Amarna, looking at flints, playing with dogs!

I know loads of you will disagree but I find the whole business of the royal family at Amarna, who succeeded whom, etc., a bit dull. I'm not really interested in who Smenkhkare was, or Nefertiti. What I do find interesting is the fact that this site is really good to study New Kingdom Egypt more generally. It has a relatively short chronology, so not so much intrusion from earlier or later periods than on many other sites. Also it's a big site with several different social/technological areas so it gives some idea on how ancient Egyptian society and technological changes worked. And, of course, lots of settlement type artefacts as opposed to purely funerary ones.

What's this leading too? I am interested in lithics, so have felt very privileged to be allowed to study the lithics at Amarna. In 2009 I looked at the material from Panehsy's Great Aten Temple House (associated with cattle butchery). There is a brief report here (see page 7). Then, a couple of weeks ago I went to look at material from other areas of Amarna. Many, many thanks to the Middle Egypt inspectorate of the Ministry of Antiquities, especially Inspector Marwa Ahmed Osman, and also to the Amarna Project directed by Barry Kemp

I arrived in Cairo at the end of September. A small team of us traveled from Cairo to the Amarna dig house. For those of you who are used to digging in the UK, the dig house at Amarna is very civilised with showers and proper rooms with beds (no camping in a field). We even had fans to keep us cool. And, it also looks very pretty. Here it is. There is a police HQ right outside to keep us all safe and a couple of lookout towers.

On the 1st of October the magazines were opened under the watchful eye of the Inspector. How this was done was a bit like an ancient Egyptian ritual. The brick blocking to the magazine was knocked down with hammer and chisel, etc. Then the lead seal on the door was checked by the Inspector Marwa Ahmed Osman. Here she is checking the seal to make sure it wasn't broken. Yes, a lady Inspector (well I liked that).

The artefacts we were all working on were taken into the dig house. Chris Stimpson from Oxford was making a study of bird bones. Gretchen Dabbs from the Southern Illionois University was looking at human bones from the North Cemetery. And, William Schaffer, from the same University, was looking at teeth and how very small variations in them could be used to study ancestry. All much more exciting, in my opinion, than the identity of Smenkhkare. 

And here is my work station. The flies were more annoying than the heat! I have yet to write up a proper report so wont tell you about that in detail now. However, it can be said that as one would expect in a late Bronze Age culture, the lithics were largely expedient tools. That is, most weren't deliberately made to a particular shape. Rather, they consisted of flakes and blades which would be selected and used as and when needed. This would be a very efficient way to use the material. A freshly knapped flint flake would be much sharper than a metal knife. There were one or two, what one might call 'formal' tools, mainly sickles and round scrapers. Several different types of flint was used.

And back to life in the dig house. We were fed and the site generally looked after by the Amarna Project's Egyptian team. The cook is excellent! 4 cats help keep the rodent population down. Here is one eating a hoopoe bird (a snake was eaten the day before). Bit sad about the bird as there had previously been two hoopoes.

Outside the dig house, on the way to the toilet block, we would often encounter the dogs. Most of the dogs around Amarna are semi-feral and bark and growl. They have grown used to people throwing stones at them. However, two dogs were really, really friendly. I really wish I could have 'rescued' them and brought them home. They were mother and daughter. The daughter wanted to play and would cling onto your clothes when you went back to the dig house. Here they are. The photograph was taken in the morning. The mother is on the left.

Bits and bobs from Amarna - excavating in the stores

Following from last Saturday's visit by Carl Graves from the Egypt Exploration Society (EES), I have been having a quick look at the material he has put up on flickr, archive cards from the EES. And, guess what, I have found one or two bits and bobs that we have in our collection which are from Amarna. Some I didn't even know were from Amarna.

For example: This faience pulley/spool, EC492. If you click on this link, you will see the EES card for it.

And, looking in the 1951 Pendlebury volume (The City of Akhenaten III, Text, page 137) shows that it was believed to have come from an area considered to be the military and police headquarters. The cards show several other pulley like objects, mainly of pottery from Amarna.

Something else I noticed just browsing through the EES cards. Doesn't Bes look Syrian at Amarna?

Faience fish dishes: Cosmetic palettes, tableware, or something else?

Preparing for the joint Amarna handling session with the Egypt Exploration Society which takes place tomorrow. I thought we could have a look at some of my favourite objects from Amarna- the fragments of fish dish. Here is one, W1269: It is part of a faience dish in the shape of a fish, glazed inside and out with the fins acting as handles. It's very much like the stone and wood examples, of which we have examples in the Egypt Centre, and which are usually considered cosmetic bowls. Some examples are also made of travertine. These fish dishes belong to a wider group which includes trussed gazelles, ducks, etc. Click on the link here for information on the stone and wood fish examples.

