Schlagwortarchiv: experimental archaeology

Hands in the Clay, Eyes on the Residues: Experimental Archaeology at Asparn/Zaya 2026

Veröffentlicht am von
Antworten

From 27 to 29 June 2026, we had the opportunity to take part in an experimental archaeology seminar at the MAMUZ Museum in Asparn/Zaya, Austria. This seminar, organised by Prof. Budka in collaboration with the University of Vienna, brought together practical craft, archaeological questions and scientific documentation.

For us as two LMU students, it was a chance to connect practical training with research questions that are also relevant to the LMU-based ERC DiverseNile project. Our work had a twofold focus. First, we wanted to better understand the production process of Nubian-style pottery, from the preparation of raw materials to the finished vessel. Secondly, we were interested in the potential of organic residue analysis on pottery: Which chemical markers can be detected after cooking? Which ones might be absent? And how precise can such analyses be when used to reconstruct past food practices?

In archaeology, students often encounter pottery as a finished object. We learn about vessel shapes, fabrics, surfaces, firing conditions and typologies. Yet this theoretical knowledge can convey only part of what pottery production actually involves. Preparing the clay, selecting and processing temper, shaping the vessel, dealing with cracks, polishing the surface and controlling the firing atmosphere all require practical decisions and embodied knowledge. By making pottery ourselves, we were able to experience at least part of this chaîne opératoire.

The second strand of the experiment concerned organic residue analysis. Over the past decades, lipid residue analysis has become an important method for investigating ancient diet, food preparation and vessel use. Lipids absorbed into the walls of ceramic vessels can sometimes survive for long periods and provide information about processed products such as animal fats, dairy products, aquatic resources, plant oils, waxes or cereals. At the same time, the method has limits. Some substances preserve better than others, some foodstuffs may leave only weak traces, and repeated heating, cleaning or reuse can complicate interpretation. Our cooking experiments, carried out under the supervision of Dr. Giulia D’Ercole, were therefore designed as small but controlled tests. We know what was cooked, how it was cooked and under which conditions the vessel was used.

The LMU 2026 team at Asparn (from left: Mona Babinsky, Christoph Maschke, Julia Budka and Giulia D’Ercole).

Day 1: clay, dung and sorghum porridge

The first day began with the preparation of raw materials. We ground cow dung on a grinding stone, using another stone as a hand tool. We also prepared local Austrian clay by crushing it and removing stones and other larger inclusions by hand. The aim was to produce a workable clay paste tempered with cow dung.

Work in progress: grinding cow dung to use as a clay temper (photo: M. Babinsky)

Our first mixture consisted of approximately two-thirds clay and one-third dung temper. The result was strikingly coarse. During shaping, cracks appeared quickly, and it became clear how strongly the texture of the temper affects the forming process. We had to keep adding water to keep the clay paste workable.

On the first day, each of us produced two vessels with cow-dung temper. In parallel, cooking experiments were carried out in a replica of a Nubian-style cooking pot. This pot was not made from Nile silt, which is important to keep in mind for the later interpretation of the residue analysis. On the first day, sorghum porridge was cooked with water only. This provided a useful point of comparison for the residue experiment, as a water-based cereal preparation may be expected to leave different traces from recipes involving milk, fruit or animal products. During the experiments, we documented the process, took photographs and measured temperatures. We also ground sorghum on a grinding stone, adding another practical perspective on food preparation.

Day 2: testing recipes and cooking fish soup

On the second day, we ground the dung again, this time more finely with a mortar. This simple step already showed how much time, physical effort and judgement can lie behind a finished vessel. We also experimented with cow dung collected from the pasture instead of dung from the stable. This material contained fewer straw inclusions and behaved differently during preparation.

We produced one larger vessel with a thinner rim using the finer pasture dung, as well as a small conical bread mould. One aim was to test different proportions of clay and temper. The bread mould contained a higher ratio of finely ground dung, which was intended to make drying and firing easier, especially because the vessels had only about one day to dry and the rim was relatively thick.

We also polished the pottery. This step demonstrated that surface treatment is not only a matter of appearance. It may influence how a vessel feels, how porous it is and how it performs during use.

These variations were useful because they showed that cow dung is not a uniform material. Its properties depend on where it was collected, how dry it is, what the animal had eaten and how finely the material is processed. Such factors may also have affected ancient pottery production.

Mona preparing one of the vessels (photo: G. D’Ercole)

The cooking experiments in the second half of the day continued with sorghum porridge and then focused on fish soup. A second porridge was prepared with goat’s milk; in the first batch, fruit was added, which also made the porridge particularly tasty. This created a second cooking event with expected chemical signatures that differed from the water-based porridge of the first day. While the water-based porridge may mainly be relevant for cereal-related markers, the porridge cooked with goat’s milk could potentially leave traces connected to dairy fats.

Porridege with goat milk in Nile clay vessel (photo: G. D’Ercole).

For the fish soup, we cooked two batches using trout, onions, okra, parsley, water and salt. Our tasks included cutting the ingredients, documenting the procedure, taking photographs and measuring temperatures. The controlled nature of the experiment is especially important for the later residue analysis. Since the cooking history is known, the analytical results can be compared with the expected chemical signals.

