KMT 6:4, Winter 1995-1996 © KMT Communications
The North Sinai Archaeological Project, directed and co-ordinated by Faiyza Haikal, has been very busy this fall, constructing a center to teach archaeology and to provide a place for foreign scholars to conduct research in the area. Salvage work is continuing at Peluseum, Tell el Habua and Tell el Heir, with new excavations being inaugurated at Tell Abu Seifi near the Suez canal, and at Tell el Mekhzen near Peluseum. Tell el Habua, an area which includes several tells, continues to reveal Hyksos and New Kingdom artifacts, including horse bones. A consolidated effort is being made to preserve the more striking architectural finds, and all kinds of new techniques are being tested for this, both in the lab and in the field.
Dominique Valbelle and the Franco-Egyptian Mission at Tell el Heir are working with other pottery specialists in order to create a catalogue and typology of pottery for the Sinai. The most exciting new finds come from Tell Abu Seifi, an entire Late Period city containing a fortress (continuing into the Roman period), the quay of an ancient port, a residential area and possibly commercial areas, and a cemetery. Once excavated this unique site will provide a great deal of very revealing information concerning urban life in Late Period Egypt. The whole area of the North Sinai that is being excavated is revealing a series of fortresses along the roads leading in and out of Egypt, which protected trade routes and the frontier generally.
Steven Snape and his team have been working this fall at Zawiyet Umm el Rakham, a site twenty-five kilometers west of Merseh Matrouh. Located on the site first explored by Labib Habachi in the 1950s is a fort of Rameses II with temple and chapel areas, perhaps just one such installation in a string of fortresses which stretched across the north coast of Egypt. This season the team endured the hardship of working a trifle inland from the beach, but, despite the vicissitudes of their lifestyle, they managed to do considerable clearing of the fort s temple and chapels. Initially Snape concentrated on the general plan of the fort, which is constructed of very soft local limestone and is melting in the rains that are endemic to the area, making the team s work all the more important.
Snape s team has discovered a very nice drainage-system in the fort, which is indicative of a high level of rainfall in the area in antiquity. They have also found a few inscribed doorjambs, which mention wells. The presence of wells may be why the fort was built on this site: as protection for the water source.
Clearing the chapels area in the southern part of their concession, the team this fall found several magazines containing foreign pottery, such as stirrup jars of Cypriot or Cretan origin. One of these vessels was inscribed on the handle in an odd Mediterranean dialect. The jars probably originally contained olive oil, one of the major trade-items of the period. This fall s excavations also revealed Canaanite amphorae and Syrian and Egyptian wine jars, revealing that occupants of the fort had the means to make merry. Six small feeder-cups were also found during the course of the season.
This Ramesside fort and its contents firmly establish trade links between Egypt and other Mediterranean/Aegean countries of the period. This is perhaps just one such site in a series to yet be discovered that will provide more understanding of the interaction between Egypt and its neighbors in the late-New Kingdom.
At Marina el Alamein, primarily known for its fine Hellenistic cemetery, attention has turned from the dead to the (once) living. A Polish team has been working on preserving and conserving a house from the Hellenistic period that was excavated originally by a team from the Supreme Council for Antiquities. The stone structure has walls rising up to 1.5 meters high and has seven clearly defined rooms. The site had just recently been opened to the public and provides wonderful insight into the domestic life of the Hellenistic period in Egypt.
A French team s underwater efforts off shore at Alexandria, near the site of the ancient Pharos Lighthouse (one of the Seven Wonders of the World ) have resulted in the recovery of several statue fragments, the most notable being the torso of a woman carved in granite. Other identifiable pieces include the base of an Isis statue, sphinx fragments and an Osiride figure. Portions of the Pharos itself have been tentatively identified, and also may be raised in time.
Another Polish team, led by Karol Mysliwiec, has been working at the Hellenistic/Roman town of Tell Athribis, which has a concentration of terra-cotta workshops that produced figurines in late-antiquity, many examples of which have been recovered by the Poles. These small sculptures include representations of both animals and humans, as well as an erotic series featuring especially well-endowed men, a type commonly found in the Hellenistic period.
Dina Faltings has been conducting a study-season at Buto this fall, doing drawings of pottery and small finds. Similarly, Manfred Bietak s team at Tell el Dab a has been engaged in a study-season, copying fresco fragments and drawing pottery. Likewise at Memphis, Janine Bourriau of the Egypt Exploration Society project has been hard at work on pottery analysis and documentation. And the Anubeion s large supply of ceramics at Sakkara has seen the assiduous attention this fall of Peter Finch.