We also have other pieces, and the Petrie Museum has several too (e.g. UC473, UC474, UC478, UC23079, UC23081, UC23082, UC23083, UC23084, UC23085).

The ones in the Egypt Centre came to us in 1978, as a donation from the British Museum. We know they are from Amarna as they still bear the excavation numbers which show they came from the state apartments of the Great Palace (Pendlebury 1951, 74).

Previously, Petrie had also found fragments of faience fish dishes, together with faience tiles and shallow dishes in the shape of gourds in the Palace store-rooms (Petrie 1894, 12, 28). Petrie suggested that these were table dishes and that they were gathered together so that the pieces could be reused.

But, can other explanations be plausible?

As stated above, they are very similar to the stone and wood palettes of the 18th Dynasty. The stone and wood examples are usually found in temple and tomb contexts suggesting a ritual function and they are usually said to be cosmetic palettes rather than table dishes. But, I don't know of any studies showing what they actually contained. I would be glad if someone could tell me. Friedman (1998, 223) has also suggested that these faience types could be 'cosmetic palettes'.

The fish dishes also bear a strong resemblance to the late Middle Kingdom to Second Intermediate Period Marl fish dishes found on such sites as Kahun (Petrie 1891), Tell el Dab'a (Bader 2001) and Dashur (Allen 2011). Like the faience fish dish fragments, the marl examples are often found broken in groups, suggesting to Allen, some ritual significance. This is reinforced by the fact that the marl dishes are often, though not exclusively, found in temple and funerary contexts. The Middle Kingdom examples are in the shape of shallow fish and often have a raised rectangular area (unlike the Amarna faience ones).

Incidentally, it has been suggested that the s-'tiles' as identified at Petrie, alongside the shallow dishes were actually the lids of the fish dishes (Müller 1964, Friedman 1998, 223 and 236 notes 68 and 69).

It has also been noted that both the Middle Kingdom Marl dishes and the Amarna faience dishes have some resemblance to the faience marsh dishes - round dishes in blue faience often with aquatic scenes (Kronig 1934).

Why the fish? The fish is the bulti fish (Tilipa nilotica) which seems to have been a manifestation of the sun-god. The fish keeps the fertilized eggs in its mouth until they are fry and spits them out. It therefore appears to be swallowing them and giving birth to them.

Fish-shaped cosmetic palettes would make sense either for temple contexts (anointing statues) or in burial contexts. In either case rebirth symbolism would be apposite. Eye-paints and ointment were essential to resurrection. Before appearing in the 'Hall of Justice' the individual had to purify her/himself, dress in white clothing, make-up their eyes and anoint themselves. Applying eye paint also seems to have been part of everyday cult rituals. Depictions of cows destined for ritual slaughter are sometimes shown wearing eye-paint!

So then, elite tableware, cosmetic palettes, or something else?




Bibliography
Allen, J.S. 2011. Fish dishes at Dashur. In Aston, D. Bader, B., Gallorini, C., Nicholson, P. and Buckingham, S, (eds.). Under the Potter’s Tree. Studies on Ancient Egypt Presented to Janine Bourriau on the Occasion of her 70^th Birthday. Leuven: Uitgeverij Peeters, 3-15.

Bader, B. 2001. Tell el-Dab`a XIII. Typologie und chronologie der Mergel C-ton keramik. Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.

Friedman, F.D. ed. 1998. Gifts of the Nile . Ancient Egyptian Faience. London : Thames and Hudson.

Krönig, W., 1934. ‘Ägyptische Faience-Schalen des Neuen Reiches. Eine motivgeschichtliche Untersuchung’, MDAIK 5, 144-166.

Müller, H. 1964. Ägyptische Kunstwerke, Kleinfund und Glas in der Sammlung E, und M. Kofler-Trunger (MÄS 5). Berlin.

Pendlebury, J.D.S. 1951 The City of Akhenaten Part III The Central City and Official Quarters, Volume I. London : Egypt Exploration Society.

Petrie, W.M.F. 1891. Illahun, Kahun and Gurob 1889–1890. London: D. Nutt.

Petrie, W.M.F. 1894. Tell El Amarna. Warminster: Aris and Phillips.

Royal wine

And thank you again to Dulcie Engel, who led our handling session on ways of writing. This is one of the objects she chose and our volunteers got to actually touch it. Another item is featured here. We are doing a session in March for members of the public.

W960. Pottery neck of wine jar with hieratic inscription.