Measuring the temperature in the fish soup (photo: M. Babinsky).

Day 3: firing pottery with cow dung

The third day was dedicated to firing. We used cow dung as fuel and aimed for a firing atmosphere with limited oxygen. The goal was to produce a reduced firing effect, visible in black surfaces, black rims or a black core. A more oxidising atmosphere would instead have produced redder colours. To encourage reduction, we created a straw bed, placed our pottery upside down on it and covered the vessels with a dome of cow dung.

Placing ceramic vessels to be fired with cow dung as fuel (photo: M. Babinsky).
The dung fire during the firing process (photo: M. Babinsky).

Maintaining such firing conditions was challenging. The fire had to be kept alive, but the firing structure also had to be arranged in a way that restricted oxygen from reaching the vessels. Achieving a stable temperature while controlling the atmosphere proved to be one of the most difficult parts of the experiment.

The firing was carefully documented through photography, 3D scanning and temperature measurements. The highest recorded temperature was 790°C. In the end, the firing was successful. The pottery was fired, and parts of the vessels showed reduced firing conditions. The results were not completely uniform, but that is precisely what made the experiment valuable. It showed how difficult it is to control an open firing with dung fuel and how variable the finished products can be.

Sitatuation after successful firing (photo: M. Babinsky).
Three of the successfully fired ceramic vessels (photo: M. Babinsky).

After the firing, we carried out a small test to see how well the vessels retained liquid. After 30 minutes, the water level had dropped by 5 mm. This simple observation raised further questions about porosity, vessel function and possible post-firing treatments.

Beyond the pottery experiment

During the three days, we also had the opportunity to visit the exhibition at the MAMUZ Museum and to observe other experimental stations. These included blacksmithing, stone working, bone carving and experiments connected with burial practices. This wider setting was inspiring because it placed our pottery work within a broader experimental archaeological framework. Watching other craftspeople and researchers work directly with materials, tools and fire made clear how much can be learned through practice.

Thoughts on future experiments

The main aim of the seminar was achieved. We carried out the production process of dung-tempered pottery from beginning to end. We prepared the raw materials, tested different recipes, shaped vessels, polished them, fired them and carried out a first simple test of their ability to hold water. This experience made the technological process much more tangible than a purely theoretical discussion could have done.

At the same time, many questions remain open. How exactly were larger conical bread moulds produced? Can we detect how often pottery was re-fired, either experimentally or archaeologically? How does repeated heating affect the ceramic fabric and the preservation of absorbed residues? And, most importantly for our current experiment, which biomarkers will be detectable in the cooking pot, and which will not? Will the analyses show differences between water-based porridge, goat’s-milk porridge and fish soup? And how clearly can such different cooking events be distinguished after heating, absorption and possible mixing of residues within the ceramic fabric?

These are all questions that Giula D’Ercole will be seeking to answer over the coming years as part of her new research project. Experimental archaeology rarely provides simple answers. Instead, it helps us ask better questions. In Asparn/Zaya, grinding dung, preparing clay, shaping vessels, struggling with cracks, controlling fire and cooking in replica pots reminded us that ancient pottery was not simply an artefact category. It was the result of knowledge, skill, experience and repeated choices.

Many thanks go to Julia Budka, Giulia D’Ercole and the University of Vienna for giving us the opportunity to take part in this experimental archaeology seminar. We are also grateful to everyone involved at Asparn/Zaya for the inspiring discussions, practical support and wonderful working atmosphere.

Suggested reading

Budka, J. and D’Ercole, G. 2022. An Experimental Approach to Assessing the Tempering and Firing of Local Pottery Production in Nubia during the New Kingdom Period. EXARC Journal 2022, issue 2.

Cramp, L. J. E. and Evershed, R. P. 2014. Reconstructing Aquatic Resource Exploitation in Human Prehistory using Lipid Biomarkers and Stable Isotopes. In H. D. Holland and K. K. Turekian, editors, Treatise on Geochemistry: Archaeology and Anthropology, second edition, volume 12, 319–339. Amsterdam: Elsevier.

Dunne, J., Mercuri, A. M., Evershed, R. P., Bruni, S. and Di Lernia, S. 2016. Earliest direct evidence of plant processing in prehistoric Saharan pottery. Nature Plants 3, 16194.

Evershed, R. P. 2008. Organic residue analysis in archaeology: the archaeological biomarker revolution. Archaeometry 50, issue 6, 895–924.

Evershed, R. P. 2008. Experimental approaches to the interpretation of absorbed organic residues in archaeological ceramics. World Archaeology 40, issue 1, 26–47.

Hammann, S. and Cramp, L. J. E. 2018. Towards the detection of dietary cereal processing through absorbed lipid biomarkers in archaeological pottery. Journal of Archaeological Science 93, 74–81.

Roffet-Salque, M., Dunne, J., Altoft, D., Casanova, E., Cramp, L. J. E., Smyth, J., Whelton, H. and Evershed, R. P. 2017. From the inside out: upscaling organic residue analyses of archaeological ceramics. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 16, 627–640.

