain, to communicate with future visitors, to participate with those who have gone before in an ongoing interpretation of the terrain (compare Huyge 2002); they also allowed for personal commentary on the more generally understood motifs. On these routes we see the development of a symbolic communication that linked people, habitation and burial sites, routes, and landscape, and that led ultimately to the development of true writing in Egypt around 3250 BCE. Hieroglyphic script originated in the glyphic symbols of Upper Egyptian rock art.

I had never seen John Darnell present before, as he failed to show for the previous conference that I attended where he was on the programme. But he gives a great performance and raised some interesting questions. He has been working on the Theban Desert Road Survey project for many years, and has discovered many new examples of rock art which seem to flank the main routes used in the Predynastic and more recent periods.

Darnell suggested that most of the rock art under discussion in his paper was post-Badarian, belonging mainly to the Naqada II and III periods. He didn't describe in any detail the basis for this dating in this particular lecture, but it appears to have been dated by reference to iconography on Naqadan pottery.

Most of the "art" (petroglyphs, some accompanied by inscriptions) is located along the desert corridors but Darnell suggests that the artists were not attracted just by the geology, the road or what was in their own heads at the time, bvut by earlier art at the site - something that he terms "spontaneous inconographic attraction". He focused on two particular form of engravings. Both are tableaux but where some were created at one time and added to over a period of time others appear to form a single unified narrative.

In the first category it is interesting to note that earlier giraffes were juxtaposed with later boats. This is also seen at Vulture Rock at El Kab where Dirk Huyge suggested that they are different motifs representing a different take on a solar theme. Darnell suggested that animals were initially used to represent the cosmic cycle, but that other images replaced them. He sees a particular set of episodes demonstrating iconographic attraction taking place at the transition between Naqada II to Naqada III. Themes were hunting, ritual, nautical (including barque and tender) and processions, all of which appear to lead towards the idea of the jubilee festivals.

Darnell highlighted the Wadi Magar vignette which he referred to as The Elephant on the Mountain, dating it to the Naqada II/III transition. He drew a parallel between this and a vase held at the Ashmolean Museum. Another set of motifs, showing a giraffe, plants, crocodiles, an elephant, types of boat, falcons and storks again have parallels with images from other sites.

The Wadi of the Horus Qa-a was named after a specific inscription, and is located to the northwest of Luxor (Thebes) in a deep wadi between the Wadi Alamat Road, which leads west out of northern Thebes, and the Arqub Baghla track from southern Naqada. There are a number of rock art sites in the wadi. In a low rock shelter on the east side of the wadi a number of images are shown which appear to have been painted at one time. Darnell compared the images to the frieze from Tomb 100 at Hierakonpolis, which he referred to as a representation of a jubilee cycle (which is one of many different interpretations of that scene). It has a very similar style, may be of a similar date, and has a number of similar motifs including bulls, canids, boats and a Barbary sheep being attacked by dogs. There is also a dead animal with an arrow sticking out of it. Darnell believes that it represents from left to right the wild moving into the human domain, with the dead animal representing the domination of the human over the wild - but at the same time the left-facing bovids and the orientation of the boat pull the viewer back into the composition in a way that forces them to revist it. The boat is unusual, with a sail, a strcture and an animal on the prow. There is one human by the boat who appears to have been shot through the neck and there also appear to be standards in the composition. These elements are seen elsewhere in Predynastic art and from various different contexts in different types of medium.

Darnell believes that at the end of Naqada II certain artists were composing jubilee cycle vignettes and adding to these vignettes components which reflect royalty before any true royal names or depiction of royal names occurred. He seees these scenes as contributing to the imagery of royal power.

At another site in the wadi there was a scene which showed two mirrored images of boats with the serekh of Qa-a and Firsty Dynasty inscriptions. Inside the boats were oarsmen and, more remarkably, smaller sickle-shaped boats. Darnell thinks that they refer to the arrival of the ma-ati barque, part of the New Year's festival of Sokar.

More re Edfu excavations

University of Chicago Chronicle (William Harms)

An Oriental Institute expedition at Tell Edfu in southern Egypt has unearthed a large administration building and silos that provide fresh clues about the emergence of urban life.

The discovery provides new information about a little understood aspect of ancient Egypt—the development of cities in a culture that is largely famous for its monumental architecture.

The archaeological work at Tell Edfu was initiated with the permission of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, headed by Zahi Hawass, under the direction of Nadine Moeller, Assistant Professor in the Oriental Institute. Work late last year revealed details of seven silos, the largest grain bins found from ancient Egypt, as well as an older, columned hall that was an administration center.

Long fascinated with temples and monuments such as pyramids, scholars have traditionally spent little time exploring ancient Egyptian residential communities. Due to intense farming and heavy settlement over the years, much of the record of urban civilization had been lost. So little archaeological evidence remains that some scholars believe Egypt did not have a highly developed urban culture; rather, Mesopotamia gained the distinction of teaching people to live in cities.

“The traditional view of ancient Egypt has been biased by the fact that most excavation work so far has focused on temples and tombs. The mounds that comprise the remains of Egyptian cities were either ignored, buried under modern towns, or else destroyed by modern agricultural activities. Edfu is one of the very few remaining city mounds that are accessible for scientific study,” said Gil Stein, Director of the Oriental Institute.

“The work at Edfu is important and innovative, in that it finally allows us to examine ancient Egypt as an urban society, whose cities and towns housed bureaucrats, craft specialists, priests and farmers.

Sailing into eternity

Al Ahram Weekly

Visitors to the Giza Plateau will be able to view Khufu's second solar boat through a tiny camera 4,500 years after it was buried to ferry the king to eternity. Nevine El-Aref takes a look.

On the southern side of Khufu's Great Pyramid, a hundred journalists, photographers, cameramen and television presenters gathered inside a five-metre-long metal hanger padded with black fabric. Inside the hanger were 10 leather chairs and an LCD screen showing scenes of Khufu's solar boat in situ. From last Saturday, Khufu's second solar boat is on show to the public for the first time since its discovery by Egyptian architect and archaeologist Kamal El-Mallakh with Zaki Nour in 1954.

At that time El-Mallakh and Nour found two boat pits during routine cleaning at the southern side of the Great Pyramid. The first pit was found under a roof of 41 limestone slabs, each weighing almost 20 tonnes, with the three westernmost of the slabs being much smaller than the others leading them to be interpreted as keystones. On removing one of the slabs El-Mallakh and Nour saw a cedar boat, completely dismantled but arranged in the semblance of its finished form. Also inside the pit were layers of mats, ropes, instruments made of flint and some small pieces of white plaster along with 12 oars, 58 poles, three cylindrical columns and five doors.

The boat was removed piece by piece under the supervision of the master of restorers Ahmed Youssef, who spent more than 20 years restoring and reassembling the boat. The task resembled the fitting together of a giant jigsaw puzzle, and the completed boat is now on display at Khufu's Solar Boat Museum on the Giza Plateau. The cedar timbers of its curved hull are lashed together with hemp rope in a technique used until recent times by traditional shipbuilders on the shores of the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean.

