The sex life of flowers: By Bastiaan Meeuse and Sean Morris. Pp. 152. Faber & Faber, London. 1984. £12.50

Abstract

Since the first French and German archaeological investigations on the island of Elephantine at the beginning of the 20th century, and the Egyptian excavations in the 1930s and 1940s, during which the shrine of Heqaib with its considerable collection of private statues from the Middle Kingdom was unearthed, there have been 30 campaigns of the German Archaeological Institute in co-operation with the Swiss Institute for architectural and archaeological research in Egypt.The traces of settlement dating from the Predynastic Period (from 3300 BCE) and the oldest sanctuary on the island, the temple of Satet (from c. 3200 BCE onwards), show that the area of settlement was fortified by a city wall from this time. The religious centres of the city were continuously renewed and extended until the Graeco-Roman period. The main goal of the excavation in Elephantine was to gain a comprehensive picture of an ancient Egyptian town as a whole. This encompasses living and commercial quarters, shrines and administrative buildings throughout the duration of their historical development.The colours preserved on the various building phases of the temples allow us to understand the evolution through time of the use of colours and pigments. During the excavations of the houses, raw materials, perfectly dated, were discovered and stored.Portable Raman and UV–visible spectrometers, equipped with optical fibres, were taken onto the island in order to identify the pigments and precious stones, such as garnet, lapis lazuli, ochre, Egyptian Blue, calcite, and huntite, that had been used. The analyses, carried out between 2008 and 2010, allowed us to propose a chronological evolution of the materials used to decorate official and private buildings in Elephantine.