The inscription states that the wine came from a vineyard in the Western River and was bottled in the 12th year of the reign of the king. In 3 pieces. 27.5cm long. From Amarna.

The Western River is thought to be the Canopic branch of the Nile in the western Delta. Wine making in ancient Egypt dates back to at least the Early Dynastic Period. According to Plutarch it was the god Osiris who first taught the Egyptians to drink wine. The best wine came from the Delta region.

Most of the fragments of wine jars from Amarna were found in the Central Palace, though there a number of fragments also come from the Workmen’s Village. It has been suggested that the wine labels found in the Workmen’s Village show that vessels were reused for other purposes. Wine labels are important for dating the site of Amarna. Year 17 is the latest attested date of label.

This seems to read:

HAt-sp 12                                              year 12

irp (nDm) n pr.....                                 wine (sweet) of the house [i.e. estate]....

n itrw imnty Hri KAmw             of the Western River, vineyard supervisor....

Further Reading.

Murray, M.A. 2000. Viticulture and Wine Production in Nicholson, P.T. and Shaw, I. Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology, Cambridge University Press.

Wahlberg, E-L. 2012. The Wine Jars Speak. A Text Study. University of Uppsala (online- http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:528049/FULLTEXT01.pdf).

Pottery Stool from Amarna W345

We had this object out for our last volunteer handling session and I thought it needed more press, hence a quick note on this blog. First some photographs:

A view from a short side

A view from the most complete long side

A view from the top

It's made of pottery and measures 23x18x13cm. It's decorated with blue red and brown paint which pick out details. The feet of the stool, as can just about be made out in the middle photo look as though they may have been painted in imitation of lotus flowers (I haven't found any parallels on wooden furniture).

It has the excavation number written on it: 'TA 30/31 TA 36.61. This correlates in the Frankfort and Pendlebury 1933 volume ( The City of Akhenaten Part II. The North Suburb and The Desert Altars. ) p 48 with a house in the North Suburb which had a 'master's bedroom'.

I would be glad to here of any parallels. Oh yes, and it seems to be an imitation of a wooden stool of this sort of type. Apologies for this last pic- I'm no artist, but you get the idea!

Amarna daemons- Beset?

In the last post I introduced our beaded collars and asked fake or not fake? Well, the individual beads on them are certainly genuine.

But what about this one? We are looking at close up of one of the collars. The black circles are pins holding the beads in place for display in the museum. Have a look at the centre amulet here which is made of blue faience. It shows a figure turned to the right, holding the root of its tail in one hand and with its other hand to its breast. The figure has loose disevelled hair and a human face. It's genuine, but what is it? My predeccessor Kate Bosse-Griffiths believed it to be a New Kingdom, female Bes- A Beset.

But, do such things exist? To be honest I'm still looking and thinking. So this is just what I think so far. For a bit more on Egypt Centre Bes things click here.

The term 'Bes', of course covers a whole load of different daemons to whom the ancient Egyptians gave lots of names. One of the best known is 'Aha' the fighter. Female Bes's (Besets) seem to have been around in the Middle Kingdom, at least an article by Wegner (2009) has convinced me of that. You also get Besets in the Graeco-Roman Period. However, most Egyptologists don't believe they existed in the New Kingdom, again I'm not so sure. There are loads of male Bes depictions at Amarna.

As a bit of an aside, there is a similar, evil, male daemon in a New Kingdom Book of the Dead (Ratié 1968, 10-11, pl.13). Sorry I can't show a picture but its copyright. The one in the Book of the Dead is however, clearly a male (it has a beard), but it has the same pose as ours. It seems to be threatening to take the heart (normally Bes protects the heart). But one would hardly wear an amulet of such a threatening being? There are also one or two amulets of male Bes's in this pose, e.g. Fitzwilliam 5995-1943. Maybe these male Bes's in a similar pose are irrelevent.

In support of ours being an actual female, the females, tend to have human faces, and the hair of ours looks more female than male. But are their other examples? So far I haven't found an exact parallel but Brunner-Traut (1979: 31, plate V) shows EGA 4299 an undated ostracon but probably 19^th Dynasty, of Bes with breasts. These are not 'manboobs' but proper, female type breasts. Again sorry for lack of pics. Copyright again - the object is in the Fitzwilliam.

So I am undecided. Kate Bosse-Griffiths mentioned two parallels in other collections (one in the Fitzwilliam and one in the Kofler-Truinger collection) but as yet I have been able to obtain decent pictures.

There will be more on this topic!

PS if you are interested in the figures with staffs, either side of 'Beset', there is a little bit on them here.

Addendum: 
Since I wrote this a kind person drew my attention to a New Kingdom depiction of Bes with 'Hathor-like' curls on a headrest in Berlin (11625). 