New Book: Crowns in Egyptian Funerary Literature

Oxbow Books

Not cheap! But a subject of interest to a lot of people.

This book presents a new approach to analysing the image of ancient Egyptian kings and gods. The author studies textual evidence rather than the often stereotyped iconography, focusing on mentions of the king's White and Red Crowns and demonstrating that they possess a wide-ranging symbolism that transcends the terrestrial sphere to encompass the divine and the cosmos, death and rebirth. In funerary texts of the Old and Middle Kingdoms (ca. 2300-1700 BC), crowns play a part in the deceased king's ascent to the sky and transfiguration, enabling him to assume the form and powers of a celestial god. Crowns express such attributes as the legitimate rule of gods or of the deceased, as well as radiance; they are also metaphors for cosmic events. Personified as goddesses, they are the deceased's mothers and nurses. These symbolic functions are integrated into richly metaphorical texts that combine the explicit with the allusive and the concrete with the evanescent. The book discusses occurrences of the White, Red, and Double Crowns in the Pyramid and Coffin Texts, as well as other selected examples. A major section reinterprets the famous "Cannibal Spell" as a description of sunrise that fits seamlessly with the themes of other texts. This study will be of great interest not just to Egyptologists but also for the parallels it offers for styles of royal and divine symbolism that are found in many civilisations. 470p (Griffith Institute 2008).

That modern hair look might be thousands of years old

All About Egypt

Young archeologist Sahar Abdel Rahman, who finished her master’s degree earlier this year, demonstrates in her thesis about ancient Egyptian hairstyles the influences it has had over millenia on present day fashionable cuts and hairdos.

Curly and wavy hair, short hair, the bob cut and even Marie Antoinette’s beehive can all be traced back to the Pharaohs. A simple overview of the statues and the pictures on temple walls and papyri easily confirm this theory, Abdel Rahman said.

Her research focuses on Egyptian hairstyles between the 7th century BC and the 4th century AD. Studying these eras, Abdel Rahman was able to correct misinformation about the dates of some of the antiquities and discover that, rather than an arbitrary matter, hairdos were a sincere representation of each period’s set of traditions and deities.

Exhibition: Tutankhamun in Indianapolis

Huliq

Another story about the build-up to the move of the Golden Pharaohs to Indianapolis.

Don't forget that if you are in London in August you have just one month to see the exhibition at the O2 in Greenwich. I shall be going along for one last visit before it goes. And don't forget that Hadrian is at the British Museum - we have a positive Who's Who of history here at the moment.

“Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs,” a new exhibition featuring more than 130 treasures from the tomb of the celebrated pharaoh King Tut and additional ancient sites comes to The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis from June 2009 to October 2009.

The exhibition is organized by National Geographic, Arts and Exhibitions International and AEG Exhibitions, with cooperation from the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities. Northern Trust is the presenting sponsor of the tour, and American Airlines is the official airline.

“Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs” is the second National Geographic exhibition dedicated to the remarkable treasures of King Tutankhamun and ancient Egyptian royalty. The first exhibition, “Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs,” was visited by nearly 4 million people during its four-city U.S. tour from 2005 to 2007.

“Tutankhamun's magic still captures the hearts of people all over the world, even though more than 75 years have passed since the discovery of his amazing tomb,” said Zahi Hawass, secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities.

Zahi Hawass on development damage in Damietta

Al Ahram Weekly

This isn't about archaeology but is actually quite interesting:

What happened in Damietta is a lesson from which all of us -- governors, government officials and every Egyptian -- can learn. As we all know, a Canadian company, E Agrium, was pursuing the construction of a fertiliser factory on the Ras Al-Barr island, and because of the controversy parliament appointed a committee to study the case. This committee decided to move this factory away from Ras Al-Barr.

First, I would like to say that I am from Damietta, and I have always been proud of my origins. When National Geographic made a film about my life and work, I took them to Ras Al-Barr and the seashore where I spent my childhood. I took them to a unique place where the red water washed through the fertile land of the Nile joined the Mediterranean Sea, the beautiful setting called Al-Lessan (The Cape).

This area has been developed by the great man and architect, and the regional governor, Mohamed Fathi El-Baradei. If you go there at sunrise or sunset, you will see a remarkable coastline that does not exist anywhere in Europe. Many famous actors, writers and politicians used to spend their summers relaxing on this magnificent seashore. After the 1973 war the shore was ruined by immigrants who turned it into a town, but El-Baradei restored it to its former glory and made it into a national park. No one could believe that the authorities would allow an industrial factory to be built on one of our treasured shores, destroying the natural beauty and fish and wildlife habitat and polluting the atmosphere. How could this happen? We must also ask ourselves why the Canadian company wished to do this. Would they have accepted this damage if it was being done in their own country? Would they destroy one own of their national parks? I think not!

La construcción fue el motor económico del Antiguo Egipto

Las Provincias

"La construcción fue el motor económico del Antiguo Egipto y de la moderna sociedad española" miradas pensantes por José Miguel Parra Ortiz, Egiptólogo. Miembro del equipo del Proyecto Djehuty. Conferenciante de Thinking Heads

Finalmente está sucediendo, la burbuja inmobiliaria creada por constructores, especuladores y ayuntamientos se ha desinflado. Y, dado que la construcción es uno de los principales motores de la economía española, su desaceleración se ha dejado sentir. Tampoco es la primera vez en la historia que los circuitos económicos de la construcción se convierten en uno de los más importantes activos económicos. Al fin y al cabo es lo que sucedió en el antiguo Egipto.

Egipto fue siempre una sociedad agrícola, cuya prosperidad dependía casi exclusivamente del río Nilo y de su crecida anual. La construcción de la primera pirámide (la de Djoser en Sakkara) acabó por definir lo que serían los tres principales circuitos económicos del Reino Antiguo. Al primero podemos llamarlo general, pues estaba destinado a conseguir los recursos para mantener el Estado y soportar la construcción de los mausoleos reales. El segundo era un circuito más concreto, ya que su función era la de mantener aprovisionado el culto diario (teóricamente eterno) que tenía lugar en los templos de las pirámides. El último de los circuitos era eminentemente redistribuidor e implicaba a las ofrendas y al personal del templo. Vemos, pues, que los tres circuitos creaban los cimientos económicos que permitían al faraón mantener en pie toda la estructura del Estado y, gracias a ella, poner en práctica cuantos proyectos y obras públicas creyera necesarios.

A cada campesino se le asignaba una tierra que trabajaba y cuya producción estaba sometida a una fuerte imposición fiscal. Toda la recaudación se acumulaba en las salas del Tesoro del palacio real, que servía de pagador. Uno de sus compromisos principales era el pago de los numerosos trabajadores empleados en la construcción del complejo funerario real, que no eran esclavos, sino funcionarios al servicio del faraón. Se calcula que para la construcción de la mayor de las pirámides, la de Keops en Guiza, estuvieron trabajando 15.000 personas durante 23 años, no todas en la propia necrópolis.

