Schlagwortarchiv: New Kingdom

Now available in open access: An Egyptian villa with animal pens in New Kingdom Nubia

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We are very pleased to share that our article “An Egyptian Villa with Animal Pens in New Kingdom Nubia: Reinterpreting Building H4 and Area H4W on Sai Island”, published last year in the Journal of Urban Archaeology, is now available in open access. The study presents a new interpretation of part of the residential quarter of Sai City and explores how recent advances in digital reconstruction can contribute directly to archaeological research.

Sai City was a walled Egyptian temple town on Sai Island in modern Sudan. Our article revisits Building H4 and adjoining Area H4W, a mid-Eighteenth Dynasty residential complex excavated in the 1970s and reconstructed by Ingrid Adenstedt in 2016 as part of the ERC AcrossBorders project.

The reinvestigation began with Robert Kalasek’s terrestrial laser scan. Re-examining the data revealed curved structures beneath a later building in H4W, while sections generated from the scan placed them at approximately the same level as the original surrounding walls. Their dimensions, construction and position within rectangular enclosures argue against an interpretation as silos or ovens and closely parallel animal pens, most likely pigsties, excavated at Amarna. The wall thicknesses and shared-yard arrangement are comparable, while faunal remains elsewhere at Sai indicate that pigs were bred locally. We therefore suggest that H4W contained a small-scale pig-keeping area with at least two pens and a shared yard.

Re-examination of the scan also revealed a bed niche in Room H4/3 and an L-shaped internal wall characteristic of contemporary stairwells in H4/1N. These features allow H4 to be reconstructed as a typical Egyptian villa with a tripartite plan: private rooms at the rear, a main hall and stairwell in the centre, and an entrance section at the front. A preserved threshold at the southern end of the narrow passage between H4 and H4W further indicates that what had previously been understood as a public street was instead a private alleyway. H4 and H4W thus formed a single enclosed estate comprising an elite residence and its associated infrastructure.

Digital reconstruction played an important role in reaching these conclusions. Recent advances in real-time rendering allow highly detailed scans of architectural remains, objects and landscapes to be used at their correct scale without first reducing them to heavily simplified geometries. Using Unreal Engine 5, we created a photorealistic, on-the-ground reconstruction around the original scan data. Hypothetical walls, roofs and other architectural features were reconstructed directly around the surviving remains and explored interactively at human scale.

Unreal Engine’s photorealism allows materials, spatial relationships and environmental conditions to be investigated with sufficient specificity for the reconstruction to function as a research environment. Individual construction layers can be added or removed, alternative solutions can be compared, and the reasoning behind particular choices can be made interactively transparent. Navigating the reconstruction at human scale also makes features such as narrow passages, restricted access and the confined nature of Sai’s urban planning immediately tangible.

The geopositioned model additionally reproduces the changing position of the sun at Sai according to the time of day and season. This proved particularly important when considering how the proposed pig pens were roofed. Pigs are highly susceptible to heat stress, making adequate shade essential. We tested an elevated grass-and-pole roof that would have allowed a person to pass beneath it for maintenance. During the hottest months, however, this solution would have left the interiors of both pens exposed to direct sunlight for several hours at critical times of day. The more plausible reconstruction is therefore a light, removable roof placed directly on top of the low pen walls. This accords with the archaeological evidence from Amarna and would have kept the animals shaded while still allowing the roof to be removed for cleaning and maintenance.

This example illustrates the wider potential of real-time digital reconstruction. The model is not merely a final illustration of conclusions reached by other means. It brings together scan data, excavation records, architectural parallels and environmental conditions in an interactive space in which the physical consequences of different hypotheses can be tested. In this case, the process helped us recognize previously overlooked features, reconsider the organization of an entire estate and investigate a practical aspect of animal husbandry that would otherwise have remained difficult to assess.

