Exams never end, not just for humans but even for archaeological artifacts.
Already before the Christmas break, I had happily returned to the lab, this time to prepare a new bunch of ceramic samples to undergo X-ray powder diffraction (XRPD) analysis. Thanks to a new cooperation with the TU München, and especially with Prof. H. A. Gilg (Chair of Engineering Geology) we decided in fact to complement our iNAA and OM analyses with this new laboratory methodology, with the aim of expanding our knowledge on the composition, provenance and technology of production of our Nile clay samples. All in all, we preliminary selected 30 ceramic specimens, among Nubian- and Egyptian-style sherds from the 2022 and 2023 excavated sites at Attab West and Ginis East. To this sample, we added a replica in modern Nubian (from Abri) Nile clay manufactured by us during our last workshop in Asparn.
Generally speaking, X-ray powder diffraction analysis is a well consolidated analytical technique used in the field of archaeometry and ceramic technology to determine the mineral phases present in the pastes, including those clay phases which are typically not visible under the microscope. This technique also provides information on the firing process the pottery went through. Certain minerals (e.g., calcite as one of the most known) can in fact degrade, disappear or be altered at given temperatures because the crystalline structure collapses through the process of dehydroxylation (Magetti 1982; Rice 1987). The analysis itself based on the phenomenon of diffraction of electromagnetic radiation, by exploiting the fact that X-rays falling on crystalline planes in minerals are reflected at varying angles (Velde and Druc 1999; Quin 2013). Hence, each mineral type will produce a characteristic X-ray diffraction spectrum with diagnostic peaks placed at given angular distances (expressed in degrees 2θ), allowing the qualitative identification of the minerals present within the ceramic sample. The heigh of those picks permits otherwise a semi-quantitative estimation of the ratios in which minerals are more or less represented.
Figure 1 – Lab kit for the preparation of samples for XRD analysis. Photo by G. D’Ercole.
Sample preparation is pretty much straightforward although partially destructive. The procedure requires that a tiny portion of the sherd be ground up (about 1g of powder) by hands with an agate mortar and a pestle, alike those used for iNAA, pressed in the mounting smear slide, and then put into the instrument. Proper pulverization and homogenization are crucial to achieve highly quality XRD data.
Figure 2 – Pulverization of the sample by hands in the agate mortar. Photo by G. D’Ercole.
The sample needs to be as representative of the ceramic sherd as possible – for this reason, it is sometimes advisable to grind a larger quantity of powder and above all finely ground so as to prevent larger crystals (e.g., coarse quartz grains) from interfering with the measurement. This latter can be carried out with different timing and levels of accuracy depending on whether one wants only a rough semi-quantitative estimate of the mineral phases in the sample or more accurate information.
Figure 3 – First set of potsherds ground up and ready to be analysed by XRD analysis. Note the diverse powder colours from black (reduced fired Nubian samples) to reddish-brown (oxidized fired Egyptian sherds). Photo by G. D’Ercole.Figure 4 – Samples ready in the mounting smear slides. Photo by G. D’Ercole.
In performing XRD analysis, our main archaeological questions were the following:
Can we recognize the use of different clay raw materials for the different sites/locations (e.g., Attab, Ginis…);
Can we differentiate between Nubian- (also Pan-Grave) vs. Egyptian-style samples;
Can we differentiate between the different ceramic types and wares;
Can we demonstrate the intentional addition of tempers (calcite and/or quartz and/or feldspar and/or mica) in particular samples?
Can we know more about the firing process (i.e., firing temperatures) the ceramics went through?
Currently, together with Prof. Gilg, we just started to interpret the results of the first diffractograms. The data are not always straightforward to read and the differences between the various samples look sometimes very subtle – on the other hand our Nile clay samples have used us to significant challenges for many years already!
Preliminary, we can say that, based on the diagnostic mineral phases in the various spectra, it was possible to recognise four distinct groups or types of samples. These groups do not depend on the main phases (quartz or feldspar) as these are present in nearly homogenous amounts in all samples. Rather, some differences can be spotted in the clay minerals. Whether these latter can be ascribed to different clay sources, preparation recipes, or eventually the pot production (i.e., firing) has yet to be fully assessed.
References
Maggetti, M. 1982. Phase Analysis and its Significance for Technology and Origin. In J. S. Olin and A. D. Franklin (eds.), Archaeological Ceramics: 121−133. Washington, Smithsonian Institution Press.
Quinn, P. S. 2013. Ceramic Petrography: The Interpretation of Archaeological Pottery & Related Artefacts in Thin Section. Oxford, Archaeopress.
Rice, P. M. 1987. Pottery analysis. A sourcebook. Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
Velde, B. and Druc, I. C. 1999. Archaeological Ceramic Material. Origin and Utilization. Berlin Heidelberg, Springer-Verlag.