Here is the link:

______________

Bosse-Griffiths, Kate. 1977. “A Beset Amulet from the Amarna Period.” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 63: 98-106.

Brunner-Traut, E. 1979. Egyptian Artists' Ketches. Figured Ostraka from the Gayor-Anderson Collection in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. Leiden: Nederlands Institut voor het Nabije Oosten.

Ratié, S. 1968. Papyrus of Neferubenef BD (Louvre III, 93). Cairo:Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale.

Wegner, J. 2009. A Decorated Birth Brick from South Abydos. New Evidence on Childbirth and Birth Magic in the Middle Kingdom. In Archaism and Innovation: Studies in the Culture of Middle Kingdom Egypt edited by Silverman, D.P., Simpson, W.K. and Wegner, J., New Haven and Philadelphia, 447-496. You can download this online from: http://academia.edu/894376/A_Decorated_Birth_Brick_from_South_Abydos_New_Evidence_on_Childbirth_and_Birth_Magic_in_the_Middle_Kingdom

Amarna Collars and things

Did you know we have over 200 items from Amarna in the Egypt Centre. If you want the full list just have a look on our searchable catalogue at: http://www.egyptcentre.org.uk/

Generally the most popular with our visitors are the beaded collars (one shown below). Are they, or are they not fakes? They are made up of beads of faience and semi-precious stones.

 

The 4 collars came on the art market in the 1880s the same time as the royal tombs at Amarna were being robbed. They were purchased by Lady Berens and then later came into the hands of Henry Wellcome, and finally the Egypt Centre.

The beads are very clearly Amarna-ish and certainly genuine, but could the beads have been gathered together and strung by a clever forger? One might say they are too good to be true.

The thread used to string them is hand-spun linen, which, one might think would not have been the obvious choice for a forger working at a time when machined cotton was available. However, the forger may have been wise to the fact that linen would have been used by the ancients.

If the collars were from the royal tombs one might have expected the hawks-head terminals to be present. Egyptian funerary collars generally had hawks-head terminals. They are missing. Though, it is quite possible that the terminals were sold separately.

We could have the thread radio-carbon dated. This might prove the collars to be fake but it could never prove that they were genuine. It is possible that a clever forger used ancient thread.

What do you think?

Whether the collars are genuine or not the beads are certainly interesting. One of them is very possibly a female Bes- a Beset, but did such daemons exist in the New Kingdom? Some Egyptologists do not think so-I’m not sure. Watch out for the next post!

Mysterious Amarna Woman!!!!

I have been putting this rather tatty looking object on display today. I know other museums have better examples, but it is the only ring bezel belonging to the Amarna female king Nefernefruaten, which I could find in our collection.

A ring bezel is the decorative part of a ring. This object is made from faience (which is a bit like glass). This is one of several ring bezels we have with the name of Amarna kings upon them.

It has one of the several names of the king, more precisely, it shows the name which Egyptologists call the 'prenomen'. Only the nomen and the prenomen were written in cartouches. The prenomen was given to the king when he came to the throne.

So whose name is on this? The name reads as ‘Ankhkheperure-mery-Waenre’, which is the prenomen of Nefernefruaten. It means ‘Living are the forms of Re, who is beloved of the Sole one of Re’ (Ankhkheperure=Living are the Forms of Re; mery= beloved of; Waenre=Sole One of Re).

The identity of this person has long been disputed. That Neferneferuaten was a female king is suggested by the fact that sometimes the name is written to show it is a female form (it isn't here) and sometimes the name has the epithet ‘effective for her husband’. She has been variously identified as Smenkhare, Meritaten and Nefertiti, or even another wife of Akhenaten. The epithet ‘beloved of Waenre’ associated the person with Akhenaten as Akhenaten also had the title 'Waenre'. More recent scholarship suggests that Nefertiti is the most likely contender. Whoever she was, she was perhaps a coregent of Akhenaten and later Tutankhamun. 

The names of kings were written on items such as rings to give kingly protection to the wearer. 

The bezel was donated to the Egypt Centre in the 1970s from the British Museum. So thank you to the British Museum for perhaps a tatty looking but nonetheless interesting, object. Often the least pretty objects are the most intriguing.

A link to our website with information on the object.

All things nefer

OK so this is a bit late for the New Year, unless you follow the Coptic Calender, or the ancient Egyptian one, in which case I'm either incredibly early or incredibly late. But Happy New Year to all.