Announcement: DiverseNile Seminar 2025

Veröffentlicht am von
Antworten

I am very pleased to announce the launch of the DiverseNile Seminar 2025. We have been able to attract a great line-up of speakers, it will certainly be a very varied programme!

We start next week with Patrizia Heindl.

Patrizia has been working very intensively with the so-called fire dogs over the past year. She will present a summary of all the ideas on the function of these enigmatic objects which are also found in New Kingdom Nubia, in particular on Sai Island, but above all a review based on experimental archaeological approaches.

I am very excited and look forward to this lecture next Tuesday! See you there!

Copper alloy production and use: upcoming DiverseNile Seminar

Veröffentlicht am von
Antworten

I am delighted that our next DiverseNile Seminar is approaching. Frederik Rademakers will be speaking about brand-new research on copper production in the New Kingdom.

Frederik is currently employed at the British Museum, Department of Scientific Research as a metals specialist. His core research focus lies on ancient copper metallurgy in the Nile Valley and central Africa. Frederik’s approach is a combination of analytical studies of archaeological remains (from museum collections as well as ongoing excavations, e.g. Kerma and Amara West in Sudan) and experimental archaeology. Through the latter, we have been frequently in contact in the last years, and I can very highly recommend his seminal publications, e.g. Rademakers et al. 2022.

I am especially happy that the upcoming presentation by Frederik on November 21, 2023 will nicely connect to our previous DiverseNile Seminar 2022, focusing on landscape and resource management. In general, the procurement of materials and management of resources are topics which have gained popularity in archaeology in recent years, also in Egyptian and Sudanese archaeology. Modern multidisciplinary approaches enable us to investigate objects’ complete chaîne opératoire. An excellent example for these new advances is the study of copper in Egypt and Nubia (see Odler 2023) and in particular copper production at Kerma, a topic Frederic is an expert in (Rademakers et al. 2022). From the New Kingdom town of Amara West, a recent study in which Frederik was one of the main persons involved has provided important insights into the complexity of production chains, the question of material availability and supply in colonial Nubia and the direct comparison with Egypt (Rademakers et al. 2023).

In the upcoming DiverseNile Seminar, Fredrik will discuss unpublished material and data for the New Kingdom – nothing you want to miss if you are interested in archaeometry, copper production and interdisciplinary approaches to the topic.

References

Older, M. 2023. Copper in ancient Egypt: before, during and after the pyramid age (c. 4000-1600 BC), Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 132, Leiden; Boston.

Rademakers, F. W., Verly, G., Degryse, P., Vanhaecke, F., Marchi, S. and C. Bonnet. 2022. Copper at ancient Kerma: a diachronic investigation of alloys and raw materials, Advances in Archaeomaterials 3 (1), 1−18.

Rademakers, F., Auenmüller, J., Spencer, N., Fulcher, K., Lehmann, M., Vanhaecke, F. and Degryse, P. 2023. Metals and pigments at Amara West: Cross-craft perspectives on practices and provisioning in New Kingdom Nubia, Journal of Archaeological Science 153, 105766. 10.1016/j.jas.2023.105766.

Experimental use of so-called fire dogs: Asparn/Zaya 2023, part 2

Veröffentlicht am von
Antworten

It’s been a few weeks since our fantastic weekend full of experimental archaeology at Asparn (Austria), at the MAMUZ museum. I have tried to summarise the first part of our experiments, producing Nile clay vessels including the firing process with animal dung, in a previous blog post.

Once again, loads of thanks go to all our dear friends and colleagues who supported us – Vera Albustin, Ludwig Albustin, Michaela Zavadil and Su Gütter – as well as to the Viennese hosts of the event, especially to Mathias Mehofer.

Part of our 2023 team experimenting with Nile clay, animal dung and fire dogs (photo: M. Mehofer).

The second part of our experiments was dedicated to cooking with fire dogs – a topic which keeps us busy ever since our work at Sai Island and the discovery of large amounts of fire dogs in the New Kingdom town. We have produced a number of replicas of fire dogs in the last years – and have tested various settings and arrangements of fire dogs to hold a cooking pot above the fire.

Our 2023 arrangment: two fire dogs (here with handles instead of snouts) holding a Nubian-style cooking pot.

This year, we tested a new arrangement – placing two fire dogs in our pit to hold a Nubian-style cooking pot. Other than normally reconstructed (following a seminal paper by D.A. Aston), we placed the fire dogs upside down – with the “ears” to the top, using these as support for the pot.

Detail of our 2023 arrangement with the cooking pot supported by the „ears“ of the fire dogs.

Well – the preparation of red lentils was absolutely problem-free – we used some wood as fuel as well as cattle dung. The fire dogs held the pot next to the fire, allowing us to reduce or increase the temperatures upon need.

In progress: preparing red lentils in our Nubian-style cooking pot placed on two fire dogs (photo: E. Schuster).

