Penelope Wilson

Prehistoric Settlement in the Western Delta: a Regional and Local View from Sais (Sa el-Hagar)

This paper publishes Prehistoric archaeological material from the EES work at Sais. Excavation 3 was carried out in 2001 in the ‘Great Pit’ and produced pottery, lithics, and faunal and floral material from three main phases: the Early Neolithic (c. 4,500–4,200 BC), Middle to Late Neolithic (c. 4,000–3,800 BC) and the Buto-Maadi Period (c. 3,500 BC). The pottery and object catalogue discusses the typology and wares of the pottery from each phase as well as individual objects, diagnostic lithics and bones, and compares them with datasets from other Lower Egyptian sites including Merimde and Buto. Sais is put into its wider regional context by combining geomorphological data from the drill core programme of the EES Survey and Vertical Electrical Sounding data from the University of Mansoura work in order to reconstruct the ancient environment at Sais. The palaeoenvironmental work shows that Sais was situated upon a river levee on the inside of a significant river channel, with marshes and other sand hills further west. The site seems to have been a fishing camp in the Early Neolithic which was settled in the Middle to Later Neolithic Period for the cultivation of the floodplain. There is a gap in the settlement record of at least 300 years in the early fourth millennium until the Buto-Maadi culture settlement was established at Sais around 3,500 BC. The possible reasons for and implications of the hiatus in continuous settlement at Sais are explored in the context of the development of Lower Egyptian centres of power.

Waterways, settlements and shifting power in the north-western Nile Delta

The reconstructed landscape of the north-west Nile Delta in Egypt suggests that in antiquity (c. 300 bc to the ninth century ad), the lagoons, marshes and river channels provided a watery environment that was exploited to the maximum to support the major political power centres of the time. Archaeological evidence from the lagoonal areas of Mareotis, Abuqir, Edku and Burullus as well as the main river branches of Canopus and Bolbitine–Rosetta suggests that the location of settlements may have been a key factor in the network of monitoring and control of goods and raw materials travelling from place of production to urban centres. In addition, the creation of ‘new’ administrative units, including Alexandria, confirms the significance of the control of water systems and the sustainability of the areas in which they were located with abundant agricultural and fishing resources. Only modern developments in road and rail transport have changed this ancient system. The article examines these developments from an archaeological perspective.

Terje Oestigaard: Horus’ eye and Osiris’ efflux: the Egyptian civilization of inundation c. 3000–2000 BCE

This study focuses on the relationship between the inundation of the Nile, climatic variability, the rise of Ancient Egyptian civilization and how that was articulated in religious and ideological terms, particularly with regard to Osiris, the god of the dead. The individual chapters deal with the inundation in practical and cosmological terms; the connection between climate and the myths of struggles between the gods; the geographical details of the Nile at rest and in flood and the mythological explanations for its appearance and performance; the relationship between the king of Egypt and the flood of the river; the festivals surrounding the Nile and the inundation; the rise of Egyptian civilization and its monuments and finally, a discussion of how all of this is related to the central theme of water, death and civilization within the specific Egyptian context. The work is a bold attempt to bring together several strands of Ancient Egyptian culture in terms of the archaeology, climate and geography and religious ideology and to suggest that they were dependent upon one another in a cause and effect way. That is to say, that climatic change as well as the fact of an annual inundation which could vary in height were given cosmic explanations in Egyptian myths which were then an integral part of the civilization and kingship culture which arose in the Nile Valley after 3,000 BC. The result was the construction of monuments (specifically pyramids) which embodied those myths and thus climatic effects. In effect much of the argument is related to the idea that the first Egyptian kings were ‘rainmakers’, giving rise to the myth of the kings as the controllers of the flood in his persona of Horus and his Eye. The tombs of Dynasty 1 with their ‘sacrificed’ attendants and then the pyramids from Dynasty 3 onward represent this supersocial stratification at a divine and cosmic level. A struggle, perhaps between early kings, was made mythical through the idea of conflict between Seth, the god of the desert and Horus thus demonstrating a connection between climate–political power and cosmic myth and also showing the flexibility of the ideological system. The theme of the dead or killed king, especially if the rains or flood failed, may be embodied in the sacrificed attendants but was then integrated into the Osiris story where the murdered king became the king of the afterlife, but more pragmatically, the exudations from his putrefying body were the life

Fieldwork, 2000-01

During 2000-01 the Society carried out an extensive programme of survey, excavation and field station and special project study. A study season at Qasr Ibrim concentrated mainly on ceramics and archaeobotanic remains. The ongoing escarpment survey and studies at Memphis were augmented by the Kom Helul Kilns Project of Paul Nicholson. Investigation at Amarna featured less well-known parts of the site, in addition to continuing projects, with quarries and new cemetery areas coming to light. In the Delta Penelope Wilson extended her attention to mapping and surveying Tell Mutubis on the Rosetta branch of the Nile, as well as continuing work at Sais. The Delta Survey focused on Tell Belim in the northeastern Delta; the range and results of this Survey are now extensive enough to warrant a regular report in this section of the Journal. None of these projects would have been possible without the support and assistance of the Supreme Council for Antiquities in Egypt (SCA), and the EES would like to express its gratitude to its Permanent Secretary, Gaballa A. Gaballa, and the SCA officials. Thanks are also due to the Secretary of the Supreme Council, Magdi Abu el-Aala, to the staff in the Abbassiya security office and to the numerous officials in the local Inspectorates who have given assistance. Rawya Ismail in the EES Cairo Office has provided her usual able support, for which the Society is grateful.

