Archaeologists Find Silos And Administration Center From Early Egyptian City
(July 1, 2008) — A University of Chicago expedition at Tell Edfu in southern Egypt has unearthed a large administration building and silos that provide fresh clues about the emergence of urban life. The discovery provides new information about a little understood aspect of ancient Egypt—the development of cities in a culture that is largely famous for its monumental architecture.
The archaeological work at Tell Edfu was initiated with the permission of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, headed by Zahi Hawass, under the direction of Nadine Moeller, Assistant Professor at the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago. Work late last year revealed details of seven silos, the largest grain bins found in ancient Egypt as well as an older columned hall that was an administration center.
Long fascinated with temples and monuments such as pyramids, scholars have traditionally spent little time exploring the residential communities of ancient Egypt. Due to intense farming and heavy settlement over the years, much of the record of urban civilization has been lost. So little archaeological evidence remains that some scholars believe Egypt did not have a highly developed urban culture, giving Mesopotamia the distinction of teaching people how to live in cities.
“The traditional view of ancient Egypt has been biased by the fact that most excavation work so far has focused on temples and tombs. The mounds which comprise the remains of Egyptian cities were either ignored, buried under modern towns, or else destroyed by modern agricultural activities.
A additional reason why archaeologists have often focused on temples and tombs is that Egyptian secular buildings, including even pharaoh’s palaces, were mainly built in mud bricks, which do not survive centuries as well as the stones of temples and tombs.
Edfu is one of the very few remaining city mounds that are accessible for scientific study,” said Gil Stein, Director of the Oriental Institute.
“The work at Edfu is important and innovative in that it finally allows us to examine ancient Egypt as an urban society, whose cities and towns housed bureaucrats, craft specialists, priests, and farmers. Nadine Moeller’s discovery of silos and local administrative buildings shows us how these cities actually functioned as places where the agricultural wealth of the Nile valley was mobilized for the state. Grain as currency provided the sinews of power for the pharoahs,” he added.
“Ancient Egyptian administration is mainly known from texts, but the full understanding of the institutions involved and their role within towns and cities has been so far difficult to grasp because of the lack of archaeological evidence with which textual data needs to be combined,” Moeller said.
At Tell Edfu, archaeologists have uncovered what amounts to a downtown area. The community, halfway between the modern cities of Aswan and Luxor, was a provincial capital an important regional center. Tell Edfu is also rare, in that almost 3,000 years of Egyptian history are preserved in the stratigraphy of a single mound.
The administrative building and silos were at the heart of the ancient community. Because grain was a form of currency, the silos functioned as a bank and a food source. The silos’ size indicates the community was apparently a prosperous urban center.
The grain bins are in a large silo courtyard of the 17th Dynasty (1630-1520 B.C.) and consist of at least seven round, mud-brick silos. With a diameter between 5.5 and 6.5 meters, they are the largest examples discovered within a town center.
The team unearthed an earlier building phase for the hall that predated the silos. In that phase, a mud-brick building with 16 wooden columns stood at the site. The pottery and seal impressions found in the hall date it to the early 13th Dynasty (1773-1650 B.C.). The building layout indicates that it may have been part of the governor’s palace, which was typical of provincial towns.
There is no exact parallel for such a columned hall being part of the administrative buildings. Scribes did accounting, opened and sealed containers, and received letters in the column hall. The ostraca, or inscribed pottery shards, list commodities written on them.
The administrative center was used when Egypt’s political unity was lost and a small kingdom developed at Thebes (modern Luxor) and controlled most of Upper Egypt.
“During this period, we can see an increase in connections between the provincial elite, such as the family of the governor, to the royal family at Thebes, who were keen on strengthening bonds through marriage, or by awarding important offices to these people,” Moeller said.
“It is exactly at this period when Edfu seems to have been very prosperous, which can now be confirmed further by archaeological discoveries such as this silo-court, a symbol for the wealth of the town,” she said.
Adapted from materials provided by University of Chicago.
This exhibition shows beautiful 17th, 18th and 19th century plaster casts of the finest sculptures of Antiquity. The timeless beauty of classical sculpture is the focal point of this exhibition. Further attention is paid to the role played by plaster casts in science, art criticism and art education in the past four hundred years.
