Previous Lecture Summaries

2022-2023 Lecture Summaries

2025 Lecture Summaries

Today’s session consisted of three lectures on a common theme of landscapes. The three speakers are currently collaborating on a book ‘Landscapes in Ancient Egypt’ for the Cambridge Elements series. Penny welcomed everyone and explained the rationale behind the book. They will use a mix of approaches, both theoretical and experiential, to explore concepts of landscape and how these might inform our understanding of Ancient Egyptian culture.

Before the lectures Penny invited us to consider what we mean by ‘landscape’ and how we might define it using our senses as well as textual sources from Ancient Egypt, archaeological and environmental data, and ethnographic information from those inhabiting the chosen ‘landscapes’.  How can we bring them together (or not) and how can we apply them to our case studies? These cover specific landscapes: the Sinai Mountains, the lakes, salt flats and marshes of Northern Egypt, the floodplain of the Delta and Nile Valley areas, and the desert edge at Thebes, Abydos and Nubia.

‘The Theban Floodplain: a changing world’ by Angus Graham

Angus’s focus is the Nile Valley landscapes and waterscapes. A former member of the Society, he has over twenty years’ experience directing geo-archaeological landscape fieldwork principally in the region of ancient Thebes, as well as working in other areas of the Nile Valley and the desert edges, with some experience of working in the Delta. He began his part of the session by taking us through the process of the annual inundation that causes changes in the volume of water in the Nile, affecting the landscape and bringing about enormous change. He explained how bends in the river cause erosion on one side and deposits on the other so that the Theban floodplain has changed in the last 200 years. There is evidence on the walls of the Red Chapel that canals existed on the West Bank at Thebes. Angus also talked about data collection from a number of sources: texts and tomb scenes, as well as boreholes to collect sediment, all of which require interpretation.

Angus also touched on a number of other ideas: landscape as memory that can inform a national identity, constructed landscapes such as Deir el-Bahri, and conceptualised landscapes where the natural environment is given meaning. One example of the latter is Gebel Barkal where the mountain’s silhouette resembles a king’s head wearing a uraeus. Finally, he considered the site of Thebes and why the temple complex might have been built there. He made a connection between the structure of the temple and hypostyle hall with the creation myth of the primeval waters of Nun, noting that, in effect, Karnak was a constructed landscape, a building site for 2000 years.

‘The Sinai Mountains: an unchanging world?’ By Ahmed Shams

Our second lecture was given by Ahmed, whose research focus is mapping in Egypt, particularly in the Sinai area with the Sinai Peninsula Research project. This long-term field survey and cross-disciplinary project uses a GIS database to promote informed regional and local development planning, governance, and cultural heritage management in Sinai Peninsula. He is currently focussing on mapmaking and geographical knowledge-making and other aspects of landscape archaeology in the Sinai Peninsula, the Middle East and the Alps.

Ahmed began with an overview of settlement in the Southern mountains of the Sinai Peninsula, the oldest being during the Palaeolithic era. While there is no strong archaeological evidence for the site of Mt. Sinai, Christian monks of the first century CE found inscriptions at the site of Gebel Serbal and later, Nabataean tribes and Byzantine monks built settlements and chapels in the area. The site is mentioned by the fourth century CE Spanish pilgrim Egeria, and there was a concentration of monastic activity around the site until the Arab invasion.

This landscape is notable for the lack of water sources so the settlement patterns are linked to water management. Ahmed mentioned a number of techniques to conserve water: conduits to direct run-off from the rocks, diversion systems, and retaining walls around orchards to control the flash flooding that can occur. He also noted that the Bedouin view of landscape is linked to water and its availability.

Ahmed then focussed on the concept of knowledge-making via mapping. Sketch maps of the area drawn in the nineteenth century wee made from ground observations. The Bedouins were the main source of place names, many of which were never documented until the 1970s, and one cartographer described the area as ‘a land where people walk in each other’s footsteps’. Later maps became increasingly scientific and by the twentieth century were drawn from a military perspective.  Ahmed concluded by noting that different groups have different emphases on the knowledge-making process to fulfil their own aims, so for some Mt. Sinai is a religious site, for others a tribal area.

‘The Margins: marshlands’ by Penny Wilson

Our final talk today was from Penny, whose work has focused on settlements in the floodplain and in marginal areas. Her longstanding project at Sais in the North-West delta has investigated the vertical stratigraphy of the settlement and surrounding area of the site, and its horizontal development over time, to understand the ‘organic' and non-planned type of settlements in the Delta. Using her survey work at over 100 sites in the Delta Penny has also mapped and analysed ancient landscapes to enable consideration of the impact of changing human interventions up to the present day in these marginal and floodplain areas.

