Wow – it has been an amazing first season in my new concession up north between Attab and Ferka! Today, we left our house at Attab East and arrived safely in Khartoum – in just a few hours, we will board the plane back to Munich via Istanbul.
A proper summary of our results will follow as soon as I got some sleep. But for now, my amazing team deserved loads of thanks – for making a great season full of important new data possible and for all the individual commitment in many respects!
Many thanks
goes as always to our dear friend and NCAM inspector Huda who was a great
support, helping with surveying in the desert and on the east bank, with
ceramics and with the geophysical survey. Our two Mohammeds – the cook and the
driver – enabled us to focus on our scientific work, taking care of all
logistics in challenging times and providing us with plenty of delicious food.
Looking already now very much forward to the second season of the MUAFS project and coming back to the beautiful landscape full of archaeology covering several millennia of history just downstream of the Dal cataract.
Just one
last visit to Abri and to WLAN, before it goes back to Khartoum! Has been a
great first short season of the MUAFS project with plenty of intriguing data
and impressions!
We
documented many impressive sites in the last two weeks – altogether, I managed
to re-identify and check 119 sites, which Vila recorded in the 1970s. For some
of these sites, the dating is of much interest. A slightly revised dating as
compared to the published data adds fresh information about several periods of
presence in this part of the Nile valley, for example during the Napatan
period.
Of prime
interest this week was the Kerma period and here in particular settlement sites
and cemeteries. Various large tumuli cemeteries, especially of the Kerma Moyen
and Kerma Classique periods, are located at the East Bank; we found several
older and smaller ones on the West Bank.
Ginis East was once again of particular importance and two more sites were investigated by magnetometry this season. GiE 003, labelled by Vila as 2-T-39, is a huge tumulus cemetery comprising probably more than 150 tombs, stretching from East to West and now partly destroyed by modern pathways and streets. A similar site is 2-P-7, located further upstream at Kosha East. There, the tumuli are quite dismantled, but various ceramics including Egyptian imports can still be found and suggest a Kerma Moyen date as prime phase of use for this cemetery.
Kerma cemetery 2-P-7
Marion’s
work with the Ferrex Foerster magnetometer revealed amazing results at GiE 004,
a Kerma settlement documented by Vila as site 2-T-5. The main structure of the
site and its multiple circular huts, possible enclosures for animals and fences
are clearly visible on the magnetogramm. The site is surrounded by later
structures from Post-Meroitic and Christian times – like at other places in our
concession, a long-lasting multi-period use of this part of Ginis East is
obvious.
Finally, intriguing Kerma sites can be found at Attab West – in the immediate surroundings of 18th Dynasty sites, comprising both mudbrick and stone architecture. These sites, which are located along an ancient branch of the Nile, are especially relevant to investigate cultural encounters during the Bronze Age in our concession area since Egyptian pottery was found frequently associated with Kerma Classique ceramics.
One of the Kerma sites with much Egyptian pottery on the surface.
So many
exciting new finds, so much work to do in the near future between Attab and
Ferka!