He started with talking about Rome, as in that city, in the sixteenth century, were the origins of copying sculptures from antiquity. When, early in that century, visitors came to Rome, they might know from writings that during antiquity, there had been many sculptures in public places. However, when they visited the city, they saw only a few sculptures said to have survived from the Roman empire or earlier: the she-wolf of Capitol hill; the Marcus Aurelius statue; Trajan’s Column.
When, while building churches or other buildings in medieval Rome, sculptures or parts of them from antiquity had been found, they had been recycled as building material. After 1500, however, people found out that discoveries like these might add to knowledge about antique art. In this way, new sculptures which became famous, were found, like the Laocoön group and the Apollo of the Belvedere. They attracted many artists and other visitors from many European countries to Rome.
The popes and other elite people from the papal state sometimes, as a favour, started giving plaster copies of antique sculptures to princes in other countries. One example was Trajan’s column, a copy of which was given to King Louis XIV of France. In 1824, these plaster copies were found in a windmill in Leiden. the Netherlands. It is not known how they had ended up there. As, since the seventeenth century, in the open air of Rome, the original Trajan’s column has suffered much from pollution, these plaster copies are today valuable, as they show details which are no longer clear in the original.
In the exhibition are also cork models of ancient Roman buildings, which used to be sold to tourists. And reproductions of idealized paintings of ancient Roman remains, by the neo-classicist Giovanni Paolo Panini (1692 - 1765).
During the eighteenth century, drawing academies, based on neo-classicist views, arose in many countries. First, the students had to learn to draw skeletons and muscles for human anatomy. Then, they had to make drawings of Greek and Roman sculptures, considered as models of perfect human bodies. Only after that did they draw nude human models, with bodies not as perfect as antique sculptures.
Among the plaster copies often found in drawing academies were the Venus of Arles. And the “Borghese gladiator” which does not really depicts a gladiator, as gladiators did not fight while naked. The nude statue probably depicts a hero.
The Venus of Arles was considered the ideal female form, until 1820, when the Venus de Milo was discovered in Greece.
One of the drawings, depicting a statue of the Greek god Apollo, at the exhibition, is by nineteenth century drawing academy student, later famous painter, George Hendrik Breitner.
When female students had to draw plaster copies of statues, fig leaves were attached to prevent the women from seeing male genitalia.
Certainly since the 1960s in the Netherlands, neo-classicist ideas in art education became weaker. For the plaster copies, that often meant they were hidden away or even destroyed.
In the sixteenth century, mainly Roman sculpture and Roman copies of Greek sculpture had become known in western Europe. In the early nineteenth century, for the first time, classical Greek sculpture became widely known. Eg, after the Parthenon marbles arrived in London. People had difficulty in getting used to them. The poet John Keats was one of not very many people admiring the Marbles right from the start. While fellow poet Lord Byron attacked Lord Elgin for taking the sculpture from Athens.
When sculpture from the Aegina temple, still older than the Parthenon, became first known in Germany, famous author Goethe did not like it, as it did not conform to his preconceived ideas of what Greek art should be.
A team of Egyptian experts have discovered the remains of a pyramid which has been covered with sand since the nineteenth dynasty in the necropolis of Saqqara, 20km southeast of Cairo. The announcement was made by Zahi Hawass, the Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Anqituities in a communication in which he said that the pyramid is located by the side of the [pyramid of] Pharaoh Teti, the first monarch of the Sixth Dynasty.
The SCA have announced that a team of Egyptian archaeologists have found a part of an ancient avenue of Sphinxes at Saqqara. According to the information released by the SCA the avenue was [m]entioned in Graecoroman manuscripts and other documents which were found near the Serapeum, a nearby funerary complex in which sacred bulls were interred. The avenue dates to the Ptolemaic period and was discovered during recent excavations in that part of Saqqara.
7 June 1991 – Dr Zahi Hawass Announces the Discovery of Pyramid Builder’s Cemetery, Giza: here.
Peru: Global Warming brings rare bird to Machu Picchu
Israel J. Ruiz
The Mountain Caracara, a species of bird of prey in the Falconidae family, has shown changes in its behavior pattern which indicate it is being affected by Peru’s change of climate in the highlands.