And, in the spirit, here is an ancient Egyptian New Year Vessel in the Egypt Centre heavy with symbols of newness. Or rather the top bit of one. If you want to know more about such things and see what a whole one would look like this is the link: http://www.egypt.swansea.ac.uk/index.php/collection/46-w1358-and-w1359

The top bit shows an opening lotus flower (water lily), a very widespread symbol of rebirth in ancient Egypt. One creation myth describes how at the beginning of time a beautiful water lily rose from the waters of chaos, the waters of the Nun. It opened out and from it came the sun-god Re.

Either side of the water lily are two baboons. Baboons were said to welcome the sun as it rose anew each morning. Well apparently they do make a lot of noise when they wake up.

We also have the bottom bit of the New Year vessel (left). You will notice it isn't quite round but is squashed. It is shown, not quite circular just as the image of the sun arising in the horizon is also shown, so again a symbol of the sun coming up each day.

It also has an inscription on it wp rnpt nfr (Good New Year).




There are actually lots and lots of things in the Egypt Centre all to do with newness and rebirth. For example this (right) bit of a ring from Amarna showing a young girl playing a lute. During the 18th Dynasty the motif of the adolescent girl was particularly important and perhaps represented the nfrwt of Egyptian literature.

We also have green faced gods.


This piece (left) from a tomb Chapel at Deir el-Medina shows the creator god Ptah with a green face. Ptah was often called nfr hr. Nefer is often translated as 'beautiful' but it also has connotations of newness and thus greeness. Each year, after the annual inundation of the Nile, new plants sprung up fresh and green.

Then, there's the bust of Nefertiti.

There are other nefer things but I think I'll leave it there.

Icon of Berlin and Egypt. 100 years of Nefertiti

This replica bust of Nefertiti welcomes our visitors. 100 years ago, on the 6th December 1912 the original was uncovered at Amarna by the German excavation team headed by Ludwig Borchardt. The original is now in Berlin and has caused some controversy as it has been claimed that it taken from Egypt illegally. It is, of course, an iconic symbol of Egypt but is also loved by the people of Berlin and thus has also become a symbol of that city.

The original was found, with others, in the workshop of the sculptor Thutmosis in a walled-off closet. There is one inlaid eye made of rock crystal in the original suggesting that the piece was never finished. As it may have been an artist's model perhaps there was never any need to finish it.

Nefertiti was a wife of the so-called 'heretic' pharaoh Akhenaten who built a new city on the banks of the Nile around 1340 BC to worship the god the Aten. Previously, the main god worshiped in Egypt had been Amun, the god of Thebes. The Egypt Centre has over 200 artefacts from the royal site of Amarna (originals not copies).

This queen was one of the few Egyptian royal women who attained any importance. Nefertiti is even shown smiting the female enemies of Egypt-such smiting scenes were usually reserved for kings. It is possible that for a time she even acted as joint ruler with her husband, though this is debated. During the Amarna Period there seems to be a change in depictions of royal women. Not only are they sometimes painted a reddish colour, usually reserved for men, but at times they are also shown as mature women, with signs of ageing. For much of Egyptian history women were depicted as slender and youthful.

Our copy of the bust of Nefertiti was brought to Swansea in the 1960s by Professor of Classics George Kerferd. It seems probable that it was made from the Berlin original by the sculptor Tina Wentcher (also known as Ernestine Haim). She produced a number of replicas in the years following World War I and there are now many examples scattered throughout the world.

The bust of Nefertiti is perhaps the most well-known depiction of ancient Egyptian women. But, while it is considered an archetype of female beauty we cannot be sure that Nefertiti actually looked like this. As with all Egyptian art, representations were idealised and stylised.

A centipede, hedgehog or gazelle?

I have been looking anew at W1155a. It is a faience ring bezel (the decorative part of a ring) and comes from the 'Coronation Hall' at Amarna. But what is the motif? It was catalogued in the Egypt Centre around 1997 as showing a centipede (if you imagine it 'upside down' you can see why. I later thought it was a hedgehog. I now think it is a badly executed gazelle with palm branch. This would make it appropriate for the start of a new year. The palm branch symbolised newness or vigour. But, I am not 100% certain. Any further ideas appreciated.

There is more on it here:

http://www.egypt.swansea.ac.uk/index.php/collection/25-w1155a

Mandrake fruit

I have been putting mandrake related items on the Egypt Centre website and noted that not only do we have at least one mandrake amulet from Amarna, shown above, but also several pieces of wall plaster from the North Riverside Palace. The North Riverside Palace was possibly the main royal residence at the site (Kemp 2006, 284).

Kemp, B. 2006 Ancient Egypt. Anatomy of A Civilisation.

You can see more of our mandrake items at:
http://www.egypt.swansea.ac.uk/index.php/collection/398-mandrake