Our replicas of fire dogs include examples with “snouts” as well as with “handles”, just like the Sai originals. For our cooking experiment this year, we used two examples with handles and placed the handle away from the fireplace. And: at the end of the cooking process, we could use the handles to take the fire dogs straight out of the fireplace and use them as a support for the pot while we were eating. Could this maybe be the explanation for these parts of our curious fire dogs?

The end of a sucessful experiment: we all enjoyed our meal and the cooking pot was held by the same fire dogs we has just used in the fireplace.

We will continue to experiment with our fire dog replicas – not least because one of our new settlement sites in the MUAFS concession in Sudan, AtW 001, yielded several fire dogs from 18th Dynasty contexts, providing an excellent fresh parallel for the situation at Sai Island.

Experimental production of Nile clay vessels: Asparn/Zaya 2023, part 1

Veröffentlicht am von
Antworten

Together with a fantastic team of LMU students, including our student assistant Caroline and supported by our PostDoc Giulia D’Ercole and Hans Stadlmann, I spent the last weekend at Asparn (Austria), at the MAMUZ museum and had the pleasure to participate once again in the experimental archaeology class hosted by the University of Vienna (many thanks here to all of the colleagues, especially to Mathias Mehofer).

The LMU team 2023 at Asparn/Zaya (photo: H. Stadlmann).

Our team from LMU was enforced by our dear friends and colleagues Vera Albustin, Ludwig Albustin, Michaela Zavadil and Su Gütter – loads of thanks to all of them! It was not just a very productive weekend but also highly enjoyable.

Following up on our results from the last year, especially on firing pottery with animal dung, we started with producing some replicas of Egyptian and Nubian vessels on Day 1. Most importantly, we could, for the first time, work with real Nile clay. Earlier this year, Giulia had revisited the local potters at Abri (for her last visit in 2014 see the AcrossBorders blog) and they kindly gave us some clay, tempered with sheep/goat dung and ready for use. We exported this Nile clay and brought it to Asparn. This new material was strikingly different to the modern clay we normally use for our replicas! Vera struggled with the very instable paste, making the forming process a real challenge (and a mould necessary at the end). She produced a very nice open bowl and a small beaker which was later red burnished. Giulia also made a small test cup, intended to study the fracture of the vessel after firing.

Vera working on the Nile clay bowl using a mould for the rounded base/lower part.
The finishing of the surface of Vera’s bowl resulted in scraping marks which are strikingly similar to those on ancient Nile clay vessels. Giulia is getting ready to produce a small test cup.

On Day 2, we made a test firing of the small vessels produced on Day 1 – we used a circular pit as open fire and sheep and cattle dung as fuel. The results were quite impressive – just after one hour, the main firing process was done and when we opened the “kiln” after 1.5hours, there were only little damages to some clay figurines, the vessels had stay intact. Most of them were nicely fired black, indicating that this way of packing vessels into dung and leaving the kiln unopened allows a firing process in reduced atmosphere – mirroring the appearance of most Nubian style vessels from Sudan!

Our pit we used this year for firing ceramics with animal dung (and some other materials).

On Day 3, the Nile clay vessels (and our new replicas of fire dogs) were fired. We used the same pit, but made a much larger “kiln” out of sheep and cattle dung, including some straw and some bushes on the top (the latter are of course not really comparable to what would have been used in Egypt/Sudan, where also nowadays palm leaves are used).

Preparing our „kiln“ made up of animal dung (photo: C. Elkins).
We placed some small branches on top of the dung. A mix of dung and bushes is very likely for firing processes in ancient Egypt and Sudan (photo: C. Elkins).

We started the firing of this kiln from the top, and it took almost 2h until we opened it. Towards the end of the process, we created some air holes since we were aiming for a firing process in oxidised atmosphere.

Our „kiln“ towards the end of the firing process.

Well – what worked perfectly was the creation of the small, burnished beaker in Nile clay as a Black topped vessel. The surface of the larger bowl was very irregularly fired and shows many black spots, presumably because it was quite densely packed in the dung fuel. All the fire dogs came out with a very black surface, considerably different to our previous experiments firing them with wood as the only fuel.

The small Black topped beaker in Nile clay.
The larger bowl in Nile clay showing very irregular colours after firing.

All in all, we again learned a lot during these three days in Asparn – not only about the challenges and details of some working steps when using Nile clay to produce ceramic vessels, but also about the qualities of dung as fuel in open fires. There are several things we would like to repeat and modify next year!

The second part of our experiments was dedicated to cooking with fire dogs – part 2 of Asparn 2023 will follow shortly.

Strenghthening our research interests in Nubian gold: welcoming Sofia Patrevita

Veröffentlicht am von
Antworten

It’s a great pleasure to introduce our new team member of the ERC DiverseNile project: Maria Sofia Patrevita joined us this week as a new PhD student.

Sofia Patrevita earned her MA degree in Ethiopian archaeology at the University of Naples “L’Orientale”, specialized in goldsmithing and metalworking in ancient Ethiopia. Furthermore, she is herself a goldsmith apprentice – allow her to assess ancient gold working from a very specific and highly promising perspective.