After briefly describing the nature of marshlands Penny focused on the fifth Dynasty tomb of Tiy, where extensive wall paintings show several activities in the marshes. These include things we might expect such as fishing and hunting for birds and fish, and even crocodiles. There are also scenes of people gathering flax, herding cattle across the marshes, and even jousting in the boats. The scenes occur in so many tombs during the Old Kingdom and First Intermediate period that they are an elite trope. The marshlands are shown as places of recreation, male –oriented, but also hosting danger in the form of the crocodile. They are not confined to the Delta region. Marshlands can be anywhere along the Nile where there is low-lying water. Towards the end of the Old Kingdom, scenes show boats bringing goods to the marshlands, collecting goods and taking them elsewhere, so there was waterway access. Lists of nomes from the Temple of Edfu describe these waterways.

The swamplands are also the source of many stories, notably that of Horus being hidden there by his mother Isis. Utterance 701 of the Pyramid texts mentions a marshland site called Akh-bit, Chemmis in Greek, referred to by Herodotus as a floating island and sited at Buto. Geological surveys at Buto show it was founded on a sandbar with a peat area to the East, and the presence of peat denotes marshland. However, magnetic data from Buto does not show channels or waterways, so Herodotus’ statement seems a little odd. Penny also noted a tradition of hiding in the marshes apart from the Horus story. Psamtek I hid there, as did rebels and insurgents in later centuries. So there are changing ideas about the marshes: places for herdsmen to keep cattle, resource-rich areas, and hiding places for rebels. Penny pointed out ethnographic parallels, for example, in Iraq where the traditions of the Marsh Arabs are returning. Among her conclusions Penny noted that there is a lot of data but it is patchy in time and place coverage. Certainly the marshlands have changed over time in their ecosystems.

Revisiting the Naqada region in the 21st century: approaches, results and experiences on the Naqada Regional Archaeological Survey and Site Management Project, by Dr. Joanne Rowland

Joanne’s first lecture covered various aspects of a collaborative project, which started in 2018 under the direction of the late Dr. GJ. Tassie, to investigate the ancient site of Nubt, now known as Nagada. The project is a wide regional survey focusing on what Joanne termed Petrie’s Nagada. She explained how she was interested in previous excavations, for example, in the 1978-81 period , when Predynastic pit burials were found in the Southern cemetery at Manshiya.  A particularly interesting burial was tomb 1002, a large grave containing the remains of three individuals. The finds from this tomb included pottery from Nagada Period IIIa as well as IIIc; a collection of small pottery boats; some small tubes the purpose of which is unknown; offering dishes of different shapes; some polished bowls; and some small clay objects that appear to be primitive maceheads.

When Petrie excavated the site in the 1894-5 season he was not aware that it was Predynastic and he did not enter the graves, leaving this to the men and children in his team. This suggests that diaries of the excavation would be a very useful source of information.  Research is ongoing into the archives of Petrie and his colleague Quibell, and Joanne recommended Alice Stevenson’s book ‘The Many Histories of Nagada.

The tombs at Nubt date from the third Dynasty to the New Kingdom. At Nubt West a survey in 2018 found depressions that are shaft tombs. Also a lot of Palaeolithic material was found as well as blade flakes dated to the Old Kingdom. Items from the New Kingdom Temple of Seth at the site are now in the Petrie Museum at UCL.

Joanne moved on to talk about conservation and site management issues. There is a lot of modern cultivation around the site, which has several provincial pyramids, tumuli and the cemetery. Much of the conservation work is focused on the pyramids. Petrie had opened one up from the top, thinking it was a tomb, and a 3D model has now been developed to aid understanding of its structure.  There is still work to be done on cleaning around the pyramids, lifting the brick mastabas, and dating the pottery from the opened shaft tombs. Finally, Joanne talked of some aspects of site management: a demarcation wall built around the tumuli and cemetery, and attempts to compare the magnetometry plan of the site with Petrie’s plan. She also paid tribute to the members of the project team.

The creatures and features of Djed-Hor: contextualising the results of investigations into Djed-Hor’s ‘falcon’ necropolis at Quesna.

After a short break, Joanne moved on both geographically and chronologically, to talk about her work at Quesna. The site was initially found in the 1980s. In the 1990s a geophysical survey found a Late Period falcon necropolis and several pit burials from the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. Finds included statues of Djed-Hor from Dynasty 30.

The falcon necropolis consists of a series of corridors and galleries built in two phases. It contained thousands of mummified birds, plus smaller mummified bundles, packed in layers and covered in sand and resin. Joanne went into detail about the treatment of the creatures in life and in death. She focused on the contribution of Salima Ikram to the project, and her use of different methods of x-raying the mummies, none of which were unwrapped. There is evidence for different methods of mummification: in some cases the feathers of the birds are still intact, in others only fragments of the bodies remain. One puzzling example is that of a bird with a broken neck, but it is unclear whether the bird’s neck was broken in order to kill it, or whether it happened during the mummification process. A digital x-ray machine introduced in 2023 gives much clearer pictures showing many of the damaged fragments in the small bundles. These consist of skeletal remains of mainly diurnal raptors, eggshells, rodents, shrews and fish. It is not clear whether the shrews were deliberately interred or whether they came into the necropolis as scavengers. These animals were considered sacred at the site of Athribis.