See the above page for the full story.

Geological mapping gets joined up

BBC News (Jennifer Carpenter)

The world's geologists have dug out their maps and are sticking them together to produce the first truly global resource of the world's rocks.

The OneGeology project pools existing data about what lies under our feet and has made it available on the web.

Led by the British Geological Survey (BGS), the project involved geologists from 80 nations.

Between 60% and 70% of the Earth's surface is now available down to the scale of 1:1,000,000.

"That's 1cm for every 10km of the Earth's surface," explained Ian Jackson from the BGS and leader of the OneGeology Project.

"With that resolution, people can focus in on a small part of their city.

"Eventually, people will be able to get up close and see the rocks beneath their house."

Mr Jackson said this was because the geological maps were being constantly updated.

"Every time someone bores a hole in the ground, and hauls out some rock, we can refine our maps a little bit more."

Project organisers explained that what is novel about this project is that it takes local geological information and makes it global.

See the above page for more.
The project's website is at: http://www.onegeology.org/

Alexandra Woods and the Cemetery of Teti

Pyramid of Man (Vincent Brown)

Associate lecturer of Egyptology at Macquarie University, Dr Alexandra Woods has been studying the Old Kingdom tomb paintings of the king’s officials at the cemetery of Teti at Saqqara for several years now. She presented the results of her work at the 10th International Congress of Egyptologists on the Greek island of Rhodes in the last week of May in her paper entitled: “Five significant features in Old Kingdom spear-fishing and fowling scenes”.

Here is an excerpt:

“Comparative analysis with other scenes dating to the Old Kingdom from the Memphite and provincial cemeteries, has identified five important features and include: the type of kilt, wig and headdress worn by the major figure; the rendering of the umbels in the papyrus thicket; the shape of the papyrus boat and the arrangement of the water weed in the scene. The first detail to be addressed is the garment worn by the major figure in a spear-fishing and fowling scene.

See Vincent's site for more.

Czech Institute of Archaeology publications available on Oxbow

Oxbow Books

The Czech Institute of Egyptology was founded in 1958, as a successor to the Egyptological Seminar at the Faculty of Arts of the Charles University in Prague. Its founding father was Frantisek Lexa, an expert in Late Egyptian writing. The first fieldwork undertaken by the new Institute in the 1960s was in Nubia, where Prague Egyptologists took an active part in the rescue of Nubian sites and artefacts from dam construction. The Nubian series of Institute publications, published mainly in the 1970s and 1980s, are particularly important as they are the sole record of sites that are no longer accessible to researchers.

The Institute started work at its most famous excavation site, Abusir, just after beginning its Nubian campaign. Abusir, the northernmost part of the Saqqara necropolis, has produced an unexpected richness of material, including a royal cemetery of 5th Dynasty pyramids, a Necropolis of officials dating from the 4th to 6th Dynasties, and Saite-Persian shaft tombs. The excavations are still continuing, with only a few months break every year during the intense heat of the summer months. Studies at the Abusir necropolis are making huge contributions to our knowledge of the society and culture of the Memphite region. Recently, a new area has been added to the Czech archaeological permit area – a zone in Western desert, in the area of Hayez, Bahariya oasis and work is starting there.

A range of archaeological work at the site are published in the Abusir series, which now extends to number VII. The archaeological reports on Abusir are not the only part of publishing activities – these include also broader syntheses and future plans include a special series devoted to the heritage of Ancient and Islamic Egypt. A short series will also report on the Hayez expedition. Future plans also include a dissertation series.

The future looks bright for Czech Egyptology, now celebrating over 50 years of scholarship. The recent merging of the Institute with the National Centre for Egyptology has brought the financial and scholarly resources of the discipline together and, in the next few years, it is hoped that the program of publications will become ever larger and more prestigious.

Further details about the Institute's work can be found by clicking on this link.

The books available from Oxbow are available from the link at the top of this post.

Natsef-Amun to take up residence in Leeds (UK) gallery

Yorkshire Evening Post (video)

The Leeds Institute stands serenely overlooking Millennium Square, but behind the calm exterior lies a hive of activity.

Workmen and museum staff are busy getting it ready for the opening of the new Leeds City Museum.

The £20m museum will house the many collections built up by the city down the centuries, from meteorites to polar bears and everything in between. . . .

The World View gallery contains material from across Africa while the museum is one of the few in the country to feature artefacts from Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome.

The Ancient Worlds gallery will be the final resting place of the famous Leeds mummy Natsef-Amun who will take up residence in a recreation of an ancient Egyptian tomb, complete with spells from the Books of the Dead on the walls.

Egyptian joke one of the world's oldest

Reuters

Tenuous, but this is a desperate week.

The world's oldest recorded joke has been traced back to 1900 BC and suggests toilet humor was as popular with the ancients as it is today.

It is a saying of the Sumerians, who lived in what is now southern Iraq and goes: "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap."

It heads the world's oldest top 10 joke list published by the University of Wolverhampton Thursday.

A 1600 BC gag about a pharaoh, said to be King Snofru, comes second -- "How do you entertain a bored pharaoh? You sail a boatload of young women dressed only in fishing nets down the Nile and urge the pharaoh to go catch a fish."

Lecture Notes: An assortment from the Origins 3 Colloquium (part 1)

For those of you who have absolutely no interest in the Predynastic or Early Dynastic all I can do is apologise for the fact that this has been a very tedious two weeks for you. I'm back to real life on Monday, but to be honest with you there has been precious little news to convey. I've been keeping a weather eye on it and there has been nothing terrible interesting around - which is quite usual in the summer months when no-one is actually working in the field.

I would just like to convey sincere thanks to Jan Picton of the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology for letting me loose on the colloquium whenever things are quiet at the Bloomsbury Summer School. I missed final registration at the colloquium and was told that it was sold out but thanks to the truly kind assistance of Jo Rowland, I was told that I could attend after all. But by then I had already committed to Bloomsbury. So I have only been able to dash in and out, but I have really enjoyed the papers that I have been able to attend. I thought that some of you might enjoy them too!

The proper title for the colloquium is actually Egypt at its Origins - The Third International Colloquium on Predynastic and Early Dynastic Egypt. Unsurprisingly, it is referred to as Origins 3. I was at Origins 2 in Toulouse, and publication of the Proceedings from that conference is now available if anyone is interested.

I am still typing up my lecture notes. I always feel like such a poser when I take my laptop along with me but I really should just grit my teeth and do it because I type much faster than I write and I wouldn't now be sitting here trying to decipher my ghastly scrawl. These are not the best notes that ever emerged from a lecture theatre, for which my apologies, and some are rather worse than others, but I hope that they give the gist of some of the work that is being carried out at the moment.

These are my notes from the afternoon of Tuesday 29th July 2008.



David Anderson
Evidence for early ritual activity in the Predynastic settlement at el-Mahasna

David Anderson was not present so his lecture was presented by a colleague whose name I sadly failed to catch.