Specifically, we aimed to first perform Raman spectroscopy towards carbon-bearing pottery and yields insights on the application of this technique for estimating maximum firing temperatures of Late Bronze Age vessels from Upper Nubia, comparing two site-specific data sets of samples, from the 18th Dynasty (1550–1290 BCE) at Sai Island and Dukki Gel (Kerma).
In testing Raman spectroscopy, our principal aims were to search for differences in producing technique and firing temperatures between the Nubian- and Egyptian-style samples; between the samples from Sai Island and those from Dukki Gel; and eventually among the different ceramic wares and types.
Now, as it is often the case, one idea leads to another and while some of the archaeological questions posed in the initial objectives of the work have not yet been fully answered, new exciting questions have arisen during the research and led us to further expand our Raman project into a new spin-off project focused on the investigation of the effects of oxidative weathering in relation to site-specific depositional environment and time.
Generally speaking, oxidative weathering is known to cause significant alteration modifications of the ceramic body after deposition resulting in distorting Raman spectra and potentially leading to an overestimation of the firing temperatures (Deldicque et al., 2023). Although all archaeological ceramics experienced oxidative weathering, our case study showed that the weathering effect was possibly more intense on the Dukki Gel than on the Sai Island samples hence to affect maximum firing conditions.
The new set of samples for which thin-sections were produced to perform Raman Spectroscopy.
In the coming months, together with Fabian Dellefant, we will particularly focus on this aspect of our research and perform Raman Spectroscopy on new samples, including ceramic sherds that have undergone extremely intensive oxidative weathering and experimental replica which were never exposed to any depositional and post-depositional processes.
Stay tuned to know more about the development of our work!
Reference
Deldicque, D., Rouzaud, J., Vandevelde, S., Medina-Alcaide, M.A., Ferrier, C., Perrenoud, C., Pozzi, J., Cabanis, M., 2023. Effects of oxidative weathering on Raman spectra of charcoal and bone chars: consequences in archaeology and paleothermometry. Comptes Rendus. Geoscience 355, 1–22. https://doi.org/ 10.5802/crgeos.186.
For an Africanist archaeologist working in North Africa, the fall and winter seasons are mostly dedicated to excavation, while spring marks some how the beginning of the “conference season”.
The EMAC is a important biennial conference gathering scholars and researchers with a broad spectrum background on ceramic technological and provenance studies from both the humanistic and hard science disciplinary areas. New approaches and up-to-date laboratory techniques to the study of ancient ceramics are typically presented in terms of analytical procedures, methodological papers, and case studies from all around the world.
The 1st EMAC edition took place in Rome, in 1991, while the first EMAC I personally attended was in Vienna, in 2011. This year, after two years of postponement because of the Covid Pandemic, the 16th edition of the EMAC has been back as an in-person conference in Italy, held by the University of Pisa, in the splendid setting of its Medieval and Renaissance town which is also one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in Europe. Further, this year the EMAC conference was preceded by a 1st edition of the EMAC School dedicated to PhD students and young researchers as an opportunity for advanced training in non-destructive and non-invasive methods for the study of archaeological ceramics.
The conference (June 14-16) consists of six scientific sessions covering the diverse topics of Digital archaeology and potteries studies (S1), Experimental archaeology, technological traces, use wear and organic residues (S2 + S4), Raw materials ecologies and provenance (S3), Technology and production (S5), and Theory and Methods (S6).
Title page of our talk at the 16th EMAC in Pisa.
Our paper titled Chemical Characterization of Bronze Age Nile clayey ceramics from northern Sudan – is it really all the same?, co-authored by our PI, Julia Budka, Johannes H. Sterba, our colleague from the AI in Vienna, and by myself was included in Session 3: Raw materials ecologies an provenance. All in all, it summarized our study on over 600 ceramic samples conducted in the last 10 years within the framework of Julia’s ERC projects AcrossBorders and DiverseNile, dealing with the challenging but otherwise successful application of bulk geochemical analysis (Neutron Activation Analysis or NAA) to establish provenance for these characteristic vessels manufactured in Nile clay.
Specifically, our case study spans several millennia from prehistory to the Late Bronze Age (New Kingdom period) and comprises ceramic material collected over a long stretch of the Nile, including our last samples from the new sites excavated in the MUAFS concession area, the AcrossBorders ceramic samples from the temple town of Sai Island, and further reference material among which the beautiful potsherds from the site of Dukki Gel, Kerma. Within this large data set, we aimed to investigate minute changes in the chemical composition of Nile clayey ceramics that might help to differentiate their provenance and production technology. In detail, we looked for bulk compositional differences (or otherwise similarities) between different traditions (i.e., wheel-made Egyptian style and hand-made Nubian style pottery), chronological periods, and sites/locations. We focused our interpretation on the preparation of the clay, that is the particular recipe or formula adopted by the ancient potters to produce their vessels. We recognized in fact that considering just the clay raw material is possibly not sufficiently representative of the whole range of cultural and social drives as well as of performative actions (e.g., depuration of the clay, tempering and so on) carried out at the anthropic level to make a given paste particularly suitable for the production of a certain type of traditional vessel.
