Excavation Fund
In 2008 the Society advertised for the first applications from its new Excavation Fund, which had been created by the generous donations of EES members. Preference was be given to projects which fell within the Society’s current Research Strategy particularly those which brought novel approaches to clearly-defined research questions, and which demonstrate advance consideration of possible outputs. Four projects will receive funding from the Excavation Fund in 2008-09: Survey of Sesebi in the Sudan (directed by Kate Spence), Conservation and restoration of paintings in the temple of Tutu at Ismant el-Kharab (Olaf Kaper), Survey at Tell Basta in the Nile Delta (Daniela Rosenow) and The Panehsy Church Project at Amarna (Gillian Pyke). Details of the 2009 Excavation Fund Awards can be downloaded here.
Sesebi
The town site of Sesebi in the Sudan was excavated in 1936–38 by the Egypt Exploration Society and is now the focus of a project directed by Dr Kate Spence and Dr Pamela Rose of the University of Cambridge. A preliminary season (funded by a British Academy Small Research Grant) took place in January 2008 and was followed by a season of survey and trial excavation in 2009. The project aims to investigate the purpose of the site and its relationship to its landscape setting, to examine the long-term history of the site and to explore the nature of Egyptian colonialism in Nubia by looking at the identity and lifestyles of the inhabitants of the town as well as the town itself. A close comparison between the architecture and material culture of Sesebi as a colonial town and the contemporary royal centre at Amarna is also planned. The site is threatened by the construction of a new dam at Dal and by the piped water which has already reached the village next to the site.
A grant from the Society’s Excavation Fund supported topographical and geological survey at the site in 2009. Freelance surveyor and illustrator Pieter Collet produced a topographical survey of the town site and its environs. This allows a more thorough assessment of the relationship of the town to the landscape. The town is built just south of a small wadi which seems to have furnished the sandstone used in construction of the town gates and temples. It was built on a naturally sloping site but a substantial amount of leveling seems to have taken place around the time that the main enclosure wall was constructed. Water from the annual summer rains has scoured the site and has destroyed much of the eastern part of the town, in places washing away even the thick enclosure wall.
Geologists Judith Bunbury and Graham Smith also joined the team thanks to the Excavation Fund grant. They created a geological map of the region and examined the hypothesis put forward following our 2008 visit to Sesebi that the site was closely associated with the extraction and processing of gold. In January 2008 evidence was found of probable gold processing at the site in the form of striated hard-stone saddle-querns (similar to those found in Eighteenth Dynasty gold-mining contexts in the Egyptian Eastern Desert) and large quantities of crushed quartz on some parts of the site. Areas of pitting north of the town site and around the base of Jebel Egri suggest the extraction of quartz pebbles from wadi deposits washed down from the mountainous region at the north end of the Delgo bend which were then processed within the town site. Although the geological conditions suggest the possible presence of gold, we have taken samples which will be tested to confirm this hypothesis when they arrive in the UK.
An illustrated account of the work will be published in EA 35 (Autumn 2009).
Ismant el-Kharab
Excavations have been conducted from 1991 to 2004 by Dr. Colin Hope (University of Melbourne) at the temple of the Egyptian god Tutu in Ismant el-Kharab, as part of the Dakhleh Oasis Project, initiated by Dr A J Mills. In 2009, the EES Excavation Fund will be supporting a project, directed by Dr Olaf Kaper (University of Leiden) to conserve and restore unique Roman period paintings from the mammisi or birth house of this temple. The mammisi was a vaulted mudbrick room which had been entirely decorated with wall paintings in the early second century AD. The decoration has been preserved nearly to its full extent, either in situ on the remaining walls or in the form of detached fragments preserved among the collapsed vault. The decoration is important because it combines upon the same walls both Roman wall paintings and Egyptian style temple decoration in equal measure, both carried out in the best traditions of their respective types. All painted plaster is kept in workrooms on the site until fully conserved. A publication of the monument in line drawings and photographs is aimed to be finished in the near future. For this purpose, a full digital photographic coverage of the fragments has been completed in 2008, and
diagrams have been prepared of the reconstructed pharaonic decoration.