The site of El Mahasna is located 11km north of the core area of Abydos. The entire area has been encroached upon since the1980s by an extension of cultivated land in the area, and this now reaches right up to the site., which covers an area of some 8 hectares.

The site was first excavated by Garstang in 1900-1901 and the Predynastic cemetery was examined by Ayrton and Loat some years later.

There are two distinct zones of activity at the site: the settlement at the borders of the alluvial plain and the low desert and the cemetery.

The el-Mahasna Archaeological Project began work in 2000. During the first two month season the team did a surface collection of the area believed to be the Predynastic settlement area using a system of controlled collection units. Pottery sherds were particularly dense in one particular area. The distribution was used as a guide for planning the excavation, which took place in a number of areas.

The excavation revealed Predynastic settlement remains from Naqada Ic-Icd.

Amongst the findings from the excavation was evidence for a building made of wooden and reed posts lashed together with cord and matting, of which remnants were found. A similar method of construction has been found at Adaima. The building was divided internally. An external activity area included a hearth and a midden which contained lithic debit age as well as animal and plant remains.

A different area of the site was occupied in Naqada Ic to 2c, where a number of in tact Predynastic layers were found. A building referred to as “Block 3” was marked by substantial reinforced post holes. Considerably more labour would have been invested in this building than in the one described previously, but conclusions are not yet possible as to its function because it has not yet been completely excavated. On the overlying floor there were use remains, which included ceramic vessels, bone awls and needles, spindle whorls, bifacial knives and grinding stones. They have been placed in the period 1c-IIab. A collection of figurines were also found which seem to have had a ritual function. Twenty one zoomorphic figurines were found in Block 3, all heavily stylized and minimalist bovines. Features were only hinted at. There were also five anthropomorphic figurines which appear to have been discarded following use within the structure. This is a very specialized assemblage which appears to have had a specific function associated with Block 3. A faunal assemblage from the same structure includes a number of bovid foreleg limbs, a characteristic feature of offering scenes from Pharaonic times. There was also a concentration of wild game, including fish - some of which were vast. (a similar situation occurred at Hierakonpolis). The combination of wild fauna indicate that they were collected in the period immediately prior to the annual inundation. A considerable amount of effort would have been required to transport some of the catfish and Nile Perch (up to a metre long and very heavy) from the Nile to the site, which is some distance away from the river. There was also a concentration of C and D ware at this part of the site

It was suggested that the evidence from Block 3 suggests an ideology based on women and cattle, and that ritual activity may have taken place at the time of the annual Nile floods. Block 3 was therefore probably a cultic centre belonging to the Naqada Ic-IIab period.

The areas of usage, both settlement and cemetery, appear to have been avoided by occupants of the area in the Old Kingdom and First Intermediate Periods, perhaps due to an ongoing sense of respect for the sanctity of those areas.



Veerle Linseele and Wim Van Neer
Animal bones from ritual contexts at Hierakonpolis


Hierakonpolis is the largest known site from the Predynastic period in Egypt. Faunal remains from four seasons of excavation, together with material derived from previous seasons, have provided a large zoological dataset. The analysis of the data from two areas of the site was the focus of the lecture:

HK29A one of the earliest known temples in Egypt, dating to the Predynastic (second temple has also been found at Hierakonpolis)
HK6, the elite cemetery site which has produced some interesting finds, including tombs with superstructures, wild and domesticated animal burials, and the well known masks. It had two phases of use: Naqada IC-IIB and Naqada IIIA2

Both areas produced faunal assemblages which were unusual. The lecture compared the two areas with each other, and with other contemporary sites in Egypt.

Comparisons with Adaima and El Mahansa were being carried out, although the full data from the latter site has not yet been published in full.

The faunal assemblage from HK29A included:

• Nile Perch (1-2m in length)
• Softshell turtle
• Crocodile
• Wild game
• Hunted species
• Carnivores, especially dogs
• Cattle (which, unlike other sites in Egypt, are more numerous than sheep and goat), slaughtered young

All these animals were available locally and, judging by the species, it seems likely that they were killed shortly prior to the annual inundation. For example, Nile perch is a deep water fish which is much easier to catch at low water, and game is much easier to capture at that time of year because animals tend to gather around the water at the end of the dry season.

Linseele suggests that they may have been linked to elite social status, and that this is indicated by a demonstration of consumption of even dangerous animals. It may also represent a desire to establish order over chaos.

The faunal assemblage form HK6 included animals supplied as food and animal burials. The use of wild animals in the first phase of usage at HK6 is unique in Egypt:

Sea shells, sea urchins
Wild mammals

• Oryx
• Elephant
• Wild donkey
• Baboon
• Swamp cat
• Hippos

Domesticated mammals

• Sheep
• Goat
• Cattle
• Dogs (9 in one grave)
• Cats (7 in one grave, next to the dog burial)
• No pigs

The wild animals are all species which, unlike those from HK29A are difficult to obtain., and the species chosen are not the same as those from HK29A. Lineseele says that the bone pathologies of the animals indicate that they had been held in captivity prior to their deaths.

Her comparison of the two areas with each other suggested that the animals represented had been involved in rituals, and that their presence and treatment were consistent with ritual behaviour,. However, the different types of animals involved in each area implies that the different types of ritual required different types of animal, each specie being associated with different concepts. The fact that some species in the elite cemetery were difficult to obtain may be a demonstration of status or identity by the person responsible for their capture, or they may have had a symbolic association. Linseele pointed out that their presence in graves may not be a sign of ritual slaughter but might instead be an indication that their owners did not have the skills to maintain wild animals in captivity.

Linseele made various observations about the differential quantities of each specie at various sites, comparing them with numbers at Hierakonpolis, but the slides, showing detailed tables of data, moved too quickly for me to note down any useful information on the subject.



Gwenola Graff and Stan Hendrickx
Architectural representations on D-Ware

It was extremely hot during this lecture and my note-taking lapsed in the middle when I left my notes in order to dig out some water, and I can’t for the life of me remember what I missed, so my apologies that my notes fail to do full justice to the lecture.

During the completion of research into the complete known corpus of D-Ware from Egypt Graff was able to list all motifs shown on this type of pottery. Some of the motifs are easy to identify but others are more ambiguous. In the latter category is a particular motif which consists of two rectangles with hache-type fill, connected by lines at the top and bottom and sometimes elaborated with small fringe-like lines, and sometimes arched. Although this lecture focused on D-Ware Graff says that the motif is also found on C-Ware.

It is believed that this motif may represent mat-like fencing which was supported on poles, which is a standard building fabric throughout the early Predynastic - even when more monumental building projects began to take place.

Graff listed a number of examples where similar motifs occur (e.g. Ballas Q593, Ballas Q81, Ashmolean 1958-345, QS76), although she and Hendrickx were first particularly drawn to an example from an unprovenanced vessel in the collection at Tubingen (Tubingen N176, published in 1984). There are 46 vases which show this image.

In the lecture Graff investigated the possible links between the motifs on the ceramics and examples known from archaeological sites.

