Andrew Shortland

Radiocarbon-based chronology for dynastic Egypt.

Date with the Pharaohs Ancient Egypt dominated the Mediterranean world for several thousand years. However, the absolute chronology of this civilization has been uncertain, even though the sequence of rulers is well documented. Bronk Ramsey et al. (p. 1554; see the Perspective by Bruins) now provide a detailed radiocarbon-based record using more than 200 samples that spans much of this time and reduces uncertainties in some cases to less than 20 years. To avoid artifacts, the authors dated only short-lived plant remains from known contexts (i.e., that were associated with specific reigns). They then used the known reign lengths as a further constraint to obtain a final chronology. The final dates agree most closely with the previous older chronology but force some revisions to the timing of events in the Old Kingdom, the period in the third millennium B.C.E. when Egypt attained its first continuous peak of civilization. Many radiocarbon dates from short-lived plant remains provide a long and accurate chronology for ancient Egypt. The historical chronologies for dynastic Egypt are based on reign lengths inferred from written and archaeological evidence. These floating chronologies are linked to the absolute calendar by a few ancient astronomical observations, which remain a source of debate. We used 211 radiocarbon measurements made on samples from short-lived plants, together with a Bayesian model incorporating historical information on reign lengths, to produce a chronology for dynastic Egypt. A small offset (19 radiocarbon years older) in radiocarbon levels in the Nile Valley is probably a growing-season effect. Our radiocarbon data indicate that the New Kingdom started between 1570 and 1544 B.C.E., and the reign of Djoser in the Old Kingdom started between 2691 and 2625 B.C.E.; both cases are earlier than some previous historical estimates.

An absolute chronology for early Egypt using radiocarbon dating and Bayesian statistical modelling

The Egyptian state was formed prior to the existence of verifiable historical records. Conventional dates for its formation are based on the relative ordering of artefacts. This approach is no longer considered sufficient for cogent historical analysis. Here, we produce an absolute chronology for Early Egypt by combining radiocarbon and archaeological evidence within a Bayesian paradigm. Our data cover the full trajectory of Egyptian state formation and indicate that the process occurred more rapidly than previously thought. We provide a timeline for the First Dynasty of Egypt of generational-scale resolution that concurs with prevailing archaeological analysis and produce a chronometric date for the foundation of Egypt that distinguishes between historical estimates.

Synchronising radiocarbon dating and the Egyptian historical chronology by improved sample selection

Egypt has some of the oldest written records and extended lists of named rulers. But radiocarbon dates have only fulfilled expectations 66 per cent of the time. So why haven&t the two types of dating made a better match? The authors provide a dozen excellent reasons, which will sound the alarm among researchers well beyond Dynastic Egypt.

Copper and antimony isotopic analysis via multi-collector ICP-mass spectrometry for provenancing ancient glass

Variations in the isotopic composition of Cu and Sb as determined using multi-collector ICP-mass spectrometry (MC-ICPMS) have been investigated as a proxy for provenancing ancient glass. Cu and Sb were added during the manufacturing of ancient (pre-Roman and Roman) glass to obtain colour and opacity. In previous work, the analytical methodology for sample digestion and isolation of Sb preceding isotopic analysis via multi-collector ICP-MS was developed. Although applications of Cu isotopic analysis can be found in the literature, this approach has not been used for provenancing glass raw materials yet. Therefore, the protocols for digestion and Cu isolation were optimized and validated, relying on the use of both an in-house multi-elemental standard and NIST SRM 610 glass reference material. The methods for Sb and Cu isotopic analysis were subsequently applied to a series of late Bronze Age Mesopotamian–Egyptian to Hellenistic–Roman glasses. Results obtained show that the isotopic composition of Cu, expressed as δ65Cu, varies from −1.9 to −0.2‰, thus covering a range of approximately 2‰. Unfortunately, the use of Cu isotope ratios to characterize raw materials used in glass manufacturing is complicated by the fact that Cu ores from within a single deposit can exhibit a similar range in δ65Cu values, certainly for co-existing Cu sulfides and oxides. Sb in stibnite ore, on the other hand, only shows a variance in isotopic composition of ∼10 e units (or 0.1‰), but Sb isotopic analysis offers more potential to pinpoint the location of an antimony source used in antiquity.