Ceramic sherds submitted to INAA within our large scope provenance study. Samples from the DiverseNile field season 2023 and from Amara West are here included although not yet analysed.
I am pleased to remark here that our talk was appreciated not only as a specific case study but more in general for the questions and challenges it proposed at the interpretative level, as a methodological paper.
Further, I really valued the holistic vision of the conference and the successful attempt of the organizing board to well intertwine over the different sessions the many different subjects and issues on ceramic production and use, such as to ideally follow all the successive stages of the manufacturing sequence, from raw material procurement to preparation, production, use and finally discard of the vessel. Further, this 16th EMAC gave more space to experimental archaeology, ethnographic study, and finally first tried to incorporate ORA studies in the wide range of inorganic analyses on ancient ceramics.
Of particular interest for us was certainly the talk given by Maritan et al. on the local and imported ceramic material from the Meroitic site of Sedeinga, nearby Sai Island, but I also much appreciated the methodological communication by Hein, Buxeda, Garrigós and Kilikoglou on the “Representativeness of a ceramic assemblage – significance and confidence in relation to sample size”, and the many good papers on the issue of manufacturing and shaping techniques, among which that by Gait et al. which nicely introduced the application of non destructive small-angle neutron scattering analysis (SANS) to identify forming techniques for both wheel made and handmade pots.
To conclude, I deeply admired the eco-friendly and low environmental impact slant of this 16th EMAC edition with its delicious and fully vegetarian Italian buffet, organic wine tasting, non-printed program and abstract book, and mostly the EMAC 2023 committee decision to donate the funds to charitable initiatives for the planet and the communities that inhabit it.
The splendid sun set view in Pisa from the restaurant terrace where the EMAC 2023 social dinner took place. Photo by Johannes Sterba.
Archaeologist is a meaningful career although our amazing job is constantly challenging under many respects and it often is physically and emotionally demanding. This is especially true for those among us who work in the field and even more for archaeologists who are part of projects, like ours, that investigate very remote and fragile geographical areas. And Sudan was in the past, and is clearly still nowadays, an extremely fragile and unpredictable land both in terms of its environmental and climatic conditions, resources, borders, cultural entities, and interregional socio-political relationships. This can be certainly attributed to the vastness of the country and to its long history of intricate and fragmented cultural, linguistic and religious identities which intertwine with an alike complex mosaic of many diverse and complementary landscapes and ecological niches.
Having said that, with these words, I do not want in any way to justify under the umbrella of the general geo-political complexity of the country, the horrible conflicts and fighting that have been going on in the capital city of Khartoum for days now and that make us seriously fear for the lives of our colleagues and friends there, as well as for the possibility of being able to return to work in our beloved Sudan. This insane war has in fact to do with geo-political balances and power games, and at the moment I consider myself blessed to have still had the privilege of having a successful field season there and hence returning just in time to get safely back home, in Munich – our team left Khartoum just five weeks ago, before all this catastrophe started!
Even more grateful we can consider ourselves, although in the last days ours is not just normal business, to manage to successfully export to Germany all our bunch of samples for laboratory analysis. And this was possible as usual thanks to the kind cooperation of our inspector and friend, Huda Magzoub, and of the NCAM in Khartoum.
A few days ago, just before the Easter break, my desk, or rather, every flat surfaces of my office (!) was still covered by a multitude of tiny, beautiful ceramic sherds for analysis. These samples, selected during the two weeks of field season I spent in Ginis, include a total of 131 specimens, attributable to Nubian-style and Egyptian-style ceramics made in Nile clays. Of these, 129 were eventually destinated to INAA and have been already successfully delivered to the AI of Vienna, where they are now in the wise hands of our colleague, Johannes Sterba. 28 intended for Optical Microscopy were additionally sent to Prague and are currently in the process of being manufactured as polished thin sections.
The sample incorporate mainly ceramic material from the Bronze Age sites in the area of Ginis and Attab, and specifically from the two excavated settlement sites of Attab West 001 ( 60 sherds in total) and Attab West 002 = Vila Site 2-S-54 (17 sherds in total), and from the cemetery GiE 003 in Ginis East (44 sherds in total). To these are added 10 samples from a surface collection conducted by our PI, Julia Budka, in the district of Kosha East (Kerma cemetery 3-P-7).