Wlodzimierz Godlewski and Ewa Parandowska have started another season of work at Naqlam in the Faiyum. The site is tripartite, with work being divided between the Kom, the Gebel and the Monastery of Archangel Gabriel. Some very interesting Coptic, Greek and Arabic papyri have been recovered at Naqlam in the past, and there is more hope for same during the present season.
At the Egyptian Museum in Cairo a new re-installation of the tomb treasures of Yuya and Thuyu has been opened in the vicinity of the new Royal-Mummies Room, with some hitherto undisplayed items such as Yuya s funerary papyrus being brought out of storage for the exhibition. Also at the Museum, work progresses on the second Royal-Mummies Room, and the previously inaccessible garden-areas around the Museum building are being readied to open to the public.
Although the annual EES mission to El Amarna was cancelled this past summer, due to security problems in Middle Egypt, members of the team have been working on related projects in Cairo. Theo Gayer-Anderson continues sculpting the wall of talatat blocks he started last spring. This wall shows Akhenaten bestowing largess from a Window of Appearances, and the finished work will be displayed in the visitors center planned for El Amarna. Also in Cairo, Wendy Smith an archaeobotanist who has been working on Romano-Byzantine materials recovered at El Amarna is busy researching spices, such as cumin, dill and coriander, among others. The specific area at El Amarna where her material was found also had a series of amphorae that contained acacia pods and other plant materials, which were used in antiquity for dyeing, so Smith hopes to conduct some dyeing experiments, as well, during her stay in Cairo.
The University of Arizona Amenmesse Project (KV10), under the direction of Otto Schaden, had an exciting summer season, despite some major hiccups at the outset, including lost luggage and stolen credit cards. Room D, chamber E and an unfinished side-chamber (Fa) of the Valley of the Kings site were cleared. A soot layer was found in room C and continued through rooms D and E. Significantly, modern debris does not occur below this soot layer, so anything found beneath it should have been deposited in antiquity, according to Schaden.
This past summer s investigation of KV10 showed that chamber E did not contain a well, as had previously been suspected, thus the tomb fits into the pattern of late-Nineteenth Dynasty tombs, which were not provided with the well feature. The major find of the season was a fragment of a red-granite sarcophagus lid inscribed for Takhat, presumably the same Takhat whose now-vanished image was once depicted on the walls of room E, and whose canopic-fragments were found on the floor of chamber H. Fragments belonging to funerary figurines of Seti I were also recovered this summer, but Schaden believes these were washed into the tomb during flooding of the Valley of the Kings in antiquity.
Kent Weeks renewed his investigation/excavation of KV5 in October. There were murmurs in Luxor at this writing that he had, as predicted, found a new subterranean corridor, which leads back toward the tomb s entrance. This will presumably be confirmed as his fall season progresses.
The team from Chicago House has arrived in Luxor to begin the Epigraphic Survey s six-month 1995-1996 field season, with long-term head artist Raymond Johnson now in the newly appointed capacity of assistant director. The ES will resume its on-going recording in the small Eighteenth Dynasty temple at Medinet Habu.
Epigraphers John and Deborah Darnell of the Survey are continuing their work on the ancient roadways which connected Thebes to other sites throughout the Nile Valley and beyond. Their last season was highlighted by frightening off a band of antiquities thieves whom the Darnells encountered removing ancient graffiti along a road they were studying. As did the ancient Egyptians in their Wisdom Literature, John and Deborah recommend carrying a large stick as protection against thieves whenever making a journey. The various graffiti that the Darnells have found include Proto-Sinaitic texts, along with the more usual hieroglyphic and hieratic ones.
The joint Polish-French Epigraphic Mission, led by Janusz Karkowski, is now in mid-season at the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el Bahari. They are concentrating on the Hathor shrine and hope their investigations will reveal more about the temple s history.
Douglas and Cheryl Haldane, of the Institute for Nautical Archaeology in Egypt (INA-Egypt), have determined that the Sadana Island (Red Sea) shipwreck they have been investigating is, in fact, a Seventeenth Century A.D. vessel carrying a huge concentration of china and other pottery. Among the objects brought up by the INA-Egypt divers are nearly 300 different porcelain artifacts. The ceramic cargo of this particular wreck is unique, in that is was intended for the Islamic market and contains several types of dishes, bowls, pipes, transport amphorae and kullahs (drinking vessels). In addition to the porcelain from China, the ship also carried coffee from Yemen, thus clarifying its route.
Although the Sadana Island shipwreck is not pharaonic, the fact that so much material was recoverable from the Red Sea suggests to the Haldanes that, in time, a sunken pharaonic vessel will be located by them. Certainly the work of the INA-Egypt brings up interesting and tantalizing questions concerning trade routes that could have been used by the ancient Egyptians