The facial reconstruction of an Ancient Egyptian Queen

The National Museums of Scotland Mummy Project has provided important new information about a burial excavated in Egypt. This has resulted in the facial reconstruction of a woman who was probably a queen at Thebes ca. 1570-1520 BCE. There are strong suggestions from the grave goods and her diet that this woman may have been ethnically Nubian rather than Egyptian. However, it is not yet possible to establish her ethnic identity for sure, so a definitive reconstruction of her appearance in life remains elusive.

X-ray fluorescence applied to overglaze enamel decoration on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century porcelain from central Europe

Abstract Technical and chronological aspects of overglaze enamel production at historic porcelain factories in central Europe are discussed based on studies of over 180 objects at various laboratories. Results of analyses on representative objects, carried out primarily with X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, are presented. Examples of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century decoration by Meissen, Du Paquier, and Hausmaler painters are described in detail. The findings highlight established glaze formulation practices and enhance understanding of the dating of objects based on the detection of zinc in yellow, blue, and green glazes. This study is the first to provide extensive scientific evidence on the composition of nineteenth-century overglaze enamel colors. In particular, the research highlights the frequent co-occurrence of both eighteenth- and nineteenth-century enamel formulations on objects, underscoring the need to examine all overglaze enamel colorants on porcelains before attributing the decoration to a particular time period.

A HIGH-STATUS SEVENTH-CENTURY FEMALE BURIAL FROM WEST HANNEY, OXFORDSHIRE

In 2009, a metal-detector find of a rare garnet-inlaid composite disc brooch at West Hanney, Oxfordshire, led to the excavation of an apparently isolated female burial sited in a prominent position overlooking the Ock valley. The burial dates to the middle decades of the seventh century, a period of rapid socio-political development in the region, which formed the early heartland of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex. The de luxe brooch links the wearer to two other burials furnished with very similar brooches at Milton, some 10km to the east and only c 1km from the Anglo-Saxon great hall complex at Sutton Courtenay / Drayton, just south of Abingdon. All three women must have been members of the region’s politically dominant group, known as the Gewisse. The burial’s grave goods and setting add a new dimension to our understanding of the richly furnished female burials that are such a prominent feature of the funerary record of seventh-century England. RÉSUMÉ En 2009, un rare exemple de fibule circulaire composite incrustée de grenats fut découvert au moyen d’un détecteur de métaux à West Hanney, dans l’Oxfordshire. Cette trouvaille a entraîné la fouille d’une sépulture féminine apparemment isolée, située un endroit proéminent donnant sur la vallée de l’Ock. La sépulture date des décennies du milieu du viie siècle, période d’expansion socio-politique rapide dans la région, qui forma au début le cœur du royaume anglo-saxon de Wessex. Cette fibule somptueuse relie sa propriétaire à deux autres sépultures qui recélaient des fibules très semblables et ont été découvertes à Milton, à environ 10km à l’est et à seulement 1km du « Great Hall » complex (Complexe de la grande salle) de Sutton Courtenay / Drayton, tout de suite au sud d’Abingdon. Ces trois femmes devaient être membres de la classe politique dominante de la région, les Gewissae. Le mobilier funéraire découvert dans la sépulture ainsi que son cadre apportent une dimension nouvelle à ce que nous savons sur les sépultures féminines richement garnies si caractéristiques des vestiges funéraires de l’Angleterre du viie siècle. ZUSAMMENFASSUNG Als im Jahr 2009 eine äußerst seltene, mit Granaten eingelegte Scheibenfibel aus Verbundstoff mit einem Metalldetektor in West Hanney, Oxfordshire, gefunden wurde, hatte dies die Ausgrabung einer scheinbar abgesonderten weiblichen Grabanlage in einer dominanten Lage über dem Ock-Tal zur Folge. Die Beisetzung geht auf die mittleren Jahrzehnte des siebten Jahrhunderts zurück, auf eine Zeit rapider gesellschaftspolitischer Entwicklungen in der Region, die das frühe Herzland des angelsächsischen Königreichs von Wessex bildete. Die luxuriöse Fibel stellt eine Beziehung der Trägerin zu zwei anderen Beisetzungen mit sehr ähnlichen Fibeln in Milton her, das rund 10km östlich davon und nur ca. 1km vom angelsächsischen Palaskomplex in Sutton Courtenay / Drayton, südlich von Abingdon liegt. Alle drei Frauen gehörten mit ziemlicher Gewissheit der politisch dominanten Gruppe in der Region, Gewisse genannt, an. Die Grabbeigaben in der Grabstätte und deren Lage verleihen unserem Verständnis von den reich ausgestatteten weiblichen Grabstätten, die für die Bestattungskultur Englands im siebten Jahrhundert ein so vorstehendes Merkmal sind, eine ganz neue Dimension.