The caracara, a bird that usually lives between 3,500 - 5,000 meters (11,482 - 16,404 feet) above sea level, was venerated by the Incas.
Such was the respect the Incas had for the bird that its feathers were used in the headdress if Inca kings.
The Mountain Caracara has recently been found living at much lower altitudes and specialists are asking themselves what has brought the high-Andes bird closer to humans.
According to biologists in Peru, the majestic bird is relocating because of weather alterations and abrupt changes in the climate.
Specialists have noted that more of these birds can be seen at the Inca Citadel atop Machu Picchu, which is 2,400 meters (7,875 ft) above sea level.
Julio Ochoa, a biologist at Machu Picchu Archaeological Park has questioned why the Mountain Caracara (Phalcoboenus megalopterus), a bird that lives 3,500 - 5,000 meters above sea level is seen so frequently at Machu Picchu.
“These are visible consequence of climate change,” said Ochoa.
“Many speak of this phenomenon as if it were something distant. This is a concrete case of the changes that are taking place.”
There have been various bits of news trickling out of Egypt about underwater discoveries in the Nile at Aswan. Here’s the latest.
“Archaeologists have discovered a portico, or covered entryway, of an ancient Egyptian temple beneath the surface of the Nile River.
The entryway once led to the temple of the ram-headed fertility god Khnum, experts say.
A team of Egyptian archaeologist-divers found the portico in Aswan while conducting the first-ever underwater surveys of the Nile, which began earlier this year.
“The Nile has shifted, and this part of the temple began to be a part of [the river],” said Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities. . . .
Today’s Nile obscures many objects from ancient times, and archaeologists believe the underwater excavations will reveal other significant artifacts.
The massive portico is too large to be removed during the current excavation, but archaeologists removed a one-ton stone with inscriptions that could date from the 22nd dynasty (945-712 B.C.) to 26th dynasty (664-525 B.C.).
The stone itself could be much older, however, because like many objects throughout Egyptian history, the original materials of the Temple of Khnum were reused to construct newer buildings.”
See the above page for the full story, which is accompanied by a photograph of the one-ton stone with its inscriptions.
‘Most exciting discovery in decades’ at famed Tarquinia site
Tarquinia, May 6 - Italian archaeologists have found more than two dozen new tombs at the famed Etruscan burial grounds at Tarquinia north of Rome.
‘’This is the most exciting discovery here in decades,'’ said the archeological superintendent for southern Etruria, Maria Tecla Castaldi.
So far 27 tombs have been added to the thousands at the site since a chance discovery during building work two months ago, she said.
‘’I've just been down and visited the only tomb that is open, which was probably broken into around 50 years ago,'’ she said.
‘’The other tombs are sealed and presumably intact'’.
Police have cordoned off the area, less than half a mile (500m) from the main necropolis, to ward off tomb raiders as digs go on. The well-preserved tombs at Tarquinia and nearby Cerveteri have been described by some experts as ‘cities of the dead’. Experts believe the Etruscans wanted their deceased to have everything they might need easily to hand in the afterlife, and so crammed the tombs with everyday objects.
Archaeologists say women were buried in stone tombs separate from the men and that slaves were cremated and their ashes placed in urns besides their masters’ remains.
The general span of the graves stretches from the seventh to the first century BC.
Excavations first began on the Tarquinia site in 1489 and since then over 6,000 tombs have been uncovered.
The Tarquinia tombs also have wall paintings, some probably dating back to the eighth century BC, depicting scenes from the lives of the dead.
April 25, 2008 — Many of Egypt’s most famous monuments, such as the Sphinx and Cheops, contain hundreds of thousands of marine fossils, most of which are fully intact and preserved in the walls of the structures, according to a new study.
The study’s authors suggest that the stones that make up the examined monuments at Giza plateau, Fayum and Abydos must have been carved out of natural stone since they reveal what chunks of the sea floor must have looked like over 4,000 years ago, when the buildings were erected.
“The observed random emplacement and strictly homogenous distribution of the fossil shells within the whole rock is in harmony with their initial in situ setting in a fluidal sea bottom environment,” wrote Ioannis Liritzis and his colleagues from the University of the Aegean and the University of Athens.