In addition to the mummies, many seal impressions were found at the site. The project team has categorised these labelling them from A to E and Joanne gave us examples of each category. Those in A reference the falcon, and link Quesna with Athribis. Those in B are the most common but are fragmentary; these too seem to link to Athribis. Categories C, D and E also refer to the falcon or ‘Osiris the falcon’ and are found mainly in the later phase of the galleries.  There are also some seals with empty cartouches. But what did they seal? The majority refer to the deified falcon, so may not be administrative. Many were found on doors and on jars, one with textile fragments suggesting that it covered a jar. As to who was doing the sealing, Joanne suggested this would be priests and inspectors from the Archive of Hor.

Finally, as with her first lecture, Joanne showed photographs of the project team members and paid tribute to their work.

Today’s lecture took us away from the Pharonic period of Egyptian history and into the Roman world. Micaela began with a brief summary of Egypt’s history under foreign rulers, and the background to the discovery of thousands of papyri at Oxyrhynchus. These provide an insight into the lives of people living under Roman rule after the defeat of Cleopatra VII in 30 BCE, illustrating the impact of that conquest. Egypt had become a multicultural society, and this is reflected in the three sets of documents that Micaela shared with us.

The first papyri were letters to an Egyptian who had gained Roman citizenship in around 45 CE: Lucius Pompeius Niger. He was formerly known as Neilos, son of Syros indicating his Syrian ancestry. The letters are from some of his six children, who were all granted Roman citizenship. Heraklous writes to him about problems with his estate, including failure to pay taxes, while the letter from Charitous is concerned with checking his citizenship. Another daughter, Herennia, writes asking Pompeius to get her certain goods, then tells him of an attempt to extract taxes from her, despite the family’s Roman citizenship that would exempt them. A rather sad letter from Thaubas tells Pompeius of the death of Herennia in childbirth. These letters serve to illustrate the ways that women took care of business and legal matters while the men in the family were away from home.

Pompeius had become a Roman citizen, but the majority of the people remained Egyptian. The family of Harthotes, a farmer and priest living in Theadelphia, are a source of some 41 papyri dating from 20 BCE to 61 CE. Micaela selected a contract for us to study, which provided an insight into the way children were treated during this period. The contract shows that the daughter of Harthotes, Tahuanes, was sent away, aged 6, to work for another family for two years in exchange for a loan. Later, her son was also sent away to work. Micaela noted that this practice did not seem to be a result of the need for money, as the family were not poor, but more as part of a tradition that enabled the family to borrow money to ease temporary cash flow problems.

The third set of documents concerned the private lives of the Romans. A woman, Longinia Petronella, was a widow who was pregnant when her husband died. She had to prove to the officials that her child was her husband’s via an invasive test of her pregnancy. The papyri include her declaration after the birth of her son but this did not seem to satisfy her relatives. Eventually a guardian was appointed for the child and the matter was resolved, but these papyri vividly illustrate the bias of Roman law against women. A further document concerned the practice of sibling marriage, common among the Greeks but not the Egyptians. The sibling couple, Kronion and Taorsenouphis, had divorced after a long marriage, and the divorce settlement deals with the dowry that Kronion would have to return to his former wife. The settlement does seem a little odd, as Taorsenouphis is leaving her husband/brother to live with another man after some 27 years of marriage. Micaela suggested that the reason for sibling marriages was a concern to keep property within the family.

These snapshots of life under the Romans covered a variety of situations including taxation, child labour and sibling marriage. Using them, Micaela took us into the world of a multicultural and resourceful society.

2024 Lecture Summaries

 Kathrin began our study day with an introduction to the site of Deir el-Medina, covering its location, period of occupation and purpose. The site housed the people who worked on the tombs in the valleys of the Kings and Queens, and was occupied for a lengthy period from around 1500 to 1070 BCE. The site consists of not only houses but also chapels, a pit, and some 700 tombs. The pit, originally dug as a well, became a rubbish dump and is the source of the huge numbers of ostraca found at the site. From these and from papyri, tomb paintings and the remains of the houses, we can learn a great deal about the daily lives of the people who lived there, in domestic, religious and funerary contexts. Kathrin was able to construct an extensive family tree for a sculptor called Ipuy, who is associated with the funerary complex TT217. The core population of the village consisted of the craftsmen who constructed and decorated the tombs, but these people and their families were supported by service personnel: woodcutters, water-carriers, laundrymen etc.

Kathrin identified several phases of occupation of the site, starting with Amenhotep I and continuing into the Ramesside period. As tombs became larger and longer more craftsmen would be needed and the site, which may have been occupied on a temporary basis initially, became permanent. Ipuy is known to have worked on KV 17, the tomb of Seti I. The workforce was paid by the state in rations of grain, but a market developed in the production of funerary objects for the workers’ tombs. A complex economy was developing.

We cannot be sure when the site was finally abandoned. During Dynasty 20 there were a number of problems, notably the workers’ strike in year 29 of the reign of Ramesses III. The site has produced a wealth of artefacts that are now in museums around the world; tracing them is difficult. Many Egyptologists have worked at the site and Kathrin completed her talk with a mention of some of them: Gardiner, Weigall, Norman de Garis Davies, Bruyere, Černý and the current French concession led by Cedric Larcher. Several online databases cover the finds from the site, for example the Griffith Institute at Oxford University.