All in all, this material is highly significant in terms of diachronic representativeness of the area, covering in fact a wide time span from the Middle Kerma to the Kerma Classic and up until the 18th Dynasty of the New Kingdom period. Furthermore, these samples appear extremely promising with our general aim of understanding cultural diversity and investigating interregional and local social relationships between Egyptian and Nubian entities, comprising exceptionally not only Nubian Kerman material but also ceramic wares and types potentially attributable to the Pan-Grave cultural sphere (from Trench 5 at GiE 003).
I was glad to once again have a pleasant déjà vu of myself photographing, documenting, and packing these tiny samples that are now waiting to be analysed, while I am now busy in entering each of them in our Samples FileMaker DB.
Looking forward to revealing more about the inwardness of these tangible precious testimonies of Nubia’s Bronze Age material culture, I wish a bit of rest, peace, and hope for our beloved Sudan and mostly for all people and citizens who are now in danger because of this unjust violence.
Our first week with workmen excavating at Attab West in site AtW 001 was very productive, despite of some windy days when we had to stop early.
Fig. 1: Work in progress earlier this week.
The mound of AtW 001 which was covered by schist stones and pottery sherds on the surface yielded substantial mud brick debris layers. These layers contained much pottery – a total of more than 6300 sherds was processed already – including many complete vessels. The most common shapes are Egyptian-style zir vessels, bowls and dishes, beer jars and Nubian-style cooking pots with basketry impressions. One almost complete Nubian cooking pot was still found in place, partly below a very large mud brick.
Fig. 2: Large fragment of Nubian cooking pot in its finding place.
A large Nile clay bowl was found in a sandy filling south of the mound with mud bricks (Fig. 3). All in all, the pottery corpus very closely resembles the ceramics from the New Kingdom town of Sai Island, especially of the Levels 4 and 3 in SAV1 North, suggesting a date from the early 18th Dynasty to the mid-18th Dynasty. Interestingly, some of the vessels seems to belong to the Second Intermediate Period tradition – whether these are old pieces or imply a use of AtW 001 already during Classic Kerma times needs to be checked.
Fig. 3: Vessels like this Egyptian-style bowl illustrate the splendid state of preservation of ceramics at our site.
Similar to our findings from last year, we had plenty of charcoal, ashy spots and some burnt doum nuts as well as date seeds. Doubtlessly, people were eating and cooking here during the 18th Dynasty. This is further supported by many animal bones – seemingly mostly cattle but also some caprids. The details remain to be checked by our zooarchaeologist.
Fig. 4: Overview of some of the deposits of animal bones.
Finally, there is much evidence for quartz working at the site and many stone tools (especially pounders, whetstones, grindstones, and hand mills) – Sofia is documenting these and we will double-check if my previous interpretation of the site as being connected to gold working can be supported (or modified) by our new findings.
All in all, I am very happy with both the progress of work in week 1 and the great team of this season – together with our wonderful local workmen, Huda, Chloe, Matei, Sofia and I will continue on Saturday and an update will follow shortly.
The so-called „vorlesungsfreie“ (lecture-free) summer time is now over – the winter term at LMU will start on Monday. Next week is also the next DiverseNile Seminar – this time it will be given by our own Giulia D’Ercole, who has just returned from her maternity leave.
Giulia will speak about some core tasks of our work package 3, material culture and cultural diversity in the Attab to Ferka region. Under the title „Material meanings, technology and cultural choices: Pottery production in Bronze Age Nubia“ she will outline a number of theoretical and methodological aspects of her study of ceramics produced in the Middle Nile, including Nubian-style, Egyptian-style and also so-called hybrid vessels. Case studies from Sai Island but also from the new MUAFS concession will be presented.
I am very happy that Giulia is back in office and very much looking foward to her lecture on Oct. 18 – anyone interested in Bronze Age technology and/or pottery shouldn’t miss it!
One of our objectives within the DiverseNile project, to reconstruct cultural encounters based on the material record by the detailed assessment of the most important productive activities, technologies and foodways, has received plenty of new material evidence during the 2022 excavation season. Most importantly, thanks to the support of NCAM and especially our inspector Huda Magzoub, I was able to export a selection of pottery samples for scientific analysis to Germany. These new samples from our excavations in Ginis East (sites GiE 001 and 003) and Attab West (site AtW 001) are of huge importance for the project, especially because due to the restrictions caused by the corona pandemic for archaeological fieldwork in the last two years, we could until now only investigate the petrography of ceramic samples from Dukki Gel.
Such a privilege: unpacking ceramic samples in Munich just one month after excavating the sherds and their contexts in Sudan!