The researchers analyzed the mineralogy, as well as the chemical makeup and structure, of small material samples chiseled from the Sphinx Temple, the Osirion Shaft, the Valley Temple, Cheops, Khefren, Osirion at Abydos, the Temple of Seti I at Abydos and Qasr el-Sagha at Fayum.
X-ray diffraction and radioactivity measurements, which can penetrate solid materials to help illuminate their composition, were carried out on the samples.
The analysis determined the primary building materials were “pinky” granites, black and white granites, sandstones and various types of limestones. The latter was found to contain “numerous shell fossils of nummulites gen.” At Cheops alone, “(they constituted) a proportion of up to 40 percent of the whole building stone rock.”
Nummulites, meaning “little coins,” are simple marine organisms. Shells of those that lived during the Eocene period around 55.8 to 33.9 million years ago are most commonly found in Egyptian limestone. Fossils for the organisms have also been unearthed at other sites, such as in Turkey and throughout the Mediterranean.
When horizontally bisected, a nummulite appears as a perfect spiral. Since they were common in ancient Egypt, it’s believed the shells were actually used as coins, perhaps explaining their name.
· British Museum leads calls to preserve Iraq’s heritage
· Coalition troops accused of destroying historic sites
Robert Booth
Monday April 14, 2008
For more than 2,000 years the city of Babylon has been a byword for depravity and hubris. The Old Testament depicts it as an evil city and the legend of the Tower of Babel, a symbol of human arrogance, began there.
As part of a survey of Babylon from the reign of Nebuchadnezzar in the 6th century BC to the present day, the museum plans to use film and photographs to show how coalition tank tracks, helipads and fuel spills have ruined unexplored archaeological remains on one of the world’s most important historic sites.
The museum’s curators have discovered how souvenir hunters have damaged the remains of the famous Ishtar Gate by stealing brick reliefs of dragons, and how military vehicles have ripped through parts of a 2,600-year-old Processional Way leading to Nebuchadnezzar’s palace.
Although the exhibition represents a wide survey of the myths and realities surrounding the city famed for its tower and hanging gardens, the decision to analyse the impact of the war in Iraq is likely to make uncomfortable viewing.
Neil MacGregor, the director of the British Museum, prompted the decision to bring the survey up to date. Hannah Bolton, spokeswoman for the museum, said the curators are determined to highlight “the desperate need to preserve Iraq’s cultural heritage”. She said the exhibition, which will open in November, will chart Babylon’s “tragic recent history through video and photography”.
Painter, photographer, filmmaker, set designer, teacher, metalworker, he revelled in the new freedoms thrown up by the Russian Revolution and was fiercely committed to liberating art for the masses.
About 120 spectacular prints and photomontages will be on show at the Hayward Gallery alongside examples of his poster and magazine design work. …
By the time he died in 1956, despite having founded 22 provincial museums along with Vladimir Tatlin and acquiring major avant-garde collections for many of them, he had been largely written out of Soviet history by the Kremlin.
But his reputation has grown in recent years as a visionary forerunner of the modern age.
One of the highlights of the forthcoming exhibition is an advertising poster for the publishing house Gosizdat, created in 1924 and featuring a portrait of the actress Lilya Brik shouting out the word “books”. To modern eyes, the picture is perhaps more familiar as the album cover of Franz Ferdinand’s You Could Have It So Much Better.
Brik was something of a muse to the Russian avant-garde of the early 20th century, most notably the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky – a long time associate of Rodchenko – with whom she conducted a high-profile and adulterous love affair.
The couple were the toast of Moscow’s artistic circles and Mayakovsky dedicated many of his poems to her, most famously “The Backbone Flute” in 1916. …
Rodchenko was at the height of his career when Brik modelled for him. Though he was classically trained as an artist, by the time of their collaboration Rodchenko had already taken the decision to shun painting and sculpture for photography, which he regarded as the perfect popular medium.
He tirelessly promoted photography as an art form and his influence quickly spread to the West. Today he is rated alongside Man Ray and Eugene Atget as one of the founding fathers of photography.
Hardly week goes by without a major archaeological discovery or the publication of a radical new theory about the human past. Reducing a year’s worth of these stories to the 10 most important was a tall order, especially since our intent was to go beyond the headlines and select those we thought made a significant impact on the field–ones that will be talked about for decades.
With that in mind, here are our picks for the 2007’s most important finds.