Miriam’s lecture focused on the lived experience of the people at Deir el-Medina. The village was composed of narrow streets in a claustrophobic grid-like pattern, surrounded by a perimeter wall, like many other worker settlements in Egypt. Miriam drew comparisons between the site and that of the workers’ village at Amarna, discussing the suggestion that the Deir el-Medina community moved to Amarna to build the royal tombs during its short occupation. Both sites have similar surroundings, with chapels, cisterns, a watch-post, and pathways to each village for the transportation of supplies. Both sites had food preparation areas and adjacent settlements. At Deir el-Medina there is a small group of houses on the top of the mountain en route to the Valley of the Kings, while at Amarna there is a village on the path to the royal tombs.

Differences between the two sites can be seen in the houses. Whereas at Amarna they are laid out in an ordered grid, at Deir el-Medina the grid lines are not so straight. The occupation of the latter site was, of course, much longer so the site was extended over time. Excavations in the 1970s found that streets had been built over areas where there had previously been silos. The village was enlarged in the reign of Horemheb, then again during the Ramesside Period. The Amarna village was built in two halves, East first, and Kemp has suggested that the Western half housed a military troop. The structure of the houses was similar: a long, narrow building with 4 to 5 small rooms, stairs up to the roof, and a cellar. The Amarna houses did, however, have an upper storey. Both sites were in desert areas, so there was a need for supplies to be brought in for the workforce. Evidence of this from Amarna is in the shards of water pots found on the path to the royal tombs, and in a delivery area known as the ‘zir’ just outside the village, where each family appears to have had its own water jar. At Deir el-Medina there is textual evidence for the deliveries, probably at the Ramesseum then via a pathway to the village. Silos and control posts on this path have been identified.

Looking for further links between the sites, Miriam noted that some Amarna Period objects have been found at Deir el-Medina and that the artwork on the tomb walls of both sites shows similarities, for example in the Bes figures. Also of note is that the bread making facilities at Amarna were shared, a more likely scenario if the community already knew each other from their time at Deir el-Medina.

In her second lecture Kathrin returned to the tomb of Ipuy, TT217, in order to focus on the tomb decorations, as changes in such decorations can be related to funerary customs. The long period of occupation of Deir el-Medina is exceptional, and it meant that the workers could build and decorate their own tombs. The allocation of tomb spaces, like that of houses, was dependent on status. The tombs were rock-cut with mudbrick chambers, following a standard pattern of pylon, courtyard and chapel topped by a pyramidion. In some tombs both the chapel and the burial chamber are decorated, and these can provide a great deal of information. For example, the illustrations in the tomb of Sennedjem (TT1) show the funerary landscape and provide family names so that a family tree can be constructed.

Ipuy’s tomb is cut some 20m into the rock in a sequence of undecorated rooms including the burial chamber. However, the chapel is decorated with scenes of laundry, fishing and gardening. Unfortunately, because of the many excavators and researchers involved with the tomb over many years, the pictures have disintegrated, with only fragments left. Norman de Garis Davies produced a reconstruction of the scenes on paper and the current team has produced a virtual reconstruction using the Research Space platform. The team began with an inventory of over 1000 fragments of the paintings, left in a champagne crate in the chapel!

One further point of interest is that there is no shaft within the tomb leading to a substructure, but there is one from the courtyard. This has revealed some unexpected finds including textiles and cartonnage along with more modern objects such as letters and medicine labels. The shaft may have been a failed attempt by Ipuy’s family to create a burial chamber.

Further details of Kathrin’s work can be found at the website https://www.kathrin-gabler.com/index.php/tt217-project.

Daily Ritual Practices

Dr. Muller said there was a lot of evidence at Deir el-Medina but much is also seen at other sites of these daily rituals.  The slide showed a priestess who could also be the lady of the house in a private setting.  There are many such depictions from the 18th and 19th dynasties.  A house from the Armarna period shows praying in an obvious domestic setting.  There is a New Kingdom stela showing a woman in a domestic setting making an offering to a god/goddess who is seated on a pedestal.

There are many spheres of personal religious activity encompassing temple service, praying surrounding disease, family chapels, birth and the desire to have children, burial and just daily life activity.  There are also transitional stages with ancestor cults and mortuary cults and again unborn children, fertility, birth and daily life problems, including illness.  At Deir el-Medina it is possible to combine the different arenas in the settlement and cemeteries which is not usually the case in other sites.  Individuals could visit the cemeteries easily and daily.  Also, there are private chapels in the neighbourhood often seen as sanctuaries.  The large temples were not easily accessible, one of the reasons smaller chapels are often found in these settlements.