In the 2009 season the first aim is to develop a suitable method for reconstructions, in which sections of wall paintings will be presented that are built up out of numerous small fra.jpg)
gments. In addition two experienced drawing artists have already been working on the recording of the painted plaster with Egyptian decoration, and they are close to finishing tracing the painted plaster in the field. Inked drawings will be prepared back home for the eventual publication and for creating reconstructed paintings for display. Their work will include a special study of the technical aspects of the paintings, such as the use of gridlines and preparatory sketches, providing information on the ancient artists. As a result of study of the colours of the paintings a reconstruction of the original colouration will become possible on a computer. The coming field season will also see the completion of the reconstruction of the entire decoration of the mammisi. It is expected that work will at first concentrate on finishing the reconstruction for the trial piece to be presented to the SCA at the end of the season.
An article on the work at Ismant el-Kharab will be published in EA 35 (Autumn 2009).
Tell Basta
Edouard Naville, excavated at Tell Basta (Bubastis) on behalf of the Egypt Exploration Fund (now Society) in 1888 but restricted himself to epigraphic documentation of the Great Temple and never carried out any systematic archaeological fieldwork. The Tell Basta-Project is an Egyptian-German Joint Mission between the Supreme Council of Antiquities (Egypt) and the University of Potsdam (Germany), directed by Dr Eva Lange, and the EES agreed to support an application from a team member, Dr Daniela Rosenow (University of Potsdam), for a geomagnetic survey and drill-augering work at the site in 2009. A report by Dr Rosenow on the Project's earlier work at the site was published in Egyptian Archaeology 32 and can be downloaded here.
The site of Tell Basta is one of the few sites in the Delta where monumental superstructure can be investigated with temple remains dating back to the Third Intermediate and Late Periods. During recent years, the Project has prioritised the documentation, conservation and reconstruction of the architectural and decorated remains of the Great Temple of Bastet. It now intends to extend excavations into the areas south, east and north of the temple – an area that has not previously been the subject of systematic excavations or survey – to situate the temple in context.
The project thus seeks to clarify aspects of the urban layout, the spatial context for the temple and the geomorphology of the site. A gradiometry survey and augering should clarify the extent and layout of the urban topography of Bubastis. Due to the special condition of the site – no electricity pylons in the vicinity and no fired brick, metal or rubbish on surface – Tell Basta has all the potential to yield clear geophysical survey results.
The Panehsy Church Project
The Panehsy Church Project, directed by Dr Gillian Pyke, has to date focused on the nature and significance of the conversion of the tomb of Panehsy, one of the largest of the North tombs at Amarna, into a church. The 2007 recording of its architecture and decorative schemes, supported by the Wainwright Fund, established its place within the religious landscape of Coptic Amarna, and the wider context of the expression of Christian belief (LINK to EA article PDF). The project has since expanded to investigate the place of the church in the physical context of its immediate environment, the first stage of which was undertaken in 2008, funded by an Egypt Exploration Society Centenary Award and the EES has agreed to part-fund a further season of work in 2009. This will build on the results of the 2008 season, its chief objective being a total station survey of the dwellings around the North tombs, in order to make detailed plans. Consultation with mapping specialists indicates that, because of the topographical constraints of the presence of both interior and exterior spaces and considerable cliff overhangs, a total station survey (rather than a GPS survey) is appropriate. GPS points will be taken at each dwelling so that it can be added to the GPS topographical survey of this area that has already been completed by Helen Fenwick of Hull University. The dwellings located to the south of the North tombs will be mapped in the same way, alongside a walking survey focussing on the topographical setting, organisation, construction and surface ceramics, supported by slide and digital photographic documentation.The second component of the project is the detailed analysis, through a series of carefully targeted surface collections, of the ceramic material associated with all the dwellings, and its comparison with the pottery from the 2008 excavation of the mud brick structure adjacent to the church. The definition of the plan and architectural elements of the mud brick structure through further excavation will contribute to the investigation of whether it should be considered as relating to the church or to the settlement, from which it is distinguished by its construction. This consideration has important implications for the nature of the settlement and its organisation, seemingly composed of a dispersed but related group of boulder-built dwellings, with two brick-built structures located close to the church, the latter possibly having specific non-domestic purposes.
The Panehsy Church Project forms part of the work of the Amarna Trust.