The close parallels between the H4 estate and houses at Amarna are also significant for our understanding of Egyptian domestic architecture. Amarna is still frequently treated as an exceptional city, yet its villas adhered to traditions found elsewhere in Egypt and, as the evidence from Sai now shows, beyond Egypt’s borders. The villa and its associated animal pens represent a distinctly Egyptian form of domestic and social organization adapted to the confined setting of a Nubian temple town: another manifestation of “Egypt in microcosm” in New Kingdom Nubia.

The publication is available here:

Carl G. Elkins, Julia Budka & Chloë Ward, “An Egyptian Villa with Animal Pens in New Kingdom Nubia: Reinterpreting Building H4 and Area H4W on Sai Island”, Journal of Urban Archaeology 12, 2025, 33–51, https://doi.org/10.1484/J.JUA.5.151426.

New publication: Establishing a Dialogue

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I am very happy to announce that a new article by Panos, Hassan, Julia and myself, on integrating evidence from domestic and funerary archaeology has just been published open-access in World Archaeology (https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2025.2567057). The article is part of a special issue on Domestic and funerary archaeologies in dialogue edited by Penny Bickle (University of York), Solène Denis (CNRS) and Stella Souvatzi (University of Thessaly), and I am very much looking forward to seeing the other papers in the issue.

In our paper ‘Establishing a dialogue – Settlement and funerary archaeology in northern Sudan’ we explore ways of combining methodological and interpretative frameworks from mortuary and settlement archaeology. We focus in particular on better understanding social dynamics and cultural entanglements in the Attab-Ferka region in the 2nd and 3rd millennium BC and how these can manifest in the archaeological record. The nature of cultural entanglements can vary considerably at different scales and spheres of society as well as being influenced by a range of internal and external causes, such as a changing environmental and socio-political landscape. By using both mortuary and domestic archaeological data as well as interdisciplinary approaches which take into account the local landscape, the project is striving for a more holistic perspective on the Attab-Ferka region at both the local scale and regional level in the longue durée. 

Kerma and Egyptian New Kingdom domestic and mortuary sites in the Attab-Ferka region, inset map highlights various 2-S-43 sites.

In this article we continue to consider the problematic use of labels in archaeological research, for example ‘Egyptian’ versus ‘Nubian’ by suggesting that ‘compound’ (after Stewart 2011) cultures may be a useful way of thinking about the ‘new’ cultures that can be created when different communities interact. This broadly moves away from some of the problematic connotations or idiosyncrasies of existing terminologies such as hybrid or syncretism. Overall, we hope this new article gives a good overview of many of the areas we are exploring as part of the DiverseNile project, and we will be elaborating on many of them in upcoming publications (including cultural entanglement; settlement patterns/urbanism; scales of analysis).

Reference

Stewart, C. 2011. “Creolization, Hybridity, Syncretism, Mixture.” Portuguese Studies 27 (1): 48–55. https://doi.org/10.1353/port.2011.0007

New publication: Perspectives on the post-colonial period in the Attab to Ferka region

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Within the DiverseNile project, we focus on developments and dynamics in the Bronze Age, particularly in the Late Bronze Age. The collapse of the Late Bronze Age is also a key consideration here, and I have recently revisited Post New Kingdom evidence from the MUAFS concession.

I am delighted that a publication is now available. In this new article (Budka 2025), I have attempted to shed new light on an old topic. In recent decades, the concept of a ‘Dark Age’ in ancient Sudan at the beginning of the first millennium BCE has increasingly been questioned within Nubian archaeology. This is primarily due to new archaeological discoveries at urban sites such as Tombos and Amara West, as well as new theoretical approaches that have emerged since the post-colonial shift. My recently published study aims to demonstrate that remote sensing, surveying and excavations in the Attab to Ferka region of Sudan have also yielded significant evidence of sustained habitation following the termination of Egyptian colonial rule over Nubia. Studies of settlement patterns and pottery, in particular, enrich our understanding of people’s lives between 1070 and 750 BCE, allowing us to shed light on dynamic processes, local forms of resilience and innovation.

