Egyptian Excavation Research Articles

Preliminary Report of the Egyptian Excavation Mission in Wadi El-Nasib, Season 2021

Preliminary Report of the Egyptian Excavation Mission in Wadi El-Nasib, Season 2021

Combined Use of Scanning Electron Microscopy-Energy-Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy and Fourier Transform Infrared Imaging Coupled with Principal Component Analysis in the Study of Ancient Egyptian Papyri.

This paper reports the results of a spectroscopic study on the chemistry of some small papyrus fragments arising from three Egyptian excavation sites. The aim of this investigation was to verify the possibility to identify significant differences in ancient Egyptian papyri using noninvasive analytical methods, that is, ATR (attenuated total reflection)–FTIR (Fourier transform infrared) spectroscopic imaging and scanning electron microscopy–energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. Differences in both lignin and cellulose compositions, which are difficult to detect with traditional FTIR and FTIR imaging spectral analysis, were revealed by the multivariate approach, and the second derivative spectroscopy was applied to enhance the spectrum resolution. Thus, it has been possible to recognize a fragment characterized by the presence of lead and of long chain aliphatic organic compound, which are not present in the other fragments, in the ink region. These data show not only that the combination of these techniques can provide important chemical information, such as to evidence the different compositions and manufacture of each papyrus, but also that metal inks were probably used also in ancient Egyptian papyri.

Archaeological (Non?) Alignments: Egypt, India, and Global Geographies of the Post-War Past

This article demonstrates how the politics of non-alignment and multilateralism intersected with the making of scientific knowledge about the past after the Second World War. The article shows how post-war political (re-) arrangements helped to realign not only the geographies of that knowledge, but also the people who could claim expertise in making it. The article concentrates on events during UNESCO’s International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia, which took place during the 1960s and 1970s in Egypt and Sudan in response to the flooding caused by the construction of the Aswan High Dam. Discussing the Egyptian excavations carried out during the work by the Archaeological Survey of India, the article shows how the campaign offered the chance to realign – if not entirely non-align – the ways in which knowledge of the past was made, circulated, and justified. Carrying out archaeological work in another non-aligned nation-state not only represented a favourable international intervention for India, but also allowed the country to rearrange colonial logics of archaeological knowledge production to its advantage and to claim expertise in their use. The Archaeological Survey of India then attempted to perform this expertise elsewhere and thereby bolster the post-partition narrative of a ‘greater India’.

- “A Profecia ou O Mistério da Morte de Tut-Ank-Amon” (1924) de Fernando de Carvalho Henriques. Ecos literários em Portugal da descoberta do túmulo de Tutankhamon

In the scope of our research on the field of the Reception of Antiquity in Portugal dedicated to the identification, gathering and analysis of news and articles concerning the discovery of the tomb of the pharaoh Tutankhamon publish between 1922 and 1939 on the Portuguese newspapers and magazines, we come across a novel published in Lisbon in 1924, written by Fernando de Carvalho Henriques entitled A Profecia ou O Misterio da Morte de Tut-Ank-Amon. The main storyline of the novel (developed in the chapters I, VI-XIV), the author fit in a story (in the chapters II-IV) about “antiquity facts” to which he used “historical knowledge” about the ancient Egypt of the period of Tutankhamon, inspired by the late discovery of the tomb of that Egyptian pharaoh (KV 62) by Howard Carter in western Luxor, officially dated 4th of November of 1922. Sharing some features with the thriller genre, it is the first novel ever published internationally inspired by the great Egyptian archaeological discovery. We do not know the primary or secondary sources that were used by F. de Carvalho Henriques to write the chapters II to IV of his novel. We do not know his historical readings about the period of Tutankhamon (18th dynasty). We do not know his actual knowledge about all the themes that compose his novel. But we do know one thing: his historical knowledge regarding the ancient Egypt is broadly well sustained, thorough, as we intend to demonstrate, and it prove that the echoes of the distant Egyptian excavations inspired and stimulated the imagination of an illustrious unknown Portuguese, and, through him, his readers.