Graff also examined the contexts within which the patterns on D-Ware. She believes that they are cultic buildings because of their association with other ritual motifs (which she defines on the basis of a set of specific criteria). She that they appear on two thirds of all cases where they are present with ibex, bird and addax images. On the Tubingen example the addax is a dominant motif. Her view is that the addax has an explicitly ritual association, and that this can be extended to embrace the architectural motifs with which they so frequently appear. She
suggested that the buildings may be directly associated with space that was used to enclose these species. A C-Ware example (Turino S1827) shows a white cross-lined scene with similar structures associated with trapped animals.

From there she looked at contexts where huts are involved in ritual contexts from other datasets - for example Naqada III labels, and the Hierakonpolis temple.

Graff says that there are opposing views on whether or not the mat-built buildings were prototypes for the niched architectural form. She suggests that the nature of the architecture was reproduced in stone at Saqqara, where the façade of the temple has similarities with the mat type appearance. However, she says that although Hendrickx supports the idea that the buildings were fore-runners of niched architecture, Alejandro Serrano-Jimenez disagrees.

Graff then went on to compare her suggestions with the data from Hierakonpolis, to see whether there was evidence for death of the aforementioned animals in the temple data. As far as birds are concerned there were no ostriches at the Hierakonpolis temple site but there was ostrich eggshell at the elite cemetery HK6.

Graff and Hendrickx hope that this identification of this type of structure with explicitly ritual contexts will help field archaeologists to identify and understand them when they occur in excavations.


And Finally - a brief and spontaneous update re the Hierakonpolis Temple HK29A

At the end of Gwenola Graff's lecture Renee Friedman stood up and said that the reconstructions shown of the Hierakonpolis temple shown in the presentation were now potentially inaccurate because of work completely in the previous season. Excavation of the main building revealed a set of post holes behind the current set, but the evidence for the building only extends around 9m from the first set of post holes - the rest has been destroyed by sebakh digging, which means that it is impossible to know whether or not the temple structure extended any further backwards than 9m.

Lecture Notes: The Sackler Lecture - Tell el-Farkha

The Raymond and Beverly Sackler Foundation Distinguished Lecture in Egyptology: Ivory and gold in the Delta: Excavations at Tell el-Farkha. Krzysztof Cialowicz, Institute of Archaeology, Jagiellonian Univesity, Krakow, Poland

Monday 28th July, The BP Lecture Theatre, The British Museum


The following notes were taken at the above lecture, with chronological help from the publication Ivory and Gold - Beginnings of the Egyptian Art written by the lecturer (Poznan Prehistoric Society 2007). This was only necessary because I couldn’t decipher the dates and some other details in my notes when I got back!

Photographs have been taken from the Poznan website - click on the image to link back to the original on the Tell el-Farkha pages on the Poznan site.

The lecture was held in the larger of two basement lecture theatres in the British Museum. Partly because of the day time Origins 3 Colloquium which had been taking place there earlier, there was a particularly good turnout for the lecture. There were too many of us to watch the lecture in the main theatre, so those of us who were overflow were placed in the neighbouring and much smaller theatre where we watched the proceedings next door via a video link. This was certainly better than not seeing it at all, but it was a somewhat surreal experience which was emphasised by the peculiar quality of the slides which were filmed and sent to us live - the colours were strange and the illustrations almost impossible to make out. But the sound came through very clearly so it was easy enough to get the gist of it.

Tel el-Farkha is located in the eastern part of Egypt’s Delta, 120km northeast of Cairo and near the village of Ghazala. It covers an area of 4 hectares and comprises three mounds: Western Kom, Central Kom and Eastern Kom, which rise 5m above the surrounding fields.

Krzysztof M. Cialowicz began by putting the site of Tell el Farkha, which means Hill of Chickens, into its chronological context. He took us through different phases of the Naqadan and “Loweregyptian” (formerly known as “Maadian or Maadi-Buto” traditions. He explained that the site crosses the period when material culture is seen to change in Egypt, with Upper Egyptian traditions appearing alongside and then replacing Lower Egyptian traditions. As he pointed out, it is not sure how this process took place. There are no archaeological traces of destruction or war, so perhaps a better way of explaining it would be through the concepts of assimilation and acculturation. He believes that Tell El-Farkha is a good place to explore this process precisely because it spans this “transitional” period.

The site had already been examined before the Polish Expedition to the Eastern Nile Delta arrived there. Survey work carried out by an Italian mission from the Centro Studi e Ricerche Ligabue in Venice identified and named this and other sites. They followed their survey work with the excavation in 1988-90 of 4 trial trenches which helped to establish an initial chronology of the site. The Italian mission didn’t pursue the site, but they presented their results in Cambridge in 1995, which caught the attention of Polish scholars who set up a mission to investigate the site.

The Polish Expedition to the Eastern Nile Delta began work at Tell el-Farkha in 1998, and they have now completed 10 seasons of work at the site, each season consisting of two months of work. There are seven phases The oldest part of the site dates to the Loweregyptian period. The next phases all lie within Naqada II and III, and Dynasties 0 to the beginning of Dynasty IV, when the site was abandoned.

The oldest layer at the site, the Loweregyptian, lasts from c.3600-3300BC. The is present only at the Western Kom. It revealed habitation structures with numerous rooms, and is particularly notable for the discovery of one of the world’s oldest breweries. The brewery site is multi-phase, with a total of three different layers to it. Each consisted of several circular features with fire bricks supporting vats. A fire was lit to heat the vat contents. The brewery was in use for 300 years. Other discoveries belonging to this phase are imports from the Near East and Upper Egypt and donkey remains.

The following period, the Naqadan, is divided into three phases and is found at both the Western and Eastern koms: 3300-3200BC, 3200-3100BC and 3150-3100BC. This is the period over which the site is increasingly dominated by Upper Egyptian traditions.

The earliest of these three phases produced the remains of a fairly remarkable building which was constructed over the breweries. It was found under a layer of Nile silts. It measures approximately 25m x 25m and is divided into a number of rooms with an internal courtyard, with walls which in some places were over 2m thick. It is the largest building of this date to be found so far. It produced storage jars, clay seals and buttons (perhaps counters), fragments of Palestinian pottery and labels. It may have been the home of someone important, with storage rooms attached, perhaps associated with the trade of wine and oil. It was destroyed by fire, covered with a layer of black and white ash under the Nile muds. The fire that destroyed it dates to c.3200BC.

The Eastern Kom was also occupied during the Naqadan but at a slightly more recent date. One of the surprising discoveries from this part of the site was a monumental construction within a cemetery area. It was found when excavating more recent wealthy burial chambers, some of which partially destroy parts of the building. It covers an area 400m sq and post-dates the earliest large Naqada building of the Western Kom but pre-dates the big administrative-shrine complex. It has been dated to c.3200-3100BC. It consists of several chambers separated with walls up to 2.5m thick. In the central square chamber a vertical shaft was made. It may be that these are the remains of the oldest known mastaba in Egypt, significantly predating those from Dynasties 1 and 2, the oldest of which is that of Aha, the second king of the First Dynasty. Within it was found a stone pendant surmounted with a falcon with a schematic engraving on it, and a decorated ivory dagger handle. Cialowicz suggested that if it is accepted as one of Egypt’s earliest mastabas then it may have been the burial place of a local governor or ruler.