This new understanding of the resilience of communities after the collapse of colonial Nubia under Egyptian rule enables a more nuanced interpretation of the development of the Napatan Empire and challenges the conventional concept of secondary states.

The Attab to Ferka case study shows that marginalised regions and communities made a significant contribution to cultural dynamics and achievements in Sudan during the first millennium BCE.

I’m very much looking forward to receiving feedback on this discussion and my theory!

Reference

Budka, J. 2025. The End of the Egyptian New Kingdom in Colonial Nubia: New Perspectives on Sociocultural Transformations in the Middle Nile. Humans. 2025; 5(4):26. https://doi.org/10.3390/humans5040026

Announcement: DiverseNile Seminar 2025

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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!

Nubian-style pottery of the New Kingdom in focus

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I am very happy to announce that a paper focusing on Nubian-style pottery from Sai Island has just been published, being part of a special issue of Old World: Journal of Ancient Africa and Eurasia [OW], vol. 5 (2025), dedicated to the theme „De-Constructing Nubia“.

My paper presents the Eighteenth Dynasty Nubian pottery from Sai city, especially quantities, shapes, wares and parallels from various sites, in context and discusses its social and cultural implications.

My main argument is that Nubian pottery as an integral part of the pottery corpus of Sai allows us to address social practices of a local group with a specific cultural identity. Within the colonial context of Sai as an Egyptian administrative town, the community practices reflected in the pottery show that the legacy of the Kerma empire was never completely abandoned but updated regarding the new political, social and religious situation.

Furthermore, I tried to discuss whether Sai represents an elite phenomenon in urban space which differs from rural contexts in the hinterland of the city. This aspect is closely related to ongoing research ̶ I am currently studying the pottery from the 18th Dynasty site AtW 001 in Attab West, with a special focus on Nubian-style pottery. We recently found more close parallels to Sai and pieces which attest to an intercultural mixing like a new basketry-impressed Nubian-style cooking pot with a painted red rim.

For now, I am very grateful to Aaron De Souza, the organiser of the workshop which lead to this special issue and its main editor as well as to all the other persons involved realising this important collection of papers. “De-Constructing Nubia” is still an urgent research matter and our current work in Attab West can add much data in this respect.

Just published: Reconstructing Contact Space Biographies in Sudan during the Bronze Age

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Events tend to come thick and fast at the end of the year – as was the case with our latest article, which was fortunately published yesterday despite the public holidays.

We are happy to announce that the ‘Contact Space Biography’ concept developed as part of the DiverseNile project (see already my early blog post at the start of our project) is now available in article form and will hopefully be discussed – and useful to others. We developed this concept in order to reach a higher resolution understanding of cultural dynamics and diversity of ancient Nilotic groups, taken the Attab to Ferka region as a case study. We argue that areas like the MUAFS concession can be understood as complex social spaces intertwined with an often changing landscape.

We present our findings from the study of selected cemetery and settlement sites in Attab and Ginis. The following sites are discussed in our article: cemetery GiE 003; cemetery GiE 002 and the settlement sites AtW 001, AtW 002 and 2-T-53 (cf. other “stone villages” in Attab and Ginis West). These sites range in date from Middle Kerma to the Napatan period and allow to consider the local realities of cultural interactions in rural areas, away from “central sites” such as Amara West and Sai Island, showing clear changes from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age. Read our article for more information!

MUAFS concession area showing the location of the sites discussed in our article (Map: C. Ward)

Reference:

Budka, J., Aglan, H., & Ward,C. (2025). Reconstructing Contact Space Biographies in Sudan During the Bronze Age. Humans, 5(1), 1. https://doi.org/10.3390/humans5010001

A comparison of Nubian sandstones from a New Kingdom temple with ancient quarries on Sai Island

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Uncovering the origins of the sandstone used in the construction of ancient monuments offers a unique glimpse into the interplay between natural resources as well as human craftsmanship and interaction. On Sai Island, nestled in the Nile between the 2nd and 3rd cataracts in Northern Sudan, lies Temple A, an 18th Dynasty Egyptian structure. The sandstone used in its construction, sourced from the island’s abundant deposits, has long piqued the curiosity of archaeologists and geologists alike. A recent study delves into the mineralogical and geological characteristics of these sandstones, seeking to uncover their precise origins and the choices made by ancient builders.