I am very happy that Sofia is now strengthening our common interests in gold exploitation in ancient Sudan and more specifically in the Attab to Ferka region. In her PhD project with the working title „Ancient goldworking and goldsmithing in the Middle Nile region“ she will focus on questions related to styles, technologies, and experimental archaeology. She already has great experience in ethno-archaeology and experimental studies and will continue these lines of research with us in Munich. Her project is particularly well-timed because recent fieldwork is shedding new light on Nubia’s gold production and processing, stressing the active role of Nubian communities in the gold working business. Updates will follow here, stay tuned!

Advances in experimental archaeology: firing pottery, use of dung and much more

Veröffentlicht am von
Antworten

Most know by now that poop is of great interest for us archaeologists. Recently, the so-called ‘archaeology of dung’ has resulted in numerous cross-geographical publications confirming the use of animal dung in archaeological deposits as the main fuel source and several other purposes. Most of these studies focus on the analysis of the microscopic evidence attributable to dung, combining multi-proxy approaches to investigate the biological components and potential markers of herbivore dung, as well identifying archaeobotanical indications from dung pellets and related sediments. Less numerous are studies concerning the identification of dung as a tempering agent in ceramic material.

In a new paper just published, Giulia D’Ercole and I aimed to replicate, observe, and discuss the recipe utilised by the ancient potters of Sai Island (northern Sudan) in the New Kingdom period using an experimental approach. We discuss the possible adoption of organic inclusions, and especially animal dung, as tempering agents to produce some of the locally made Nubian and Egyptian style ceramics. We think that the use of animal dung within the large set of pottery production offers important fresh insights into both long-standing traditions and cultural encounters (Budka and D’Ercole 2022).

One observation in this paper was also that in terms of the firing process of our samples, it must have been at a low temperature resulting in a minimal supply of oxygen, as in most cases the typical relicts left by the combustion of organic materials were still visible. Questions regarding kilns for both handmade and wheel-made vessels, as opposed to open firing techniques, need to be investigated further, as does the kind of fuel used for firing pottery. Recent research suggests that fresh wood and animal dung were used in tandem in pottery kilns (see the case of the smelting furnace from Egypt, Verly et al. 2021), and possibly even for open firing.

This brings me to our most recent experiments connected with firing pottery. I spent the last weekend at Asparn (Austria), at the MAMUZ museum and had the pleasure to participate once again in the experimental archaeology class hosted by the University of Vienna.

Vera’s great Classical Kerma replicas placed in our lower bedding of goat dung.

Together with Vera and Ludwig Albustin and other colleagues, we were busy on the first day firing high quality replicas of Classical Kerma beakers. We used goat dung as the main fuel, but also some fresh wood and the results were really good – it went fast, and the appearance of the pots is very close to the ancient ones. We will clearly continue in this line, making more experiments with mixed fuels for firing pottery, for example with adding reed or straw.

Pottery firing in progress.

The second part of our experiments this year in Asparn was dedicated to fire dogs, their possible use and cooking pots. Our current line of research aims to test the advantage of using fire dogs together with Nubian style cooking pots – they differ slightly in shape and size of the Egyptian ones. I believe it is possible that the inhabitants of Sai found some creative ways to combine Egyptian fire dogs with Nubian cooking pots – thus they might have created something new.

Our new set of fire dogs which was fired and is now ready for use.
New replicas of Nubian cooking pots placed on fire dogs.

For some canines, all this effort and attention to the curious fire dogs remains incomprehensible. The different smells at the experimental archaeological site were a lot more exciting here.  

References

Budka and D’Ercole 2022 = Budka, J. and D’Ercole, G. 2022. An Experimental Approach to Assessing the Tempering and Firing of Local Pottery Production in Nubia during the New Kingdom Period. EXARC Journal 2022/2. https://exarc.net/ark:/88735/10638

Verly et al. 2021 = Verly, G., Rademakers, F.W., Somaglino, C., Tallet, P., Delvaux, L. and Degryse, P. 2021. The chaîne opératoire of Middle Kingdom smelting batteries and the problem of fuel: excavation, experimental and analytical studies on ancient Egyptian metallurgy. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 37 (article no. 102708) DOI: 10.1016/j.jasrep.2020.102708

Shit as integral part of the material world

Veröffentlicht am von
Antworten

I recently came across an academic article with the prominent use of the word “shit” in its title (Amicone et al. 2020) – the idea for a new blog post was born!

But why is poop of interest for us archaeologists? Well, I will try to outline some of the most important aspects associated with excrements of human and non-human origin in archaeology (without aiming for a concise or complete overview). To start with, let us remember that within the DiverseNile project we follow the concept of ‘Biography of the Landscape’ which I introduced for our case study of the MUAFS concession in the Middle Nile. This approach considers the individual life cycles of all cohabiting actors, in particular humans, fauna and flora, as well as human-made technologies – it goes without saying, that for understanding life cycles, also excrements need to be considered. And so here we are: let’s focus on shit.

Today, ancient human faeces (palaeofaeces) and coprolites (animal droppings, mostly fossilized) are recognised in archaeology as important evidence containing rich information about the diet and health of ancient people and animals. Chemical analysis, especially lipid analysis and ancient DNA, are conducted and the value for parasitological analyses is well understood. Fragile things like human faeces survive best in protected areas like caves and mines.

