Study Season Week 4: Coaxing out information...
This week's roommate.
It's hard to believe that we're already at the end of our last week in Egypt (sans a few days - Matt and I will accidentally be overstaying our visas because I lazily booked the 26th-26th without making sure that was only 30 days - oops!). As a brief look ahead newsletter-wise, I will cover our last few days in Egypt next week, along with some discussion of what our next steps are. I do plan on being back in Egypt later in the year as well, so, if you're interested, stay tuned for that.
In some super exciting news, it appears that our project has officially hit the news (using my mask as its title photo)! It seems like the Egypt Independent leaked it before the government announced it (oops) so we can start talking about some of it! Please do still keep the photos and info in this newsletter confidential unless I or the government post it (some of the stuff is now in the pipeline for academic publication). Anything posted online is now fair game though! I will make one correction - the quote in every article is from Deborah Vischak, not Deborah or Doura Fishak. You can't win them all!
Queen Titi Sheri pyramid in Abydos restored, alongside discovery of King Ahmose era cemetery - Egypt Independent
The joint Egyptian-US archaeological mission operating in the south of Abydos has completed the restoration and maintenance of the pyramid of Queen Titi Sheri.
This week has been primarily spent in the lab, albeit, with some excursions built in. Saturday we were blessed by the arrival of our osteologist, Afaf, who is genuinely one of the most passionate people I've met in the field - it's really beautiful to watch her interact with the bones - not only because I'm convinced she has a superpower, but also because she does everything with so much love and care. You can get some time with Afaf too! She will be in the new Netflix series "Unknown: The Lost Pyramid" premiering on July 3rd! We got a screener and so far, it's fabulous.
Image courtesy of Netflix. It stars Hawass, so you can rest assured it will be dramatic.
Approximately 1/3 of the bone bags we have to go through.
Fun fact! Lab work is just as dirty as the field sometimes! Unfortunately, almost all of this is bone dust and dirt!
While the osteology will be done in phases, Afaf focused on some of my shafts to start. She will give me an official report but there have been some interesting factors she wanted to share. Our first shaft (the one with the intact pots) contained three adults, two juveniles, and two infants. It seems pretty clear this was a family tomb meaning it was reopened with each death - however, it still reflects the extremely short use of this area. That sized family is really suggestive of only one generation, which is amazing. All of the individuals were remarkably healthy, and two of the adults had evidence of skull fractures that had completely healed in their lifetimes. Pretty amazing! Our massive, unfinished shaft had a similar familial composition, however, one of the bodies was that of an elderly woman who appears to have lived a long, luxurious life. It appears that her diet was carb-heavy (which meant wealth) and her bones suggest she wasn't a laborer. Something else super cool? Part of her brain is preserved in her skull! Now, having seen the brain, I know for a fact that a few of the pit burials have brains remaining as well, so I'm excited to get data on them as well. While Afaf was doing all this, Debbie and I worked on continuing through the collection of items and collating them with our database.
Our seal from the top of the corn mummy.
Look at that bowl cut!
Some chert lithics.
A tiny Tawaret bead.
A fish bead!
A small cat bead that was also used as a stamp seal.
Sunday we were able to visit UPenn's project in the field, and also have them come to visit the Ahmose Cemetery (primarily to give us advice on what they thought the "domestic" area could be as they primarily work in the domestic sphere. It was somewhat comforting that they didn't quite know either, but it definitely piqued a lot of interest (possible collaborative publications in the future?). It's really interesting to look at the Middle Kingdom site they're working on in comparison to our domestic area because they look so different. It's becoming increasingly clearer that we will need another season to flush out this area.
An overview of our area.
An overview of Penn's area. Photo c/o Cambridge University Press.
Upon returning from the field I began a deep dive into trying to reconstruct our painted coffin fragments in an attempt to find comparisons to the painted decorations we have. While I love a good puzzle, it's a bit of a pain when you need the whole picture, and only have about 20% of the puzzle pieces. What is pretty cool though, is that, usually, coffin styles go through trends. What is in vogue in the 12th dynasty will appear across cemeteries with some variation, but not a ton. In our cemetery, however, only two tombs have similar coffin designs. This suggests that the superstructures and general surface landscape were expressing a high rate of homogeneity, while subterranean patterns were more heterogeneous.
This design has always reminded me of a pajama print.
The most common pattern we have (checkered - from two tombs). It is possible that this is the remnant of a Second Intermediate Period Style (see for example https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/552356)
This was my lab partner - he stuck around for a few days, but then got bored and left.
After I did all that I got to....drumroll please.....do the same thing with stela fragments! I drove myself crazy for several days trying to fit pieces together and find comparisons before deciding to take a break and search through another box for something else to cleanse my palette. In said box I found a few bags of stela frags from different (but adjacent) loci, and decided to give it one more go. Finally, after days of work, I made a join! It seems like such a little accomplishment, but it's beyond lucky to find a piece that joins, never mind from a different loci. I definitely experienced pure bliss. Debbie and I have regularly joked this week that they should make an Indiana Jones film about lab work - it would be a great thing for most people to fall asleep to!
A small frag with the remnants of an ankh on it.
Some additional fragments from adjacent loci.
The join (visible in the middle)! The upper piece was able to confirm to us that the glyph is, indeed, a seated man. This means that the part before -mose is the end of the stela owner's name! It still leaves many options (Ramose, Ahmose, Djehutymose, and so on), but it also narrows it down a ton!
The rambling notes of a madwoman.
In addition to the endless lab work, the final thing we got to do was to visit the conserved remains of Tetisheri's pyramid. It was amazing to stand in the spot I was a meter underground in just three months ago, and instead be three+ meters above ground. The team did an amazing job and this is going to be a great tourist attraction in the landscape.
The entrance to the pyramid.
A view of the pyramid's angle from the inside. The gap was purposefully left so you can see the corbeling left by the stacked bricks. This is visible inside earlier stone pyramids as well.
One of the corners. It has only been restored up to a level that we have data to support. It likely was massive when it was completed, however, we don't know exactly what the interior structure looked like so we don't want to present a possibly false reconstruction to the public.
Ayman and some of the Penn team. This was dedicated to the scholar who used to work here and has gone out of his way to make our lives uncomfortable over the past few months.
A brick stamped with ASP next to a 3500 year old brick stamped with the name of Ahmose (neb-pehty-re).
While this week was probably not interesting from a newsletter perspective, I want to stress that this is the meat of the work. Without processing and analyzing artifacts, our data would be incomplete and pretty useless to the future of the field. Overall though, I'm having a blast, and it's been really wonderful to be here with such a great group. That's all for now! Have a great week everyone! Emily
This blurry photo was right after Kofta gave me a ton of face kisses, so clearly I've learned no lessons...
If you have gotten this far, here is a gift, courtesy of Rolland Long. He decided to practice his photogrammetry skills on a twinkie, and airdropped 86 photos of said dessert to me telling me it was important data.