The investigation centered on sandstone samples taken from Temple A, and three nearby quarries. Using advanced analytical tools such as polarization microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and micro-Raman spectroscopy, we were able to analyze the stones in detail. The sandstone clasts were found to be composed predominantly of quartz, making up 90–95%, with minor contributions from feldspar and lithoclasts. Clay minerals like kaolinite and illite were present in varying amounts, forming part of the stone’s matrix. The stones also contained traces of iron-titanium oxides, which had undergone alterations over time due to natural chemical processes.

The study revealed that the sandstone used in Temple A was more finely sorted and contained smaller grain sizes compared to the samples from the quarries (Figure 1a-d). This finding suggests that the builders deliberately selected stones with uniform characteristics to ensure consistency in the temple’s appearance. The lighter color and moderate sorting of the temple sandstone contrast with the darker, poorly sorted stones found at the quarry and outcrops. This selective quarrying points to a sophisticated understanding of the properties of building materials and a meticulous approach to construction.

However, determining the exact source of the sandstone used in Temple A proved challenging. Despite the similarities in composition between the temple stones and the natural occurrences, the analysis could not definitively link the building materials to a specific quarry. We suggest that the stones likely originated from the same geological formation but does not rule out the possibility of multiple extraction sites within the island.

The presence of minerals such as kaolinite and illite in the sandstone’s matrix provided further insights into the geological history of these rocks. These minerals form under specific environmental conditions and suggest that the sandstone underwent stages of weathering and burial over geological time. Iron-titanium oxides, including ilmenite and its altered forms, indicated processes of chemical transformation as the stones interacted with water and other environmental factors. These transformations reflect the dynamic geological history of Sai Island, where tectonic forces and sedimentary processes shaped the materials long before they were quarried for use in ancient architecture.

While the exact quarrying practices remain unclear, the findings underline the care and intentionality that went into selecting construction materials. The builders of Temple A seemed to prioritize not only structural integrity but also the aesthetic qualities of the stone.

The study of the sandstone from Sai Island is a window into the decisions and practices of colonial Egypt in Nubia during the New Kingdom. Through understanding the material choices of the past, we gain a greater appreciation for the deep relationship between humanity and the natural world. Further investigations, including detailed geological mapping and isotopic analyses, could reveal even more about the origins of these stones and the history they carry.

Sai Island’s sandstone is more than a building material—it is a testament to the resourcefulness and artistry of its ancient inhabitants. Each grain of sand holds a story, shaped by eons of natural forces and, ultimately, by human hands. By unraveling these stories, we not only connect with the past but also deepen our understanding of the intricate connections between geology, culture, and time.

Back in the spotlight: the sandstones of Sai

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I am very pleased to announce the next DiverseNile Seminar. On 26th November, our PostDoc Fabian Dellefant will talk about the sandstones of Sai. Some of you may know that we have already analysed them as part of the AcrossBorders project.

However, what was published in 2020 was a preliminary investigation of sandstone petrography using only polarization microscopy. This study offers a basic understanding, but the attribution of samples to distinct quarrying locations on Sai remained uncertain due to limited data descriptions and micrographs. Providing more detailed descriptions, data, and micrographs would greatly enhance the clarity and coherence of the sedimentary rock groupings, offering valuable insights into the provenance of the Nubian sandstones and the sourcing practices of the builders of Temple A.

Therefore, I am delighted that Fabian will present the results of his re-investigation whether the origin of the Nubian sandstones from Temple A can be specifically traced back to local quarries associated with the New Kingdom town.

Don’t miss this exciting seminar on the exploitation of sandstones and quarry work in New Kingdom Nubia!