This ties in with what our PostDoc Giulia D’Ercole has summarised in a recent paper: „For over seventy years, theoretical approaches and methods of classification of ceramic objects in Sudan have gradually changed, as have the perspectives and the general purposes of archaeological research. In general, scholarly attention has progressively shifted from forms (i.e., decoration and shape) to mineral and chemical compositions of ceramics and vessel contents (i.e., petrographic, compositional, and organic residue analyses)“ (D’Ercole 2021). This changed focus already influenced our research within the framework of the AcrossBorders project and is now continued with the DiverseNile project.
The analysis of the material culture in Work Package 3 of the DiverseNile project is undertaken from a multi-perspective level, including scientific analyses focusing on provenience studies (e.g. ceramic petrography and iNAA, see already D’Ercole and Sterba 2018). For the ceramics, we will combine macroscopic observations with analytical approaches and evaluate the results of optical microscopy (OM) and chemical analyses (XRF and iNAA) in conjunction. Together with LMU colleagues, Giulia has also introduced Raman spectroscopy as a new application to answer various technological questions, in particular on the manufacturing stages of production and firing of the pots. This will especially help to understand questions about local productions and influences of Nubian ceramic traditions for preparing wheel made pots in the Middle Nile region.
In the last days, I was busy preparing the documentation of our new ceramic samples from Ginis East and Attab West. I selected twenty-one samples for optical microscopy (OM) and thus for the preparation of thin sections, while I will bring 108 samples later this week to the Atominstitute in Vienna where they are being analysed for instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis (iNAA) by our colleague and external expert in the project, Johannes Sterba.
Documenting a set of early New Kingdom samples from Attab West.
The new samples comprise sherds of various surface treatments and different fabrics of the Kerma ceramic tradition as well as diverse Egyptian style wheel made samples of which the majority seems to attest to a local pottery production in the Attab to Ferka region. Photographing the samples, I was again struck by the extremely interesting appearance of the material from the domestic site AtW 001. Although I know that the scientific analyses will take some time and I need to be patient, I cannot wait to integrate the results from iNAA and petrography with my archaeological assessment and macroscopical observations and discuss them further with Giulia and Johannes.
Like Aaron M. de Souza and Mary F. Ownby very truly remarked in a recent paper: more micro-analyses of Nubian material culture need to be undertaken to achieve a better understanding of cultural diversity in the Middle Nile (de Souza and Ownby 2022, 55).
References
D’Ercole, G. 2021. Seventy Years of Pottery Studies in the Archaeology of Mesolithic and Neolithic Sudan. Afr Archaeol Rev 38, 345–372. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10437-021-09432-y
D’Ercole, G. and Sterba, J. H. 2018. From macro wares to micro fabrics and INAA compositional groups: the Pottery Corpus of the New Kingdom town on Sai Island (northern Sudan), 171–183, in: J. Budka and J. Auenmüller (eds.), From Microcosm to Macrocosm: Individual households and cities in Ancient Egypt and Nubia. Leiden.
de Souza, A.M., Ownby, M.F. 2022. Re-assessing Middle Nubian cultural constructs through ceramic petrography. Afr Archaeol Rev 39, 35–58. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10437-022-09473-x
On Tuesday 25 there was the kick-off of the DiverseNile Seminar Series 2022 and our PI Julia Budka gave an inspiring opening lecture to inaugurate it. Among other topics, she mentioned the concept of agency of material culture and relevance of technologies. This led me to reflect once again in a more problematic way on the meaning of the terms materiality, identity, and style and on the use that we made of them nowadays in archaeology and, specifically, within the study of Nubian Bronze Age material culture, including our speculations on Egyptian style and Nubian style ceramic vessels.
But let’s start from the beginning, putting some basic theoretical arguments on the table!
In the last decades, the approach to materiality and the study of material culture has become a central aspect of the research and new important cognitive theories have been developed around this concept. Back in 2001 Colin Renfrew wrote “Symbol before concept: Material engagement and the early development of society” challenging the theoretical biases of cognitive archaeology and putting the bases for understanding the engagement of the mind with the material world (Renfrew 2001; see also Iliopoulos 2019, 40). In 2004, Renfrew and Malafouris developed the so-called Material Engagement Theory (MET), from which comes the notion of creative “thinging” which refers to the capacity of humans to feel/think through and about things (Malafouris 2004, 2019a). Some years later, Olsen et al. define archaeology as “the discipline of things”, that is the science of the objects, “obliged the archaeologists to be bricoleurs, who collect bits and pieces, not because of an erratic whimbut because of a commitment, a fidelity to the materials we engage” (Olsen et al. 2012, 4).