One of the most prominent archaeological sites which yielded a large number of excrements is the salt mine of Hallstatt in Austria. The well-preserved excrements in Hallstatt were already recognised as early as 1868. However, the early researchers obviously had problems to imagine that they were handling human faeces and attributed these excrements to ‘a large domestic animal’ of unclear species. It took decades until the correct human origin was identified and more time until detailed analyses are conducted and the human poop from Hallstatt was recognised as what it is: a real treasure in the mine, an incredible useful deposit full of information for us as archaeologists! Just like the poop found at other sites like Çatalhöyük in Turkey.

In ancient Egypt and Sudan, studies like this are still in its infancy. Human excrements rarely survive and until recently, dung in Egyptology was mostly associated with the dung beetle, the scarab and thus with symbolic and religious meanings. However, recent excavations both in Egypt and Sudan now focus on the multiple use of animal dung in antiquity. Goat droppings are common finds in settlement contexts indicating the stabling of animals (see, e.g., Sigl 2020) and they are also attested as fuel in households (e.g. Malleson 2020). The AcrossBorders project has contributed to the question of fuel as well. Considering that wood was, in general, rare along the Nile valley and therefore an expensive raw material, animal dung was tested in 2018 by means of a series of experiments for its suitability as a fuel for cooking in ancient Sudan (Budka et al. 2019).

Various types of animal dung we used in the last years for a series of experiments (photo: J. Budka).

Different types of herbivore dung were tried using replicas of Egyptian and Nubian cooking pots from the Second Millennium BCE; we conducted our experiments again at Asparn/Zaya (see the recent blog post by Sawyer on this year’s results). The results suggest that especially donkey, sheep, goat and cattle dung provide beneficial conditions for keeping good and durable cooking temperatures while preventing fast cooling on small scale fireplaces. This seems to be especially beneficial for dishes containing legumes and cereals, which require long cooking times.

Animal dung was for sure used for multiple purposes. Recently, a group of researchers could show that the combined use of green wood (fresh acacia) and donkey dung as fuel for the Middle Kingdom smelting furnaces at Ayn Soukhna is likely (Verly et al. 2021). In similar lines, we successfully used goat and cow dung as fuel to fire ceramic vessels. In our experiments in Asparn 2021, we also used some fresh wood and straw to start the fire in the beginning. Thus, a dual use of some wood and animal dung seems very likely also for pottery kilns. Furthermore, with the cow dung we achieved temperatures of 1250°! Thus, we could have easily used our fire for smelting metal.

This heap of cattle dung was setup to fire modern replicas of ancient ceramic vessels (photo: C. Geiger).
We used some wood and straw for the inflammation of the cattle dung which then reached very high temperatures (photo: J. Budka).
One of the replicas of the Nubian-style cooking pots which survived the firing in much too high temperatures (up to 1250°) (photo: J. Budka).

That the dung of the most common domestic animals in ancient Egypt and Sudan – donkey, goat and sheep as well as cattle – was used for several purposes comes as no surprise. We know that herbivore dung was also used since earliest times for tempering clay to produce ceramic vessels. Here, Giulia is currently investigating possible differences between hand-made Nubian wares and wheel-made Egyptian-style products. The petrography of some samples from Dukki Gel already revealed interesting details (for dung tempering of ceramics in general see also Amicone et al. 2020).

Some grinded donkey dung we used for tempering our clay at Asparn (photo: G. D’Ercole).

But what about other animals and their droppings? We tested horse dung several times in Asparn – it burns well, but very fast, produces high temperatures but makes a stable fire with a constant temperature almost impossible. Given the fact that horses were restricted to elite and military contexts in the New Kingdom, it is rather unlikely that horse dung was used a lot for domestic purposes and production processes in ancient Egypt and Sudan.

Pork was the most common source for meat in Egyptian settlements during the New Kingdom and we could trace a high number of pigs also in the New Kingdom town of Sai. Therefore, we tested pig dung as fuel in 2019 and the results were rather unsatisfying: the dung was not only much harder to inflame, but also much smellier. The low flammability of these excrements clearly reflects the diet of the animals which is markedly different to that of herbivores.

Finally, although the camel (camelus dromedarius) was only introduced as domestic animal in the Nile Valley during Ptolemaic times, we also examined the firing qualities of camel dung. The dung was kindly provided by a friend and colleague at LMU who knows the owner of camels in close vicinity to Munich.

Equipped with this exotic dung directly imported to Austria from Bavaria, we started our experiments in Asparn. The small and dense camel droppings did not yield convincing results (although they smoked a lot) and were less suited as fuel than cattle, donkey and goat dung.

Small test set of camel dung after firing (photo: S. Neumann).

With this short account on some of the multiple kinds of usage of various animal dung in ancient Egypt and Sudan, I hope to have illustrated that considering excrements as integral part of material culture has much potential for an improved understanding of certain tasks and activities and primarily for questions of raw materials and resources which are still sometimes neglected in favour of the finished products.