Houses

From the finds there is much evidence and information of private observance.  The houses in Deir el-Medina have special features, also found in Amarna, where the houses still exist to some extent.  Inside the houses there are niches set into the walls.  Often in the entrance chamber there are decorated boxes made from dried brick surrounding an empty space.  The boxes are decorated on the outside and have steps leading up to them.  In the main (middle) room there are often niches where objects were placed or placde in in front.  Another feature are false doors or a recess in the wall, a feature often found in tombs.  In the ‘kitchen’ area there are niches and depictions of the Snake Goddess, venerated as a harvest goddess.  There are also several busts and stelae.  The busts are without inscriptions, but with different hair styles, both male and female, making it more likely they are ancestors not Gods.  There is even text to an ancestor member.  All the supporting objects, offering tables, high stands, bowls for offerings or incense are present.  In Deir el-Medina there is evidence of the practice of libating from a vessel.

Different Qualities of Expression

There are objects of very high quality and a variety of expressions.  Some well carved with text and other much rougher examples.  The same is true of female figurines, called in the past ‘brides of the dead’.  They have been found in tombs but the finds in dire l-Medina change this narrative and show examples in a domestic setting. Not everyone could hold an expensive live sacrifice and there are depictions of offerings eg cattle blackened by the fire.

Extra Urban Sacrifices

Outside of the Deir el-Medina on the way to the Valley of the Queens there are chapels carved into the rock, one showing a depiction like a snake.  There is also ancient graffiti where people have put their names.  Found as well is a depiction of the God for Craftsmen.  We now know that some individuals owned fields nearby and near Deir el-Medina there is a panel form the 19th Dynasty showing the harvest, again connected to the Snake Goddess.

Processional Routes

There was an entire calendar of festivals, national and local, as shown in the Mut Temple in Karnak.  In a tomb in Deir el-Medina a panel shows people entering the first courtyard of the temple.  There is an entire festival route portrayed from one temple to another.  The Opet festival in Thebes was of particular importance and the route from Karnak to Luxor via the Sphinx Way was lined with people enjoying entertainment, food and drink.   A more local festival was the Beautiful Festival of the Valley.  The route ran from Thebes from the east bank to the west via the Nile.  This festival was to celebrate family and friends and remember the lives of ancestors.

A festival celebrating Ammenhotep I (believed to be the founder of Deir el-Medina) took place, during which requests were made regarding property.  There was a Kembet (the local law court) and people would request oracles during this festival to resolve issues say regarding allegations of theft.

Rituals of Remembrance During Festivals

Chambers from the 18th and 19th Dynasties have lots of depictions of ‘banquets’ where the deceased are integrated within a group of living family members and the event is portrayed as a joyous celebration, ‘Dining with the Dead’.  There is music, food, drink and there are communication practices during banquets.  There is water mixed with lotus to induce a drugged state and a great deal of wine is drunk to transition to communicate with the dead.  There are texts showing dreams with the dead.

Closing Rituals.

Breaking rituals take place, evidenced by the broken red pots found in a Theban tomb.  Vessels used during the meals above are broken and it is thought this may be to close the ritual.  There are also broken figurines found in Dier el Medina and other sites. Another possible closing ritual is the application of different colours on different houses.

Overall,  there is a great deal of evidence of religious rituals and practices on a personal level at the site.

The subject of Stephen’s talk today concerned the first known mummification workshop ever found. It was discovered in 2016 near the Step Pyramid at Saqqara and provides evidence for a global trade network stretching from North Africa to Southeast Asia by c.600 BCE. Stephen began with a brief overview of the long history and the process of mummification, but his focus was on the materials used. He began by referring to Herodotus likening the process to the preserving of fish because of the use of natron both as a dry salt and in a salt solution. Stephen noted that the canopic chest of Queen Heteperes contained the viscera in a salt solution. The key ingredients in the preservation process were natron and the various embalming resins; without the use of resins, oils and spices, the drying effect of the natron would be reversed and the body would decompose.

The workshop was an important find, as it gave the first indication of where the embalming process was carried out. Above ground there was a ramp, the ibu, with an embalming room underground, the wabet. The workshop was so well-designed that attention had even been given to matters of health and safety: the area where the resins were heated up was sited well away from where the flammable oils were stored. The evisceration part of the process was carried out on a raised stone table with a channel running through it to collect the fluids.  Nearby there were pots containing burning incense to deter flies.

Stephen explained that as an archaeologist/chemist he takes an analytical approach to the finds, to maximise the information that can be obtained, by looking for changes in the chemistry of the embalming materials. Many vessels found in the embalming room were labelled so this gave him the opportunity to test some previously held assumptions, for example, that myrrh was used in embalming. Some vessels were labelled antyw, a mixture of animal fat, cedar and juniper, and others were labelled sefet, animal fat, juniper and cypress. Other resins found were dammar and pomegranate resin. Stephen noted that the meaning of words changes through time so at one point antyw may have meant ‘myrrh’.