It is a mystery why more recent graves were dug into it or why these graves were in turn buried by a settlement layer, into which Old Kingdom burials were then sunk. This situation is so far unique in Egypt, where land which has been sacred tends to be respected and is left undeveloped for more recent activities.

The Eastern Kom settlement was not rich but gold fragments were found at the north eastern part of the Eastern Kom, accompanied by two extraordinarily beautiful and highly crafted stone knives and an ostrich eggshell and carnelian necklace. They were found during the excavation of one of the settlement structures. When the items were excavated and taken away for analysis it was possible to reconstruct them - they had originally consisted of two statuettes which would have been built around a central core, now completely vanished but probably made of wood. Gold rivets were used to fasten each piece of gold to the core, and there are 140 of these surviving (4mm long and 1mm in diameter). One of the figurines is 57cm tall and the other is 30cm tall. Both have been given eyes of lapis lazuli (only available from Afghanistan at that time) and the eyebrows also had inclusions, now vanished. Some of the features are very distinctive - the hands and feet are detailed, with finger and toe nails picked skilfully out. The ears are very prominent, and the penis sheath is very long. The knives belong to the Naqada IID period, 3150-3100BC. Cialowicz speculated that they might be a Predynastic ruler and his son. He also speculates that the secondary deposition of the artefacts might indicate that they had been concealed in a hurry in order to protect them from an impending raid. The fact that they were never collected may indicate that their owners were unable to return. However, he said that this must just remain a hypothesis. The statuettes are now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

In the period between Dynasty 0 and the mid First Dynasty (c.3100-3000BC) both Western and Eastern Koms were occupied.

In the Western Kom another building was built over the ruins of the previous building, which had burned down in 3200BC but had apparently been covered by a layer of Nile silts. The building dates to Dynasty 0/Dynasty 1 (c.3100-3000BC) and had massive mudbrick walls preserved to a height of 2m, which marked out a complex of rooms which seem to have been built over a period of time possibly to cope with earthquake damage. A remarkable deposit was found within one of the walls which surrounded a small room. It consisted of figurines, miniature vessels of faience, pottery and stone. Amongst the figurines were baboons, a prostrate man wearing nothing but a penis sheath, his hair and beard long, a standing long-haired and bearded man, pear shaped mace heads, miniature vessels, faience beads and gaming pieces. The southeast end of the building had experienced a cave in, possibly earthquake damage, and this had covered a number of artefacts which include large storage jars, thin walled red bowls, clay seals, clay amulets, half of a model boat, cosmetic slate pelettes and a cylindrical jar containing 187 serrated fish fin bones. This has been interpreted as a shrine within a larger administrative and cultic complex.

Another surprise was the discovery in 2006 of a votive deposit in the same building, at its western end. Together with some empty vessels there a 23cm jar, with a bowl for a lid. When opened it produced a collection of 62 objects, all of which are made with considerable skill and most with artistic merit, some very realistic and others more schematic. Raw materials included hippopotamus ivory, stone, faience, and pottery. The items inside included figurines, miniature stone vessels and buttons-like disks.

The figurines usually appear as pairs, except the dwarves, of which there were thirteen. Cialowicz suggests that most of the figurines may have been produced by one artist with few less well executed exceptions.

In the Eastern Kom this is the period when the richest of the burials were deposited. Excavations were begun here in 2001 to clarify the results of a geophysical survey, and the burials began to be found just below the surface of the kom. The wealthiest of these burials were furnished with pottery vessels in separate chambers, many of which were up to 1m in length , as well as ornaments made of semi precious stones, stone vessels, cosmetic palettes, tools and meat and grain. Many of the pots had pot-marks, three of which had the names of Iry Hor, Ka (both Dynasty 0) and Narmer (First Dynasty). These are the oldest of the Naqadan tombs and are both the best constructed and the wealthiest of the three cemetery phases identified. One of the oddities of these graves is that they were dug into earlier settlement remains as well as into the above mentioned “mastaba”.

Between the mid First Dynasty and the Second Dynasty (c.3000-2700BC) the Western Kom was abandoned. At the Eastern Kom there were still burials with grave goods, but these were not as wealthy as those in the previous phase of the cemetery, and the tombs themselves were not as well constructed. In the Central Kom there is settlement evidence for this period.

During the Old Kingdom and up until the Third Dynasty (2700-2600BC) there is an overall deterioration in the standards of living. Both the settlement and burial evidence indicates that this was now a fairly impoverished area. None of the burials was accompanied by grave goods.

The evidence from the Western Kom, which implies diminishing wealth over time, is confirmed by the Eastern Kom, where the wealth and quality of the burials declines. Whatever was happening at Tell el-Farkha, its heyday had passed.

The site was abandoned completely at the beginning of the Fourth Dynasty (between c.260 and 2550BC).

Cialowicz had opened the lecture with a question about the replacement of Loweregyptian traditions with Naqadan ones. He now suggested that the answer was probably connected with growing importance of Tell el-Farkha and other eastern Delta sites in terms of their location on a major trade route and their growing wealth as a result of controlling or at least organizing that trade. He suggests that Upper Egyptian interests could have been served by guarding or controlling those routes. Upper Egypt was not a unified entity at this time and this slow replacement process does not reflect a sudden act of political unification. There was competiton within the Naqada struggle itself, probably between Abydos and Hierakonpolis. Again, Cialowicz suggested that the evidence from Tell el-Farkha argues for a slower process of acculturation or assimilation than had been proposed by earlier scholars, but that a considerable amount of work needed to be completed in the Delta for this process to be clarified.

Cialowicz was asked how much longer he expected to be working at Tell el-Farkha. He smiled and said that as only 7% of the site has so far been uncovered he expects to be working at it for at least another 20 years! There was a lot of laughter followed by a long round of applause.


Here’s a recap of the site’s chronology, copied from the Poznan book:

Loweregyptian 3600-3300BC

• Western Kom
• Brewing centre
  

Naqadan 3300-3100BC

• Western Kom
• Residence c.3300-3200BC
  

Eastern Kom

• Mastaba? 3200-3100BC
• Gold figures 3150-3100BC
  

Dynasty 0 - mid Dynasty 1 3100-3000BC

• Western Kom
• Admin and cult centre with votive deposit

• Eastern Kom
• Richest burials
  

Mid Dynasty 1 - Dynasty 2 3000-2700BC

• Western Kom abandoned
• Eastern Kom medium wealth in burials
• Central Kom settlement

Old Kingdom - Dynasty 3 2700BC-2600BC

• Eastern Kom impoverished burials
• Central Kom poor settlement remains

Old Kingdom - Beginning of Dynasty 4

• Abandonment of Tell el-Farkha

Dating the Predynastic for beginners - Part 1

I'd be grateful to hear from anyone who is a relative beginner in the field of Predynastic archaeology and who, most importantly, has struggled to get to grips with the chronology of the Predynastic in the past. If you could let me know if this post is helpful, or simply makes life more confusing than ever I would be sincerely glad to hear from you. I have tried very hard to explain the development of dating systems in Egypt, but it isn't exactly straight forward. Part 2 (scientific dating) will be posted in the next few days.