References

Amicone, Silvia, Morandi, Lionello and Shira Gur-Arieh. 2020.  ‘Seeing shit’: assessing the visibility of dung tempering in ancient pottery using an experimental approach, Environmental Archaeology, 1–16.

Budka, Julia, Geiger, Cajetan, Heindl, Patrizia, Hinterhuber, Veronica and Hans Reschreiter. 2019. The question of fuel for cooking in ancient Egypt and Sudan. EXARC Journal 2019.

Malleson, Claire. 2020. Chaff, dung, and wood: fuel use at Tell el-Retaba. Archaeobotanical investigations in the Third Intermediate Period settlement, Area 9 excavations 2015-2019, Ägypten und Levante 30, 179–202.

Sigl, Johanna. 2020. Elephantine, Ägypten: Neues zu Lebenswirklichkeiten (Projekt „Realities of Life“) im späten Mittleren Reich am ersten Nilkatarakt. Weitere Forschungsergebnisse der Jahre 2019 und 2020, e-Forschungsberichte des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts 2020 (3), 1–8.

Verly, Georges, Frederik W. Rademakers, Claire Somaglino, Pierre Tallet, Luc Delvaux, and Patrick Degryse. 2021. The chaîne opératoire of Middle Kingdom smelting batteries and the problem of fuel: excavation, experimental and analytical studies on ancient Egyptian metallurgy, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 37 (article no. 102708) DOI: 10.1016/j.jasrep.2020.102708

Fire dogs and more at Asparn: glimpses of experimental archaeology

Veröffentlicht am von
Antworten

As the new student assistant of the DiverseNile Project, I am happy to give in my first blog post an overview and summary about the experimental archaeology days at the MAMUZ Museum in Asparn/Zaya and of course about our experiments with the fire dogs, dung fires and pottery making.

Over the course of four days many archaeologists, experts and students came together in Asparn to work on several different experiments, share ideas, discuss questions and, of course, creating the possibility to experience archaeology in a practical and exciting way. Being outside in the nature, doing practical tasks and having a slight glimpse into how life was in the past was especially refreshing for everyone who had (and still has) to sit daily in front of a computer screen to follow online lectures.

I’ll start with a short summary about the event itself before I’ll describe our experiments.

In the big garden that belongs to the MAMUZ Museum, which is worth a visit and currently showcases an exhibition about experimental archaeology, are several reconstructed buildings and structures that showcase the history of humans in that area. Starting from tents of the palaeolithic times and ending at the current experimental construction of a medieval church. Inside and next to these buildings all different kinds of experiments were conducted, and certain techniques showcased, all part of a class of the University of Vienna where we could participate as guests from Munich. Experts showed how stones were chipped during the Stone Age and what materials were used for that, another explained how bones and horns were carved into tools and accessories, pottery was being made, as well as weaving, cooking a pig for a whole day in a pit and Ritschert (a stew the people who worked inside the Hallstatt mine ate everyday), iron and bronze smelting, creating jewellery and much more. One experiment I found extremely fascinating was the cremation of a pig on a pyre to figure out more about human burials of the European Bronze Age. The pig (which died naturally of an old age and not explicitly for this experiment!) was even dressed up and got ritual offerings for its descend into the fire and therefore afterlife, whatever that might have looked like for the people of the Bronze Age. Watching this, I can really imagine how special and touching such a burial practice was for these people, watching a loved one being consumed by the flames over several hours in such a way seems bizarre from our current, modern perspective of life and death.
Recapitulating I can really recommend the experimental archaeology days in Asparn. It was an incredible insight into life with its problems in the past and amazing that everyone showed you their skills and techniques while letting you try them out as well.

Now to our experiments: first we focused to let every participant get a feeling for the material clay while recreating Nubian figurines depicting female idols and animals. After everyone had fun creating figurines and got familiar with the material, we went one step back and created our own usable clay. Therefore, we learned what processes were necessary to get a formable material out of dry earth clumps. One part of our group was busy preparing the dry dung, in this case goat and horse dung, so it can be used to temper the clay. With that we created two types of different clay, one with the horse dung and the other with the goat dung.

The next task was important: recreating new fire dogs (based on the original drawings of the fire dogs from Sai Island and existing replicas made years ago within the AcrossBorders project) with the two different clay types which can be used for upcoming experiments. For all of us, who didn’t use pottery since elementary school, this was quite the big challenge to create them in the right proportions and dealing with the problems if parts breaking off or how to close cracks again. But in my opinion, everyone did a great job and we now have plenty of fire dogs that will hopefully survive a lot of future experiments!

Producing a new set of fire dogs. Photo: J. Budka.

While our figurines, fire dogs and test vessels were drying to be ready for burning, we started to figure out how the different dung types we had available behaved when trying to make a fire out of them. For our first small experiments that way, we split up in two groups where each group had to use camel and horse dung and, in the end, compare the results. For our first attempts the results were not really convincing: in both groups it took us a long time to start a fire with the camel dung, it produced a lot of (not so pleasant) smoke, the flames didn’t last long only with constant blowing into the fire, but when it worked we reached around 500°C. The horse dung was a little bit better, but it was still hard to get to a flame. The two experiments got inconclusive results with the highest temperatures varying in between 300°C and 660°C.
Though there are many reasons why our fires didn’t work the way we hoped, first we had to figure out how we organise the experiments on our own and with try and error we found better ways to observe our fires for the next tasks. Also, the quantity of the dung we used had a big impact on how the fires behaved, small amounts burned down way to quickly, and the windy weather wasn’t great for the flames either. But when experiments don’t work out the way you anticipate you learn a lot more and can change parameters for the coming ones.