All in all, MET shares with New Materialisms (see e.g., Edgeworth 2016) “a special ‘attentiveness’ to things, as well as an interest in understanding the ‘vitality’ and the ‘mattering’ of mater” (Malafouris 2019b, 9). Further, New Materialisms support “an object agency”, that is an existence of their own of the objects that transcends that of human symbolic systems. This can be seen primarily as a reaction to the symbolism of the post-processual approach (cf. Hodder 1982) and more generally as a tendency to move beyond the concepts of “meaning” and “identity” of material culture, to embrace otherwise a new ontology of materiality that sees it freed from particular forms of representations (Tsoraki et al. 2020; see also Deleuze 2007).
In other words, if for decades the philosophical thought as well as the field of social and cultural studies have been dominated by a dialectical setting of the terms “material” and “symbol” (or “meaning”) with the former in fact understood as a “signifier” or simple representative of the latter(let’s think of the dualism of Descartes, of the logic behind the linguistic structuralism or, taken to the extreme, of Magritte’s provocative sentence under his famous painting “Ceci n’est pas une pipe”), the New Materialism in archaeology, as in other fields of science, newly and provocatively suggests to shift away from an emphasis on representation and attends otherwise “to the material vibrancy of past objects and the roles that materials themselves play in the production of meaning” (Tsoraki et al. 2020, 494-495; cf. McFadyen and Hicks 2020, 3).
What does this mean in practice? How can objects exist free of the representation that man has of them? How is it possible to extrapolate from the concept of style the symbolic value acquired through the context of human thought, experience and action? What kind of speculation or ontology of matter does the New Materialism propose?
Actually, the New Materialism does turn attention away from the human agency and responsibility (cf. Ribeiro 2016; Whittle 2018), nor rejects the concept of representation per se. Rather, it aims to overcome it, exploring a more-than representational version of material meanings, and embracing a systemic (and relational) rather than dualistic vision of reality. This decentres the human subject and the mere ontology of symbolism and representation (see Tsoraki 2020, 497), considering otherwise a multiple system of relationships where things, humans, landscape, and in a broader sense whatever forms part of it (including raw materials, rocks, animals, and plants) is interconnected and linked to each other’s.
This new systemic and relational ontology expands the study of material culture further beyond the frame of the human context and its apparatus of symbolic, aesthetic, or functional meanings, embracing the much wider space of ecology. Notably, the study of things assumes a more fluid and dynamic vision, with the concept of chaîne opératoire becoming the most suitable and powerful analytical tool in order to return a vibrant analysis of past material object (e.g., lithics as ceramic assemblages) as embedded in a network of diverse and intertwined human and non-human actions. The chaîne opératoire in fact “imposes systematization in data collection, as well as the acknowledgement of a variety of elements that are invariably brought together in the conduct of technical activities” (Gosselain 2012, 246). Style, intended in its broader sense as ‘technological style’ (sensu Lechtman 1977), “potentially resides in every phase of the manufacturing sequence or chaîne opératoire” (Sillar and Tite 2000, 8).
Diagram summarizing the more important interrelationships affecting the technological choices made in pottery production (from Sillar and Tite 2000, 6).
Bringing this discussion back to the context of the Bronze Age in the Middle Nile, this premise constitutes part of the theoretical background behind the Work package 3 of our DiverseNile project, and specifically what our PI, my colleagues, and I are approaching to observe and understand through the technological analysis of ceramics, focusing on the typology, technology, material, function and contents of pottery, by combining a standard macroscopic approach with various complementary laboratory methodologies (e.g., OM, iNAA, Raman Spectroscopy, Organic Residue Analysis).
Here, we can build on results of the AcrossBorders project and our focus on the analysis of the ceramic assemblage from the New Kingdom colonial town of Sai Island and on the study of the differences between locally made wheel-made Egyptian and hand-made Nubian vessels. In the current project, we will expand our geographical scale, evaluating and comparing various ceramic reference collections from the central sites of Sai, Dukki Gel, and Amara West, with first hand material from the MUAFS concession area in the Attab to Ferka region.
What we know already now are the following main points:
There exist significant stylistic variations between Egyptian style and Nubian style ceramics which are reflected on several levels i.e., in the aesthetic, morphometric, and technological aspects of the ceramic production of New Kingdom Nubia;
the ceramics manufactured locally at Sai Island, either in Egyptian and Nubian style, do not differ significantly in their chemical composition (the stage of raw material procurement), while a different chemical fingerprint has been recognized for specific imported Egyptian products (i.e., Egyptian cooking pots in Nile clay) (D’Ercole and Sterba 2018; D’Ercole and Sterba forthcoming);
within New Kingdom Nubia, regional style in ceramics was mostly expressed by surface treatment and decoration that is within the manufacturing stages of production and finishing, while minor differences can be seen in the so-called preparation stage i.e., the formula or recipe used for making the pastes (D’Ercole forthcoming);
about the use of vessels, some functions seem to be exclusive to Egyptian or Nubian vessels, while for others we observe overlaps even if, regardless of the generic function (e.g., cooking pots), the specific content of the vessel could vary (ORA studies hold much potential here);
the evidence from Sai is another example for well-known so-called hybrid products, which are interesting examples of the encounter between the Egyptian and Nubian traditions.