Unfortunately I was unable to attend the first part of Dr Kathryn Piquette’s Bloomsbury lecture on Predynastic cultures in Egypt because I was traveling back from north Wales at the time, so I only caught the second part, which was on the following day. Obviously it makes no sense to write up one half of a lecture, although I very much enjoyed what I heard. But I thought it worth picking up on one of the issues that Kathryn and members of her course raised - the apparently conflicting dates for the earlier Predynastic period in various different books.

I thought that it might be worth sitting down and writing a top-level summary of how dating works, and why the confusion arises, in case anyone else out there is experiencing similar difficulties with the whole concept of dates in the Predynastic. So here it is.

I am going to tackle this in two parts, because it is by far too long a topic to deal with on one post, and there are a number of levels of confusion.

There are two ways of trying to put sites into chronological sequences - relative dating and absolute (also known as scientific) dating. In this post I am going to look at relative dating and how it evolved because it was the way in which the Predynastic in Egypt was first organized into manageable chronological chunks. These were originally proposed by Petrie and still form the backbone of the chronology used for the Predynastic today, so it is important to understand some of the ideas behind them.

Relative dating uses concepts of style, technique, form, decoration etc to put buildings, artefacts and other indicators into a relative sequence. The most basic form of relative dating is to understand that the further down something is the older it must be. An excavation digs from the top down, from the modern to the ancient. By analysing the contents at different layers it is possible to use certain diagnostic features to suggest that, for example, a vase with a wavy handle is always at a lower level than a vase with a different sort of wavy handle, and that this means that the one sort will always be older than the other. When results like this are validated by repeated excavation, the vases can be used to date similar layers at other sites, enabling entire sequences of relative dates to be constructed. The items associated with the vases and the types of site at which they are found can then be analyzed. Pottery in one type of burial will predate pottery in a different type of burial, so it should be possible to chart the development of burial types by using the pottery as chronological markers.

Petrie did something very like this using pottery from graves to develop a chronology for Upper Egyptian cemeteries. He called his system Sequence Dating and he based his sequence dates (S.D.s) on “classes” of pottery. The pottery, decorated and undecorated, was described according to certain diagnostic variables which he believed he could track over time at the cemeteries that he was excavating. He could then group them together in a relative sequence. He produced 50 S.D. dates, starting at S.D.30 in case any older cultures came to light. He showed great insight because the Badarian was later discovered and he used the reserved S.D.s to put the Badarian into the relative sequence (SD 21-29). He further grouped these under five main headings, named after sites he had excavated:

• Badarian - SD 21-29
• Amratian - SD 30-34 (earlier) and SD 34-37 (later)
• Gerzean - SD 38-44
• Semainean - SD 45-60
• Late - SD 61-78
• First Dynasty - SD 78-82

Petrie first outlined this system in 1920, based on excavation of 900 graves at the site of Naqada, but revised it himself a few years later. Since then it has been revised further by different writers - initially by Kantor in 1944, who effectively removed the Semainean, and then by Kaiser in the 1950s, the 1960s and then again in 1990.

In 1957 Kaiser, on the basis of his studies at Armant, recognized the validity of Petrie’s basic model, but saw far more continuity than Petrie had recognized between Amratian, Gerzean and later phases. On the basis of this he divided his three phases into eleven sub-phases.

Kaiser's system is still based on the proportion of which types of Petrie's classes of pottery are represented in graves, in order to refine Petrie's system.

The main weakness of Kaiser’s 1957 model based on the site of Armant, is that Naqada III, the critical period for discussions about unification, is very poorly represented at Armant, because it and other cemeteries were largely abandoned at the end of Naqada II, and it was not at all clearly defined. However, perhaps the biggest problem with Kaiser’s sequence was how it was used. Although it was based on one site his sequence has been used as the basis for dating sites from all over Egypt, which disguises the possibility that there were regionally distinct chronological sequences.

In 1990 Kaiser again revised his chronology, adding a further three subdivisions and extending Naqada III to the end of the First Dynasty. In the new version, Naqada IIIb is further subdivided into IIIb1 and IIIb2, and Naqada IIIc is now divided into IIIc1, IIIc2, IIIc3.

Kaiser’s scheme looks like this:

• Badarian
• Naqada Ia, Ib, Ic
• Naqada IIa, IIb, IIc, IId1, IId2
• Naqada IIIa1, IIIa2, IIIb

As you can see, it looks radically different from Petrie’s sequence at first glance but it is actually based on Petrie's system. Naqada I equates to the Amratian and Naqada II equates to the Gerzean. The real departures from Petrie’s scheme take place at the end of Naqada II and the whole of Naqada II. As I said above, the names were changed to emphasise the continuity throughout the Naqada period, rather than keeping a system which emphasised differences. The Badarian remains unchanged because it is deemed to be of sufficient difference from the Naqadan period to retain its original label.

The first source of confusion with the dating of the Predynastic lies in the way in which different writers drift between Petrie’s terminology and Kaiser’s. Although you will rarely see the Semainean referred to, unless you are reading Petrie’s own material or an early work, many authors still adopt the terms Amratian and Gerzean rather than using the newer system. So terminologies can end up being mixed within the same book or even document.

Kaiser’s were not the only attempts to revise Petrie’s chronology. Although I won’t be covering them here, other schemes were put forward by Barry Kemp (1982) Stan Hendrickx (1993) and Toby Wilkinson (1996).

Although either one of Kaiser’s two systems is usually the preferred scheme, very few authors actually mention which they are using in their work. This should be borne in mind if dating schemes in one piece of work don‘t seem to quite match up with those in another.

Another source of confusion is that Petrie’s Badarian, Amratian and Gerzean (modern Badarian, Naqada I and Naqada II) are only relevant for Upper Egypt. A completely different and partially contemporary tradition was evolving in the north, in the Faiyum Depression and the Delta. An early farming economy grew up at sites like the Faiyum, Merimde Beni Salama and Sais, all bearing a strong resemblence to each other and known in the Faiyum as the Faiyum Neolithic. This tradition was eventually followed by a more clearly defined and complex set of towns located in the Delta. These were named the Maadian, a label which was then changed first to the Maadi-Buto period and more recently the Lower Egyptian. You might stumble across any of these in the Predynastic literature. More confusing terminology.