So where did these resins come from? They were not found in Egypt. Their origins are in North Africa, the Near East, South Asia and around Europe. The only source of dammar, for example, is South East Asia. This indicates that trade networks between Egypt and the wider world existed much earlier than was previously thought. The vessels at Saqqara contained the same ingredients as those found in the 22nd Dynasty mummy of Neskhons: conifer, balsam and dammar. Stephen has identified the presence of myrrh in a mummified cat but noted that it doesn’t work when mixed with animal fat, although it does work as a packing material, helping the body to keep its shape and having antibacterial and antifungal properties. Mummified crocodiles from the Late Period have been found to contain animal fat, conifer resin and sandarac, the latter being used on the outside the mummified remains. Pistachio resin was found in a Ptolemaic mummy at Saqqara, significant in that its source could have been to the East as a result of Alexander the Great’s conquests.

This discovery, the first ever mummification workshop to be found, gives us an insight into the skills of the embalmers as well as indicating, via the ingredients sourced from all over the known world, a message of ‘look how big my world is’. However, as Stephen pointed out, there is still a great deal that we do not know about the practice of mummification.

Jean Barnett

Penny Wilson gave three short talks at the March meeting of the NEAE society at the Oriental Museum and online  via Zoom. The topics coved were:

1.       50 Shades of Orange – pottery discoveries at Penny’s team digs at Sais

2.       There was Gold – Akhenaten in Nubia

3.       Isis and the Seven Scorpions

1.       50 Shades of Orange

In the first of Penny’s talks she outlined the work undertaken at the site of Sais from 2000 to 2019.

Sais is located in the north western part of the Delta and was an important administrative centre from ancient times.  It was even the capital of Egypt briefly in the 8th century.  The period covered in today’s talk mainly concentrated on  the Late Ramesside and early part of the Third Intermediate periods.  Sais or Sa el-Hager consists of a village today but evidence of the ancient settlement is seen from the large stone blocks which scatter around the site.  In the 19th century there was also a large tell or mound which marked the location of the ancient settlement.

The area Penny and her team have worked on for the better part of 20 years has focussed on a rectangular area which marked the boundary of a large enclosure.  Penny admitted that even after all this time she is still not certain what this area was.  It could have been possibly a temple or palace or even barracks.  Archaeological evidence hasn’t, so far been clear.  What has come to light, however, has been a huge amount of pottery shards and the footprint of an early building covered over by a substantial wall and later building.  Interestingly the pottery shards seem to have been deliberately laid in a thick layer and then built over.  It could even be that some form of feast took place after levelling of the initial building as evidence of broken plates with the remains of items such as fish and wine vessels have been found.  Construction of a substantial wall and new building on the remains of the older structure appears to have been undertaken shortly after levelling of the older structure.  Similar pottery and items have been found in both layers of the different structures.     

Shards have been analysed and a large variety of pots of various sizes and functions have been unearthed.  Vessels from the immediate locality and from the Lavant have been discovered.  Items found included large amphora, beer and food containers, unguent vessels and broken amulets and figurines. The items appeared to have been broken deliberately, some with the stones used to smash them up, located nearby.  An interesting feature of the locally manufactured items was a distinctive decorative coating applied to the outer surface of the vessel.  This consisted of a slip applied following manufacture of the vessels and decorated with stripes.  It is unclear if this feature served some practical purpose or was simply a form of local decoration.    What is clear is the pottery items came in a wide variety of different shades of orange.  Details of the different types of pottery has been carefully catalogued by the team which will hopefully help in future analysis and interpretation of the site.  Items other than pottery found at the site include shards of flint, possibly used as tools for cutting food etc, small amounts of faience and beads plus a small amount of gold.  As the more valuable items were located close together it may be possible that  they formed some form of foundation offering  for the new building. 

As work on the site draws to an end after 20 years of excavation the question of what to do with the vast amount of pottery and discoveries looms.  Careful evaluation of the finds and evidence unearthed will hopefully help make sense of what was going on and lead to a greater understanding of what the purpose of this late Ramesside site was. 

2. There was Gold – Akhenaten in Nubia

In Penny’s second talk the Oriental museum’s Akhenaton stela was discussed and its significance in shedding new light on a very different aspect of this Atonist pharaoh.  Fragments of the stela were initially discovered in  1909 which  were removed to Pennsylvania. More fragments were discovered in a later dig in 1962 during an Egypt Exploration Society dig.  These fragments were found under a temple pillar during a recue dig at the fort of Buhen, which is located in Nubia to the south of the Egyptian border.    The site was later lost due to the rising waters of the Aswan dam project.  It was recognised quite quickly that the fragments were related to those in Pennsylvania.  In addition, a similar stela – or rather fragments of – were discovered in Amada.  The Buhan  fragments were initially with the British Museum but later came into the possession of Durham’s Oriental Museum.  Unfortunately, none of the different fragments told a complete story.  However, collaboration between the different owners allowed a more complete story to emerge. Due to the very delicate nature of the sandstone fragments analysis was only possible using photographs of the individual pieces.  Friends of the Oriental Museum eventually  sponsored the mounting of the Durham fragments, and they are now on display in the museum  with details of the story the stela tells. 