Preservation and Conservation Strategies of Historical Textiles in Excavation: A Case Study of Egyptian Excavation

Preservation and Conservation Strategies of Historical Textiles in Excavation: A Case Study of Egyptian Excavation

A Note on “Grenades” as Fire-starter Flasks

The paper provides a short note on the function of sphero-conical vessels as either fire-blowers (aeolipiles) or as fire-starter flasks. The evolution of the form is briefly recounted from examples in Egyptian excavations, with additional examples from Quseir al-Qadim and Khirbet al-Mafjar. These latter examples strongly indicate domestic use and suggest a primary function in enhancement of fire.

Coloured materials used in Elephantine: Evolution and continuity from the Old Kingdom to the Roman Period

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 3300BCE) and the oldest sanctuary on the island, the temple of Satet (from c. 3200BCE 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.

OCCURRENCE OF FUNGI ON SOME DETERIORATED ANCIENT EGYPTIAN MATERIALS AND THEIR CONTROLLING BY ECOFRIENDLY PRODUCTS

Tuna el-Gabel's excavations represent a model of the Egyptian excavation's nature, in terms ofvariations and fluctuations in degrees of humidity and temperature throughout the year. Theexcavations contain various types of antiquities which are made from different organic andinorganic materials belong to different Egyptian eras, especially the Ptolemaic era. Theseconditions have an impact on finding a certain kind of fungus damage, which passively affectsthe antiquities in the excavations. This research presents a practical study meant to determineand define the fungi existed in the organic and inorganic antiquities in Tuna el- Gabel'sexcavations. Six samples were taken from different Archaeological objects from which 24fungal strains representing 10 genera were isolated. The identified fungal isolates ; Aspergillusniger, Aspergillus terreus, Aspergillus flavus, Aspergillus humicola, Fusarium moniliforme,Chaetomium indicum, Helminthosporium sativum, Alternaria tenuis and Rhizopus sp.Comparative study using different types of fungicides and natural products on the isolatedfungal species suggested that the complete inhibition of tested fungal species was performedwith lower concentration of clove oil, which is harmless to humans, (0.75%) than the fungicides.

David George Hogarth at Asyut, Egypt, 1906-1907. The History of a "lost" Excavation

While engaged in a study of ancient Egyptian cordage in the British Museum during 1984, I came across a fragment of rope recovered from Asyut, Egypt, by the British archaeologist, D.G. Hogarth. In investigating this artifact, I learned that this excava­tion by Hogarth was known to very few scholars and had never been published. Intrigued by the data I encountered in Hogarth's notes, I initiated a project to organize, clarify, and make available the information found therein. A reconstructed excavation report based on Hogarth's field notes, correspondence and British Museum records is currently in press (Ryan, in press). Apart from the archaeological data itself which is of significant Egyptological interest, Hogarth's material provides an intriguing personal glimpse at the goings-on of an Egyptian excavation in the early part of the 20th century. Various documents provide much of the story from the conception of the idea for an expedition to the ultimate disposition of many of the artifacts derived therefrom.

Quantitative analysis of ancient Egyptian pigments by external PIXE

Pigments painted on Egyptian excavations in the 18th Dynasty were analyzed successfully by external PIXE with the aid of the X-ray diffraction. A white pigment was composed of Mg 3Ca(CO 3) 4; red: αFe 2O 3, αFeO·OH and AsS; pink: mixtures of white and red pigments; yellow: αFeO·OH and As 2S 3; and blue: CaO·CuO·4SiO 2.

Dr. David Randall-Maclver, F.B.A

DR. D. RANDALL-MACIVER, the accomplished archæologist and anthropologist, was born in 1873, and educated at Radley and the Queen's College, Oxford, where in 1896 he obtained a first class in Literœ Humaniores. It had been his youthful ambition to devote himself to the pre-Columbian cultures of America, but as this seemed impracticable, he came easily under the influence of Sayce and Grenfell at Queen's, and learned the technique of Egyptian excavation with Flinders-Petrie. He was the first holder of the Laycock Studentship for Egyptology at Worcester College (1900–6) and in 1907 directed the Eckley B. Coxe, jun., Expedition of the University of Philadelphia to Egypt and the Sudan; publishing also with Arthur Thomson a detailed anthropometric study of ancient Egyptian skeletons.

Egyptian Excavations and Mummies

Egyptian Excavations and Mummies