Towards the end of Naqada II / the Lower Egyptian phase, Naqada II traditions begin to be practised in the north. For example, some cemeteries have both Lower Egyptian and Naqadan type graves with grave goods.. The term Naqada III represents the period when Naqadan traits had completely eliminated Lower Egyptian ones, and is therefore applied to both Upper and Lower Egypt. In 1964 Kaiser moved his attention to the cemetery at Tura in Lower Egypt. At this site the identified three periods. His work here has often been used to tie in the Upper and Lower Egyptian sequences to synchronize the two areas, which has been helpful.Kaiser's Naqada III, of course, extends into the early Dynastic period, overlapping with the Early Dynastic technology - Dynasty 0 and 1.

As if all of the above was not enough, it has now been recognized that there were things going on in Egypt outside either the Nile Valley or the Delta - in the desert and in the oases. If you’ve ever looked at some of these in books you may well have wondered how on earth it all fits, chronologically, with the rest of the Predynastic. Happily, some of it simply predates the Badarian and has its own set of terminologies. However, that is not always the case. Although the period during which the desert was green enough to be occupied comes to an end during the Badarian, it is often treated as an entity apart, rather than an overlapping occupation which may have had connections with the Badarian. A key site which you’ve probably heard of is Napta Playa - multi phase sites divided into numerous sub-periods and sometimes called the Western Desert Neolithic. Similarly, the Sheik Muftah period in Dakheleh Oasis begins at the same time as the Badarian but survives through to the Old Kingdom.

Finally, what about Dynasty 0? And even worse, Dynasty 00? Dynasty 0 was the first of the two terms to be coined. It was designed to do what Kaiser's re-naming of the Amratian and Gerzean achieved - the sense of continuity rather than discontinuity. The First Dynasty was not born out of a void and the term Dynasty 0 is intended to communicate the idea that things happened during Naqada III which directly influenced the early Pharaonic age. Naqada III is a multi-phase period which is contemporary with the terms Dynasty 00, Dynasty 0 and Dynasty 1. Dynasty 00 is the period immediately pre-dating Dynasty 0. It is a very unpopular term amongst many Egyptologists, but it regularly puts in an appearence. One problem with it is the word "dynasty" because there is no evidence that any of the leaders represented were actually related. A second problem is that in Dynasty 00 the individuals suggested to be leaders were probably geographically apart and some of them could have been contemporary with each other. It would be reinventing the wheel to try to do a better job of doing a proper analysis of these terms than Francesco Rafaelle - to reead more about them see his page on the subject.

Feel free to scream at this point.

So just to recap, here are the main sources of confusion regarding the terminology of the relative dating system which was built on the back of Petrie’s sequence for Upper Egypt.

I said that the major sources of confusion for that system were that:

• Two sets of terminology are still in use for Upper Egypt (Amratian = Naqada I and Gerzean = Naqada II)
• Petrie’s original sequence has been refined several times and a number of different schemes exist. Although Kaiser’s 1956 and 1990 versions are the most commonly used, it is rare that an author will say which scheme is in use
• A different set of terms is used to describe the technology and tradition of Lower Egypt during the Upper Egyptian periods of the Badarian, Naqada I and Naqada II., with which they were contemporary.
  
• Contemporary prehistoric cultures outside the Nile Valley in Egypt are usually treated completely separately, although there is often chronological overlap with the Badarian.
• Dynasty 0 (and even worse, Dynasty 00) are attempts to link in the Predynastic with the Dynastic - but some parts of these periods are very poorly understood and it is almost certain that they don't represent true dynasties and that some of them were contemporary leaders in different areas.
• Before radiocarbon dating it was impossible to know exactly how long these periods lasted, and how far back in time they extended.
  

Do let me know if you can think of any others!

Thankfully we do now have radiocarbon dating, and at least that has helped to settle some of the questions about the duration of the periods and the chronological overlaps between different cultures. But you can guess that it is not a bed of roses! Radiocarbon dating will be dealt with in my next post on the subject.

Personal message for Christopher and Jan. . .

Thanks to Christopher Coleman for finding my mobile phone, and also to whoever it was who helped him to work out that it was mine by dialing every number in the phone book. Thanks to Jan Picton for taking custody of the thing. Apologies to Christopher's wife Jen for the fact that my stupidity made him late arriving home. HUGE relief that he found it though!

Andie xxxxxxxx

Two Egyptians rewarded for turning in antiquities

Trend News

Egypt's top archaeologist said Tuesday that two Egyptian citizens were rewarded for turning in two pieces of antiquities they found while each was redecorating his house in the northern Menoufiya governorate.

"The Egyptian Ministry of Culture decided to give each citizen five thousand Egyptian pounds (970 US dollars)," said Zahi Hawass , Head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA).

Hawass stated that the two pieces belong to Ancient Egyptian King Ahmose of the 26th dynasty. After asserting the authenticity of the pieces, the SCA took the pieces to start their restoration process.

Hawass added that both pieces are made of pink granite and bore the name of the king in hieroglyphics.

Few years ago, Egypt's SCA had announced that anyone who will turn in a piece of antiquities will be rewarded, in a move to reduce theft and smuggling of archeological findings.

Egyptian tombs beckon

The Leader (Jim Gainsford)

IT'S a long way from Kyle Bay to the tombs of ancient Egypt, but both places share many similarities, according to Egyptologist, Alexandra Woods.

Twice a year, Dr Woods, 25, travels from her home in Kyle Bay to work on an archaeological dig at the ancient cemetery of Saqqara, about an hour's drive from Cairo.

The recently appointed associate lecturer in Egyptology at Macquarie University's department of ancient history is among a team of experts from the university working in the cemetery of King Teti, who ruled about 2450BC.

Her job is to study and record the tomb paintings of the king's officials.

She recently presented her findings at the 10th International Congress of Egyptologists on the Greek island of Rhodes. The event is held every four years and attended by more than 500 of the world's leading Egyptologists.

Dr Woods spoke on her technique of dating tombs from Egypt's old kingdom (2700BC to 2300BC) by studying the art and inscriptions in their tombs.

King Tut exhibit spurs purist-vs.-populist debate

Miami Herald (Michael Granberry)

When "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs" comes to Dallas in October, its Texas expectations will be as large as the legacy of the boy king himself.

Bonnie Pitman, the new director of the Dallas Museum of Art, boldly predicts that more than 1 million visitors will make their way to the Arts District to catch a glimpse of the 130 rare Egyptian artifacts.

But is it an art exhibit or a rock show? And who stands to benefit monetarily, the DMA or the organizers?

Pitman is anything but bullish about the show's financial prospects.

"Our goal," she says, "is to break even. I don't see this as a huge moneymaker."

Even so, Pitman considers the objects so extraordinary that she and other civic leaders thought the museum owed its constituency the pleasure of seeing them. The curious can flock from Dallas, Austin, Houston and points beyond to see a collection so ancient that some pieces may predate even Moses. She is, however, mindful of controversy.

Since its debut in Los Angeles in 2005, the exhibition has weathered barbs from critics and museum professionals. The more skeptical see it as purely commercial and not an enterprise that ought to be showcased in venues such as the DMA, which prides itself on a scholarly, encyclopedic collection. If anything, it has stirred a purist-vs.-populist debate that rages anywhere the boy king travels.

See the above page for more.