This is in summary the state of the art of what we know from Sai Island on the stylistic and technological variations between Egyptian style and Nubian style vessels. However, there are still open questions about the system of production and use of vessels in New Kingdom Nubia as well as the relational dynamics that pass between those ceramic products, the human agents, and the past cultural and environmental landscape. The new material from the MUAFS concession area in the Attab to Ferka region is very promising in this sense and will give important insights on these topics. I cannot spoil it here, so please stay tuned on this blog 😉!
Example of set of wheel-made Egyptian style ceramics from one of the 18th Dynasty sites in the MUAFS concession (photo: J. Budka).
Generally speaking, is for example the definition of Egyptian and Nubian style, as we know it from Sai and other central colonial sites, applicable in the same way to the ceramic assemblages coming from the peripheral and rural contexts? How much has the cultural, environmental and ecological (also thinking in terms of raw materials, tools and energy sources) landscape influenced the choices of production, use and function of the vessels? What about the hybrid products? And does it make sense to talk, especially in rural and peripheral contexts, of a single Nubian tradition or should we consider the existence of a melting pot of Nubian influences (and eventually ceramic styles) intersected with the Egyptian one?
The questions on the table are still many that after months of remote research and theoretical debate, it is ever more urgent to return to the field to face in a tangible way the study of the material evidence. Looking much forward to it!
References:
D’Ercole, G., In prep. Petrography of the pottery from the New Kingdom town of Sai. In: J. Budka, ed. (with contributions by G. D’Ercole, J.H. Sterba and P. Ruffieux). AcrossBorders 3: Vessels for the home away from Egypt. The pottery corpus from the New Kingdom town of Sai Island. Archaeology of Egypt, Sudan and the Levant, Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press.
D’Ercole, G. and Sterba, J. H. (2018). From macro wares to micro fabrics and INAA compositional groups: the Pottery Corpus of the New Kingdom town on Sai Island (northern Sudan). In: J. Budka and J. Auenmüller, eds. From Microcosm to Macrocosm: Individual households and cities in Ancient Egypt and Nubia (pp. 171-183). Leiden: Sidestone press.
D’Ercole, G. and Sterba, J. H. In prep. Chemical analyses of the pottery corpus from the New Kingdom town of Sai. In: J. Budka, ed. (with contributions by G. D’Ercole, J.H. Sterba and P. Ruffieux). AcrossBorders 3: Vessels for the home away from Egypt. The pottery corpus from the New Kingdom town of Sai Island. Archaeology of Egypt, Sudan and the Levant, Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press.
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In the framework of the DiverseNile project, I have introduced the application of ‘contact space biographies’ as a new concept in the study of intercultural encounters in the Middle Nile. We will specify the question of cultural encounters through the distribution of the sites and their duration, settlement infrastructures, building techniques, production activities and technologies, trade, diet, material culture, burial customs, religious practices and social structures. The importance of peripheral areas, like the Attab to Ferka region, for our understanding of cultural formations will be stressed. In line with this, the DiverseNile Seminar Series 2021 focuses on cultural diversity in Northeast Africa, giving several case studies from various perspectives.
Our next presentation, to be held tomorrow by Loretta Kilroe, will introduce an exciting example of so-called ‘provincial’ Kerma remains in the Northern Dongola Reach.
Site H25 was partly excavated in the last years and yielded settlement remains and evidence from the Kerma, New Kingdom and Napatan eras (Ross 2014; Porter 2019; Kilroe 2019). The site is, among others, shedding new light onto trade networks in New Kingdom Nubia. Because Loretta is an expert on ancient Egyptian and Sudanese pottery, she will focus tomorrow on ceramics and what they can tell us about frontier economics.
I am personally very much looking forward to this exciting presentation about an as yet little known but very important site! As usual, last minute registrations are still possible and highly welcome!
Time passes by for everyone. Also, and above all for archaeologists. Still, it is pleasant when this comes with experience and new opportunities.
On February 2013 I wrote my first post for the AcrossBorders blog. At that time, I was sitting in the magazine rooms of the Sai Island excavation house starting to get familiar with the Nubian fabrics of the New Kingdom town. A few months later I moved to Vienna to join the ERC Starting Grant ‘AcrossBorders’ project led by Julia Budka.