The popular image of Akhenaton is that of a religious revolutionary living in his newly created capital of Amarna with little interest in the wider world.  However, the story the Akhenaton stela tells is somewhat different.  It appears that not all local tribes in the Nubia region supported Egyptian interests and some  threatened the supply of gold.  Akhenaton took exception to this as Nubia  was an important source of gold and Egypt had an insatiable appetite for the ancient super commodity.  The stela tells that in the 12th year of Akhenaton’s rule, working through the son of a client king, the king of Kush  ,  a military expedition was undertaken near the site of the gold mines against the troublesome local people including members of the Ikayta tribe.  The result was little short of a massacre.  The stella identifies that in total 361 individuals were either taken captive, killed or impaled.  Some details have been lost but the picture given is that Akhenaton took his gold supplies very seriously and that even into the later stages of his rule he was actively involved in military actions beyond the borders of Egypt.  There is also evidence from wine labels and other artifacts  that Akhenaton took considerable trouble to support officials of his client kingdoms in this strategically  significant part of the world.   

The question Penny left us with was what happened to all this gold? Clearly there was a plentiful supply of this precious metal throughout the 17 years of Akhenaton’s rule ( which may have been preceded by a period of regency with his father Amenhotep III).  None was found in the abandoned capital of Amarna. We were left with an image of the magnificent golden coffin of Akhenaton’s son Tutankhamun.  Is it possible that all, or some, of this gold was used for funerary equipment for the pharaoh? If so, then just who was the intended pharaoh? Could it possibly have  been initially intended for the father and not as we think his famous son Tutankhamun? 

3        Isis and the Seven Scorpions

The third and final talk given by Penny featured another item in the possession of the Oriental Museum, a rather intriguing and somewhat unique bronze  head of Isis.  Unique because it contains on the back an inscription outlining the legend of Isis and the seven scorpions.  It just so happens that an image of Isis being followed by the seven scorpions was seen by Penny as a child which fired her imagination.  The inscription is in two vertical columns which read right to left.  The item can be dated to either  the late period or early Ptolemaic due to the elaborate wig design. 

Among other things Isis was associated with protection from scorpions and snakes and prayers would be offered up to her.  The Durham’s bronze head was possibly such an item intended to provide protection to the owner.   There is a  legend that underpins all this.   After Isis was expelled by Seth following the murder of Osiris she went north to the Delta.  She was accompanied by seven scorpions who gave her protection. During her travels Isis was refused protection from a wealthy lady living in the Delta.  The scorpions took exception to this and combined their venom into the sting of one of their number.  This super-scorpion then stung the child of this uncooperative lady.  The resulting pain suffered by her child was such that the lady begged for Isis’ forgiveness and help in saving the life of her child.  Isis duly did this, and hospitality was then offered to Isis and presumably her seven scorpions.  This myth therefore cemented the protective aspects of Isis in the minds of  the Ancient Egyptians. 

There are other sources of this story, but not on a figurine.  One source is a recently transcribed papyrus which has been published by the British Museum.  The script outlines the seven scorpions’ myth.  However,  the Durham bronze remains  the only figurine known to Penny that includes an inscription of the seven scorpions’ spell. 

Paul Newby

In January Rose Malik gave a rather fascinating talk to members of the NEAE society about smells and their  overlooked potential  and possible significance in  archaeology.  Rose outlined her ongoing research into the detection and analysis of archaeological smells, including work undertaken on some of the mummies and artefacts from the Oriental Museum collection. 

Smell is one of the five senses which tends to be somewhat overshadowed in its’s significance.  However, smell is linked to memory and works by stimulation of olfactory receptors in the nose which trigger the limbic system in the brain.  Smells can create very powerful and long lasting memories which can be incredibly evocative and able to conjure up long forgotten memories because of this neurological connection.  Rose pointed out that humans tend to be at the bottom of the list in the animal kingdom when it comes to the number of olfactory receptors.  Humans typically have around 400 receptors compared to dogs which have double this and the African elephant comes top with around 2000.  However, these 400 receptors enable humans to detect around 10,000 odours, which is rather impressive, especially given the lowly regard we tend to give to the sense of smell overall. It’s rather mind boggling to consider what an elephant must experience when it comes to olfactory stimulation. No wonder they have such long noses!

Scientific analysis of smells started in earnest back in the nineteenth century. An early pioneer was Hendrik Zwaardemaker who developed an olfactometer that attempted to identify ‘smell notes’.  However, the topic of olfactory analysis remained pretty subjective until advances in analytical chemistry in the 1980’s and 90’s. The work of scientists like Buch and Axel focused on the scientific analysis of smells or rather olfactotheory. 