Data for: The fluvial evolution of the Holocene Nile Delta

The evolution of the Nile Delta, the largest delta system in the Mediterranean Sea, has both high palaeoenvironmental and archaeological significance. A dynamic model of the landscape evolution of this delta system is presented for the period c.8000–4500 cal BP. Analysis of sedimentary data and chronostratigraphic information contained within 1640 borehole records has allowed for a redefinition of the internal stratigraphy of the Holocene delta, and the construction of a four-dimensional landscape model for the delta’s evolution through time. The mid-Holocene environmental evolution is characterised by a transition from an earlier set of spatially varied landscapes dominated by swampy marshland, to better-drained, more uniform floodplain environments. Archaeologically important Pleistocene inliers in the form of sandy hills protruding above the delta plain surface (known as “turtlebacks”), also became smaller as the delta plain continued to aggrade, while the shoreline and coastal zone prograded north. These changes were forced by a decrease in the rate of relative sea-level rise under high rates of sediment-supply. This dynamic environmental evolution needs to be integrated within any discussion of the contemporary developments in the social sphere, which culminated in the emergence of the Ancient Egyptian State c.5050 cal BP.

Tell el-Balamun

Tell el-Balamun takes its name from the ancient Pa-iu-en-Amun “The Island of Amun,” part of the ancient city at the site, also known as Sma-Behdet. Keywords: archaeology; Egyptian history; historical geography; religious history; social history

Les villes de Basse Égypte au premier millénaire av. J.-C.: Analyse archéologique et historique de la topographie urbaineLes villes de Basse Égypte au premier millénaire av. J.-C.: Analyse archéologique et historique de la topographie urbaine. By LECLÈREFRANÇOIS. Bilbiothèque d'Étude 144. Pp. xvii + 811 + 119 illustrations. Cairo, Institut français d'archéologie orientale, 2008. ISBN 978 2 7247 0489 1. ISSN 0259–3823. Price €107.

abandoned either in Egyptology or outside it, but it seems fair to say that their usefulness becomes less obvious with every new work that appears. In sum, the present grammar provides a near-inexhaustible cornucopia of Egyptian data and a vast array of analyses thereof. Of the interpretations and views proposed many are brilliant, others controversial, but none are lacking in masterly linguistic and scientific insight. For patient learners working on their own this work provides a good introduction to the Middle Egyptian, and for linguistically oriented Egyptologists it o ers a fine research tool. It is to be heartily recommended.

Fieldwork, 2002-03

DURING the 2002-03 field season the Society carried out an extensive programme of work in the four main geographical areas where its recent research has been focused. Penelope Wilson undertook work at Sais (a report to be published next year) and on behalf of the ongoing Delta Survey, and fieldwork, including numerous smaller projects, continued at Memphis and Amarna. The Qasr Ibrim work comprised a study season based in Shellal and a short period on site, when the wall-painting from the temple of Taharqa was conserved and removed. Reports on these works follow. Such projects would be impossible without the ongoing help and co-operation of the officials of the Supreme Council for Antiquities in Egypt, particularly its Secretary General Zahi Hawass, and the Society and all its field workers would like to extend warmest thanks to them. Thanks must also be expressed to the Director General of Foreign and Egyptian Missions Magdi el-Ghandour, to the staff of the security office in Abbassiya and to the regional inspectorates, all of whom have provided generous assistance. The Society is also grateful for the constant facilitating efforts of Rawya Ismail in the Cairo office of the EES.

Fieldwork, 1999–2000

THE Societys fieldwork activities during 1999-2000 were concentrated on the four major settlement sites where it holds concessions. Excavation and/or survey and ongoing specialist studies took place at Sais, Memphis, Amarna and Qasr lbrim, and Amarna hosted a major field study season of the Amarna Glass Project team. On a smaller scale, Neal Spencer, assisted by Penny Wilson, spent several days in October 1999 conducting a GPS survey at Sarnanud, as a complement to his EES Centenary Studentship Award epigraphic survey in 1998, aiming to produce a contour map of the ancient tell. In an additional attempt to flesh out our.knowledge of northern Egypt, Jeffrey and Patricia Spencer visited Tell Deffeneh and Tell Belim in the north-eastern delta, in addition to Tell Abu Seifi in Sinai, as part of the Societys Delta Survey. The EES, its field directors and all participants in its fieldwork projects would like to thank the officials of the Supreme Council for Antiquities in Egypt (SCA), in particular its Permanent Secretary, Gaballa A. Gaballa, for their assistance and support. Sincere thanks are also due to the Secretary of the Supreme Council, Magdi Abu el-Aala, to the staff of the security office at Abbassiya and to the officials of the local Inspectorates. The efforts of Rawya Ismail in the EES Cairo office to smooth and facilitate the Societys projects are also much appreciated.

Fieldwork, 1998-9; Sais, Memphis, Gebel El-Haridi, Tell El-Amarna, Tell El-Amarna Glass Project

Cet article rend compte des fouilles, prospections et autres travaux effectues sur plusieurs sites egyptiens : Tell El-Amarna, Gebel El-Haridi, Sais et Memphis. Les nombreuses analyses et interpretations du materiel mis au jour sont reportees ici.