Since then, hundreds of ceramic samples have passed through my hands. These were both Nubian-style and Egyptian-style vessels locally produced at Sai Island / Upper Nubia, but also Imported Nile clays, Marl clays and Oasis clays from Egypt, together with other imported wares from Levant. These materials constituted the aim of my research for AcrossBorders and were sampled, documented and analysed by me together with Johannes Sterba, at the Atominstitut of Vienna. Over the years, thanks to Julia Budka, I have learned how to recognize and classify these wares and fabrics and we calibrated together on them the different analytical strategies and research objectives. Now I fairly know each of those samples by heart.
Yet, we do not grow where things are easy, we grow when we face challenges (and new opportunities).
With October, I happily started in Munich a new three-year contract within Julia Budka’s ERC Consolidator Grant project ‘Diverse Nile’, where I am, together with other researchers and Julia Budka, responsible for the Work Package 3: Reconstructing cultural encounters based on the material culture. My main tasks within WP 3 include petrographic technological and compositional analyses on the ceramic materials sampled from the new concession area in the Attab to Ferka region, dating to the Bronze Age.
Emphasis will lay on pottery technology and mostly on the so-called hybrid products and their significance for cultural encounters (see, e.g., Stockhammer 2013; Matić 2017; Beck 2018; Steel 2018; Souza 2020), on Nubian local style vessels and on the provenience of wheel-made ‘Egyptian’ pottery.
Analytical methods will comprise petrographic (OM) and provenance chemical analysis (iNAA and possibly XRF) but also digital image analysis (DIA) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) on selected samples. Further, since the focus will lay mainly on pottery technology and manufacturing techniques, other analytical methodologies (e.g., radiography and computed tomography, CT) will be evaluated for studying the internal structures of the objects and the diversity among specific hand -made (i.e., coiling, mold-building, slab-building), wheel-made and possibly also mixed hand-made and wheel-made forming techniques (see e.g., Sanger 2016). A greater importance will be given to observe the technology of production of the vessels aimed at outlining all stages of the manufacturing processes, from raw material procurement through preparation, production, finishing, until use, and discard.
Macro and micro (PPL, 4x magnification) photos of a bread plate sample (manufactured in a local Egyptian-style Nile clay) from SAV 1 East, Sai Island. Note the very fine-grained fabric with abundant organic inclusions distributed randomly through the sample because of the hand-shaped manufacturing (technique).
From a theoretical perspective, a new challenge will be to deal with the ceramic assemblages from the periphery of the central urban sites and relate them to our reference collection from Sai Island. Were there any different strategies in the selection of raw materials, preparation of the vessels and manufacturing techniques between central and peripheral sites? Furthermore, were the proportions between local Nubian-style, Egyptian-style, and various imported vessels equal or not between core sites and periphery?
For this purpose, comparative material from other main New Kingdom/Kerma central sites in Upper Nubia will be incorporated to our principal reference collection from Sai Island.
Luckily, Covid times have not completely blocked us, and thanks to a kind agreement with our colleague and friend Philippe Ruffieux, we are currently waiting to welcome in Munich a bunch of approx. forty samples, among which typical Nubian (Kerma) and Egyptian Nile clay wares from the New Kingdom/Kerma-Dukki Gel site.
It will be a pleasure to start my new task within the DiverseNile project by documenting, sampling, and examining this highly relevant material!
References
Beck, T. 2018. Postkoloniale Objektepistemologien? Homi Bhabhas Konzepte in archäologischen Forschungen – ein Überblick, 237–262, in: M. Hilgert, H. Simon and K.P. Hofmann (eds.), Objektepistemologien. Zur Vermessung eines transdisziplinären Forschungsraums. Berlin.
Matić, U. 2017. Der dritte Raum, Hybridität und das Niltal: das epistemologische Potenzial der postkolonialen Theorie in der Ägyptologie, 93‒111, in: S. Beck, B. Backes and A. Verbovsek (eds.), Interkulturalität: Kontakt ‒ Konflikt ‒ Konzeptualisierung. Beiträge des sechsten Berliner Arbeitskreises Junge Aegyptologie (BAJA 6), 13.11.-15.11.2015. Wiesbaden.
Sanger, M.C. 2016. Investigating pottery vessel manufacturing techniques using radiographic imaging and computed tomography: Studies from the Late Archaic American Southeast, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 9, 586‒598.
Steel, L. 2018. Egyptianizing practices and cultural hybridity in the Southern Levant during the Late Bronze Age, Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections 20, 15‒30.
Stockhammer, P.W. 2013. From Hybridity to Entanglement, from Essentialism to Practice, Archaeological Review from Cambridge Issue 28.1: Archaeology and Cultural Mixing, 11‒28.
Souza, A. M. de. 2010. Melting Pots: Entanglement, Appropriation, Hybridity, and Assertive Objects between the Pan-Grave and Egyptian Ceramic Traditions, Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections 27, 1‒23.