The technique Rose uses to analyse different archaeological material is called Gas Chromatography, Mass Spectrometry or GCMS.  This is a very powerful analytical technique used to separate and identify the chemical components of sample mixtures.  The technique is widely used today in pharmaceutical analysis, product  quality control and safety analysis but not in archaeology.  Rose hopes her work will change all this.  In particular, Rose utilises head space GCMS which enables her to analyse solid materials such as mummy wrappings and the residues from ancient storage jars and vessels. A sample is placed into a vial containing a chemical extractant.  Volatile molecules are then released into the headspace of the vial which can then be passed through the GCMS for detailed analysis.   This technique provides chemical signatures of different materials, very much like a molecular fingerprint.  GCMS Data shown as profiles outline the constituent ingredients in complex materials and produce molecular profiles.  These profiles can be used not only to identify what something is made up of, but also how much.  They can also be used to compare similarities – or differences – between different materials.  In this way Rose hopes this sort of information can lead to the cataloguing of smells from different epochs to, for example, identify something belonging to a particular dynasty or period in ancient history. Such detailed information could also possibly help identify the development of trade routes or the evolution of technological developments. All very exciting and very complementary to other types of archaeological information.

Smells were of enormous significance to the Ancient Egyptians.  Some perfumes were more expensive than gold.  Gods such as Chesmu (perfume production), Horus (associated with incense) and Re (associated with myrrh) were linked to smells.  In fact, it was believed that incense was the sweat or tears of the gods and as such had spiritual significance.  Sweet smells were associated with Maat so reflected the creation of order.  Foul smells were associated with Isfet and represented disorder and chaos.  Not surprising then to commonly find items such as incense burners and perfume bottles in Ancient Egyptian tombs. 

Rose outlined some of the work she is undertaking on items from the Oriental museum collection.  Mummy wrappings from the Unknown Lady from the Ptolemaic period and the child from the Roman period showed some similarities but also some differences in their chemical composition.  Which raises interesting questions about how the process of mummification developed over different epochs.  An 18th dynasty , 1485 BCE  perfume vessel from the time of Hatshepsut was opened by Rose and staff at the museum (for the first time ever!) and residue found inside analysed using GCMS.  Amazingly, material still remained and analysis was able to show key ingredients including camphor, heptane, heptanone and nonane.  Some of these substances are degradation products of oil of myrrh.  So by reverse engineering the chemical profile in an ancient residue it can be possible to identify how the original perfume was made.  Also rather intriguingly how it would have originally smelt.  Amazing considering the age of the material remaining in the vessel. 

In conclusion Rose outlined the way in which she hopes her work can help augment more standard archaeological information and how olfactory analysis may help provide additional information for a  more 360 degree picture of an  artifact and the wider cultural landscape it came from.  What is evident from Roses talk is the huge potential her work has across the archaeological spectrum from  academic research to the general public visiting museums and experiencing items in a completely different way.   So it appears that archelogy really does smell but it’s  proving to be a rather interesting and promising  aroma to be sure. 

Paul Newby

Martin holds a post-doctoral fellowship at Newcastle University, working on a project ‘EgypToolWear’, analysing Ancient Egyptian metal tools. His talk today focused on the importance of copper. He began by reminding us of the section of the Teaching of Khety (The Satire of the Trades) that refers to the fingers of the coppersmith smelling of fish roe- metallurgy can be a smelly business!

Why do we need to understand copper? It is not as precious as gold, or as common as pottery. It is, however, the most frequently used metal and, like all metals, carries information in its chemical and physical properties. It can therefore lead us to a better understanding of ancient technology and crafts.

Copper is a malleable metal with atomic number 29 on the Periodic Table, where it is grouped with silver and gold. It derives from the ore malachite. However, the ancient Egyptians had no concept of what a metal was. Some substances, including copper, were described as bjA meaning ‘wonderful thing’, or A.t, a category that included gemstones and minerals. Their categories of thinking were not the same as ours. However, like us, they needed a metric in order to make their economy work. Unlike us, theirs was not a monetary economy, but they were gradually learning how to administer their society and this included the production of metals. The copper deben, weighing around 27 to 30g, existed in Egypt since the Early Dynastic period.

Martin described the chaîne opératoire of copper production, that is, mining, transportation, storage, processing, and the resulting artefacts. Evidence of storage comes from Mirgissa, where the fortress had an ‘overseer of the house of counting of copper’. Buhen also had a treasury for the storage of metal. The earliest use of the deben sign comes from Buto and dates to Dynasty 2. Processing of pure copper was carried out at Ayn Sokhna during the Middle Kingdom and of alloys of copper at Giza and Elephantine during the Old Kingdom. These alloys used arsenical copper, whereas a First Intermediate burial of a metalworker at Badari has shown traces of copper alloyed with iron. When compared with tin bronze materials, the hardness of arsenical copper is similar. The use of arsenic decreases through time, as tin bronze increases

Copper was used in elongated blades as early as the 5th Dynasty, not in the First Intermediate period as previously thought, and examples have been found in the mortuary temple of Pepy II and tombs at Deshasha. Narrow axe blades were found in the tomb of Khaemwaset in the Ramesside Period.

Martin’s interim conclusions from his research are that more work is needed to establish the initial process of extracting copper; that the use of deben weights to measure storage needs clarification; and that the chronology and typology of copper artefacts needs to be amended.

During his talk Martin also mentioned some publications on the subject of metallurgy. His own book, Copper in Ancient Egypt, 4000-1600 BC, published by Brill, is available online at https://brill.com/display/title/59802?language=en.

Jean Barnett