Meanwhile, our PI Julia Budka conducted, together with a group of colleagues, the firing of pottery using cow dung as fuel. Surprisingly that fire reached over 1000°C, an incredible heat for such a simple fire. Whereas we found that exciting, the pottery didn’t, and a few were damaged in that heat. But this surprising result needed a follow up experiment, checking whether these high temperatures can be replicated.
Therefore we created two small fires, like in our previous experiments, with two different cow dungs to see which temperatures we could reach. We quickly realized that small fires didn’t reach those high temperatures and were only around 500°C and behaved like horse and camel dung previously. Therefore, we decided to create a bigger fire, which worked surprisingly better! We quickly reached the same temperatures in the small experiment and surpassed them in a short amount of time. While blowing into the fire with three persons in a row, we successfully reached over 1000°C in a few minutes and this in a smaller fire, compared to the one where the pottery was burned. This opens a possibility for different future experiments!

The dung fire used for cooking with a set of firedogs and a Nubian cooking pot. Photo: S. Neumann.

As our last experiments we used two firedogs and one cooking pot to figure out if such a setup is useful for cooking. We started a fire with horse dung in the middle between the two firedogs, above it we placed the pot, so it sat on the two firedogs. For a while it worked pretty well, but as the dung created more and more ash the space was not big enough that the fire could get enough oxygen to burn and be sustained with new dung properly. It was a long and tedious process to cook something this way. Also, the term cooking is misleading, we just barely managed to heat the water inside the pot a little bit.

A trial arrangment of two fire dogs holding a cooking pot above the dung fire. Photo: S. Neumann.

Since this experiment didn’t work well, we decided to change our methods and tried a big fire with cow dung again. We spread out the dung on a bigger area, created a well working fire and placed the firedogs and the pot in the centre of it. The fire was burning and reached a temperature of around 470°C, but surprisingly the contents in our pot only measured around 60°C. Where did all the heat go? Was the pot absorbing all the heat or the firedogs? In the end the firedogs suffered quite a bit in this fire, they ended up turning completely black – nothing which is known from the real archaeological findings.

With that our experiments in Asparn ended with a lot more questions and we still have no definitive answer how the firedogs were used exactly. Let’s hope we can continue our experiments next year with the new knowledge and questions we gained this time!

Back to practical work: Experimental archaeology in Asparn

Veröffentlicht am von
Antworten

It’s hard to believe – after more than one year with cancelled fieldwork in Egypt and Sudan, with online teaching including a digital format for our block seminar „Introduction to field archaeology“, it is now finally happening again: we are getting ready to go „to the field“ – respectively to practical work in Asparn/Zaya in Austria.

As a follow-up to our activities within the AcrossBorders project and built on the then established cooperation with the University of Vienna, we will conduct experimental archaeology related to Egyptian fire dogs and Nubian cooking pots at the MAMUZ Museum. Three days full of experiments are ahead of us – they take place within the framework of a MA course on field archaeology and will combine teaching with pressing research questions like the specific use of fire dogs.

Modern replicas of so-called fire dogs supporting copies of cooking pots (photo: J. Budka). Since 2013, we have been testing various positions and arrangments – is this one the best solution?

Among others, we will produce a new set of replicas of fire dogs and will then test them with modern copies of Nubian cooking pots. Back in 2019, we were very successful in using one fire dog with a dung fire to heat dishes like bulgur. Temperatures of 450-580° were enough, the cooking time was c. 20 min and the addition of fuel was easy. This year we will make some new tests with barely.

Patrizia and me back in 2019 with the successful preparation of bulgur in a cookingpot held by one fire dog in the newly proposed position (photo: J. Distefano).

As fuel for our experiments we will use various animal dung – we verified already in 2018 that dung as fuel works very fine and is indeed a possible alternative to wood which was scarce and precious in both ancient Egypt and Sudan.

The three main types of animal dung we will use this year at Asparn. Note the considerable difference in size and composition of the droppings! (photo: J. Budka).

This year, thanks to a kind colleague and friend here in Munich, we will also be able to test camel dung along with horse and cattle. Of course the domestication of camels in Egypt and Sudan happened much later than our period in question, the Late Bronze Age (camels were getting important in Ptolemaic times only), but burning ‘exotic’ animal dung in Austria is just very tempting and hopefully it will give a sense of being in the field in northeast Africa as well.

Looking much forward to this excursion starting the day after tomorrow and many thanks to all the colleagues in Vienna and here in Munich who made it possible. Of course, we will keep you posted about our results which will also be of relevance for the ongoing DivereNile project and our understanding of food production and cooking in Bronze Age Nubia.