The Number, Extent and Distribution of the Vitreous Materials Workshops at Amarna

Excavations at Amarna, the late 18th Dynasty capital of Akhenaten, undertaken at the end of the last century and early in this century, uncovered several parts of the city where major areas of habitation coincide with manufacturing sites. This paper presents the results of an in-depth study of the published reports and unpublished excavation day books for the 1200 individual houses so far registered at Amarna carried out by the author. This study led to the recognition of eight further high concentrations of manufacturing debris also thought to be areas of manufacturing activity for the production of vitreous materials. Comparison of these eight sites has shown how closely the manufacture of vitreous materials was associated and inter-related with other manufacturing industries, including pottery making, the working of precious metals and sculpture in stone and plaster for composite statues. In all of these sites the focus seems to be on the finished object, rather than the material being manipulated. The craftsmen therefore seem to be better described as ‘jewellers’, ‘statue-makers’ and ‘vessel-makers’ than ‘glass-workers’, ‘stone sculptors’ and ‘precious-metal workers’, having the skills needed in all the media to produce the finished object ‘in house’.

Nourishing archaeology and science

Archaeology is an interdisciplinary science par excellence. In its quest to reconstruct human behavior in the natural and cultural environment of the past, archaeology uses knowledge and techniques from many different academic disciplines. Indeed, there are very few sciences that have no relevance to archaeology. The concept of “holistic archaeology” was specifically defined as an inclusive approach to archaeology, comprising all aspects of human societies, from ecology and economy, to social organization and politics, to art and ideology (1). In many excavation projects, however, the term has been particularly used to refer to the integration in archaeology of the work and results of exact or beta scientists, and less so to the work of anthropologists or humanistic scholars (2). The integration of the exact sciences into archaeological research has been led by those studying prehistoric sites throughout the world. Perhaps one of the key reasons for this is the very limitation of the evidence supplied by scattered, nonliterate, prehistoric groups and societies. Until recently, the efforts of prehistorians to include scientific analysis left scholars working on the great ancient civilizations far behind. The very wealth of evidence available here, especially that derived from abundant ancient textual sources, has militated against the application of scientific analysis on the same scale as that used in prehistory. However, that application is rapidly changing, especially with the understanding that the texts do not tell the entire story. More and more analysis is being conducted by established teams of researchers using advanced techniques. In PNAS, Clark et al. (3) present the chemical composition of organic balms used to prepare meat mummies, offerings of food especially prepared for the dead. This work complements previous work on animal and human mummies from ancient Egypt (4, 5), and uses advanced organic chemistry to answer some of the … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: Patrick.Degryse{at}ees.kuleuven.be. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1

Cobalt blue painted pottery from 18th Dynasty Egypt

Abstract Cobalt blue painted pottery was produced in New Kingdom Egypt, with the heyday for its production being from about 1400 bc to 1200 bc. Previous scientific examination has established that the cobalt blue pigment was a CoAl-spinel, which it was suggested was produced from cobaltiferous alums from the Western Desert of Egypt. In the present paper, quantitative analyses of a range of cobalt blue painted pottery have confirmed the Western Desert as the source of the cobalt blue pigment but suggested that the cobaltiferous alums used for the pottery differed in composition from those used in the production of contemporary cobalt blue glass. The pottery bodies were produced using either non-calcareous Nile silt or calcareous clay. Before being painted, the Nile silt bodies were first coated with pale firing calcareous clay slip to which gypsum had probably been added.