Towards a better understating of taskscapes in colonial towns of Nubia: The case study of re-used sherds

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Back in 2022, I attended a very nice workshop in Mainz: “Excavating the Extra-Ordinary 2. Challenges and merits of workings with small finds“. The proceedings of this event are now published and available in open access.

I am delighted that the book includes my contribution focusing on re-used sherds, presenting the case study from Sai Island.

I also address the question of lids – are these small finds? or pottery vessels? and how shall we deal with them? This also applies to some interesting findings in the MUAFS concession I have discussed earlier on this blog.

The main objective of my chapter in the Mainz volume, apart from advertising reused pottery sherds as extremely exciting (but also challenging) category of finds, was to highlight the concept of object biography and taskscapes which we apply to the Attab to Ferka region (Budka 2024).

I argue that reused ceramic sherds were chosen based on the colour, porosity, stability and hardness of the individual pieces which depend on the specific fabric (see Raedler 2007). Similar to the chaîne opératoire reconstructed by Kate Fulcher for painting materials from Amara West (Fulcher 2022) or by Giulia D’Ercole for pottery from the Middle Nile (D’Ercole 2024), the task of producing sherd tools can involve a number of different places, people and actions. The production process as well as the activities carried out with the newly created tool are well suited to consider tool kits and dynamics taskscapes in ancient landscapes and micro-contexts (for the concept of taskscape see Ingold 1993).

The technical choices are based on the cost (time and resources), availability and workability of the raw materials, in this case the fabric of the chosen sherd. The latter also determines the tools necessary for reworking a sherd (e.g., smoothing the edges or piercing the pottery). There are also important questions regarding what time of year the sherd tools would have been produced. Although most of the tools were most likely produced ad hoc, pottery making was probably mostly a seasonal activity. As such the making of sherd tools may also have been primarily carried out on a seasonal basis, in particular for tools used in pottery workshops.

SAV1W 1671 – a sherd from a basketry impressed Nubian vessel, reused in the New Kingdom town.

Particularly interesting are tools from the New Kingdom town of Sai which were made from Nubian style vessels. For example, SAV1W 1671 is a circular sherd with a central perforation from a basketry impressed Nubian cooking pot, presumably used as a weight. Although, given the lightness of the material, this piece could have been a token rather than a weight. In many cases, we can also assume that reused sherds have multifunctional uses.

SAV1W 1533, a sherd tool made from a Black-topped Kerma vessel.

Another soft Nubian example for a sherd tool is the rim sherd of a Black-topped Kerma vessel, SAV1W 1533. This object fits nicely in the hand, and it is possible to get a good grip, thanks to the rim and the rather soft material. The burnished surface suggests it was more likely used as a spoon rather than as a scraper.

These are just a few examples to show how relevant reused sherds are for questions relating to everyday life and activities. Altogether, in order for reused sherds to contribute to a better understating of taskscapes in ancient Egypt and Nubia, these intriguing objects need to be studied in a more integrated way.

References

Budka 2024 = Budka, J., Processing Reused Pottery from Settlement Contexts in Egypt and Nubia: Challenges & Potential, in Kilian, Andrea, Pruß, Alexander und Zöller-Engelhardt, Monika (Hrsg.): Excating the Extra-Ordinary 2: Challenges & Merits of Working with Small Finds. Proceedings of the International Workshop at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, 25–26 November 2022, Heidelberg: Propylaeum, 2024, 83–124. https://doi.org/10.11588/propylaeum.1382.c19771

DʼErcole 2024 = D’Ercole, G., Material meanings, technology and cultural choices: Pottery production in Late Bronze Age Nubia, in: Budka, J./Lemos, R. (eds), Landscape and resource management in Bronze Age Nubia: Archaeological perspectives on the exploitation of natural resources and the circulation of commodities in the Middle Nile, Contributions to the Archaeology of Egypt, Nubia and the Levant 17, Wiesbaden 2024, 207-221

Fulcher 2022 = Fulcher, K., Painting Amara West: The technology and experience of colour in New Kingdom Nubia, British Museum Publications on Egypt and Sudan 13, Amara West Research Publications 1, Leuven 2022.

Ingold 1993 = Ingold, I., The temporality of the landscape, World Archaeology, 25(2), 1993, 152−174. Raedler 2007 = Raedler, C., Keramikschaber aus den Werkstätten der Ramses-Stadt, in: Pusch, E.B. (ed.), Die Keramik des Grabungsplatzes Q I. Teil 2: Schaber – Marken – Scherben, Hildesheim 2007, 9−266.

Raedler 2007 = Raedler, C., Keramikschaber aus den Werkstätten der Ramses-Stadt, in: Pusch, E.B. (ed.), Die Keramik des Grabungsplatzes Q I. Teil 2: Schaber – Marken – Scherben, Hildesheim 2007, 9−266.

Post-flooding irrigation at Attab West in the Bronze or Iron Age – some new data from our drone survey

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Back from the very successful International Conference for Meroitic Studies last week in Münster, I would like to elaborate on one interesting site I mentioned there in the broader context of Napatan sites in Ginis West. As outlined in a previous post, presenting these “stone villages”, I took another look at all our drone images and, above all, the georeferenced orthophotos and digital elevation models, especially from Attab West and Ginis West.

This enabled me to correctly locate a site in Attab West, on the border to Ginis West, which I had never found in the field in Sudan. This map of Ginis West was created by Kate Rose in 2023 after our last field season and shows all the Vila sites that we were unable to relocate in the field. There are various reasons for this – some of them are damaged, for some we have problems because of the georeferencing of Vila’s maps and because of unclear terrain on the ground.

Map with the status of 2023 showing sites documented by Vila, but not yet relocated by us in Ginis. 2-T-67 is on the top left, at the border between Attab and Ginis.

The latter holds true for Vila’s site 2-T-67 (Vila 1977, 93-96). I tried twice to relocate it on the ground, but could not find what Vila referred to as channels. I only saw sandy dunes, modern tracks, some depressions, but no clear traces of what Vila described. Since Vila dated these three openings with underground connections to channels to the New Kingdom, based on a single pottery vessel, the site was of greatest interest to DiverseNile. It was correspondingly annoying that I simply couldn’t find the site.

Sketch of the site by Vila 1977: fig. 49 incl. the pottery vessel he used as dating evidence.

However, the dating of Vila is anything but certain. Looking at this pottery bowl, for example, it is more likely to date already from the Pre-Napatan period. The site is nevertheless truly intriguing – the basins and channels have recently been linked to post-flood irrigation by Mathew Dalton and colleagues (2023). They suggest very convincingly that the site, and in particular the circular features, one of which was surrounded by a stone setting, actually served as wellheads for shadufs. Now it was great when I discovered the channels and round depressions on the orthophoto based on our drone images from 2022!

Detail from our orthophoto showing features corrsponding to Vila’s description to the left.

Importantly, our drone photographs show more features than those documented by Vila. Now that we have relocated this site, it will be possible to verify it in the field once we can go back to Sudan and try to obtain more certain dating evidence. This is particularly relevant to understand the dry stone walls in the area, the presumed irrigation systems (see Dalton et al. 2023) and the changing land- and riverscapes in Attab and Ginis.

Zoomed out area of 2-T-67, with a measuring line along one of Vila’s channel, showing more depressions and circular pits towards the east.

References

Dalton et al. 2023 = Dalton, M., Spencer, N., Macklin, M. G., Woodward, J. C., & P. Ryan. “Three thousand years of river channel engineering in the Nile Valley.” Geoarchaeology, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1002/gea.21965.

Vila 1977 = Vila, A. La prospection archéologique de la Vallée du Nil, au Sud de la Cataracte de Dal (Nubie Soudanaise). Fascicule 6: District de Attab (Est et Ouest). Paris 1977.