Schlagwort-Archive: fire dogs

Fire dogs and Scaniverse

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Work on the fire dogs continues and remains mysterious. We recently carried out a „dry test series“ on the potential placement of the fire dogs, in which we considered different scenarios based on different amounts of fire dogs and different cooking pots. This allowed us to complete our experimental archaeology tests.

So far, no in situ finds of fire dogs are published from the New Kingdom, so all ideas about the use of fire dogs and their placement remain hypothetical. The best overview of the various hypotheses on the placement of the fire dogs can still be found in the 1989 article by David Aston (Aston 1989). His suggestion for the layout of fire dogs is still the most widespread today: three fire dogs with the „ears“ pointing downwards and the „noses“ pointing inward supporting a relatively large cooking pot placed on top of them (see the drawings, Aston 1989, 32 and plate 1). But were these exciting objects really used as he suggested?

So far, none of the known placement possibilities has really convinced us. As plausible as Aston’s model seems at first glance, it does not seem to make much sense on closer consideration. This is mainly due to the size ratio between the fire dogs and the cooking pots, which Aston himself has already acknowledged (Aston 1989, 32). In the 18th Dynasty in particular, the relative proportions between fire dogs and cooking pots are more extreme than Aston suggests. The pots are smaller than the pot used by Aston and the fire dogs are shorter. With such a size ratio, there is little room for a fire under or near the fire dogs and three fire dogs under one pot seem to be disproportional. In this case, it would make more sense to place the pot and fire dogs directly on the embers. However, there are no traces of smoke that would prove such a use. This problem can also be seen in Aston’s drawing, as the fire shown in the sketch appears far too small in relation to the fire dogs. The fire shown here is at most 5 cm high — a small ember for such a large pot.

The height of the fire would have varied based on the type of fuel used, for example wood fires require more space than fires with, for example, sheep or goat dung. The mixture of straw and animal dung documented in archaeological contexts may well represent a potential use as fuel (archaeological evidence e.g. from Amarna, Peet & Wooley 1923, 64, Moens and Weatherstrom 1988, 166-167). Experimental archaeological tests using animal dung showed that it could certainly be used for cooking. There are also parallels for this from ethnographic research (https://exarc.net/issue-2019-1/ea/question-fuel-cooking-ancient-egypt-and-sudan). However, the fires produced using dung are very difficult to maintain on such a small scale. It is therefore unlikely that the set-up suggested by Aston was used, especially in 18th Dynasty Sai, our main interest.

In order to try out different combinations of pots and fire dogs in a targeted manner and to make the experiments three-dimensionally comprehensible, we scanned the experiments as 3D models with the Scaniverse App (see https://scaniverse.com/).

With the help of Francesca Sperti, we have already been able to test several scenarios. We used our full-size replicas of the fire dogs produced in Asparn and tested three different pot variations:

  • a replica of a typical pot from the New Kingdom
  • a replica of a Nubian pot
  • a carinated bowl, although it should be noted that this is not a proper replica
Francesca scanning the set-up with a Nubian-style cooking pot.

The Egyptian cooking pots are similar to the types known from Sai, Type A, and for the carination/pronounced shoulder see Type D, after Budka 2016, https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/propylaeumdok/3868/1/Budka_Egyptian_cooking_pots_2016.pdf). Experiments with a full-size replica of a carinated bowl are still in progress.

Two fire-dogs holding a small pot with a distinctive carination (which is not a proper replica).

Starting with Aston’s suggestion, we tried setting up 1, 2 or 3 fire dogs in different positions and directions with all pot shapes. It quickly became apparent that some of the fire dog placements we tried made it impossible to use certain cooking pots or made cooking and handling absolutely impossible. Other variations, on the other hand, are perfectly feasible. A clear favourite has also emerged for us, but this is still being tested with a better pot replica. So it remains exciting…!

We will continue to investigate the fire dogs and their possible functions (photo: F. Sperti).

References

Aston 1989= Aston, D., Ancient Egyptian „fire dogs“: a new interpretation. MDAIK 45 (1989), 27-32.

Budka 2016 = Budka, J., Egyptian Cooking Pots from the Pharaonic Town of Sai Island, Nubia, Bulletin de liaison de la céramique égyptienne 26, 2016, 285-295.

Moens and Wetterstrom 1988 = Moens, M.F. and Wetterstrom, W. The Agricultural Economy of an Old Kingdom Town in Egypt’s West Delta: Insights from the Plant Remains. Journal of Near Eastern Studies 47(3) (1988.), pp.159-173.

Peet and Wooley 1923 = Peet, T.E. and Woolley, C.L. 1923. The City of Akhenaten, Volume 1. Egypt Exploration Society, Excavation Memoir 38. London: Egypt Exploration Society.

Advances in experimental archaeology: firing pottery, use of dung and much more

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Most know by now that poop is of great interest for us archaeologists. Recently, the so-called ‘archaeology of dung’ has resulted in numerous cross-geographical publications confirming the use of animal dung in archaeological deposits as the main fuel source and several other purposes. Most of these studies focus on the analysis of the microscopic evidence attributable to dung, combining multi-proxy approaches to investigate the biological components and potential markers of herbivore dung, as well identifying archaeobotanical indications from dung pellets and related sediments. Less numerous are studies concerning the identification of dung as a tempering agent in ceramic material.

In a new paper just published, Giulia D’Ercole and I aimed to replicate, observe, and discuss the recipe utilised by the ancient potters of Sai Island (northern Sudan) in the New Kingdom period using an experimental approach. We discuss the possible adoption of organic inclusions, and especially animal dung, as tempering agents to produce some of the locally made Nubian and Egyptian style ceramics. We think that the use of animal dung within the large set of pottery production offers important fresh insights into both long-standing traditions and cultural encounters (Budka and D’Ercole 2022).

One observation in this paper was also that in terms of the firing process of our samples, it must have been at a low temperature resulting in a minimal supply of oxygen, as in most cases the typical relicts left by the combustion of organic materials were still visible. Questions regarding kilns for both handmade and wheel-made vessels, as opposed to open firing techniques, need to be investigated further, as does the kind of fuel used for firing pottery. Recent research suggests that fresh wood and animal dung were used in tandem in pottery kilns (see the case of the smelting furnace from Egypt, Verly et al. 2021), and possibly even for open firing.

This brings me to our most recent experiments connected with firing pottery. I spent the last weekend at Asparn (Austria), at the MAMUZ museum and had the pleasure to participate once again in the experimental archaeology class hosted by the University of Vienna.

Vera’s great Classical Kerma replicas placed in our lower bedding of goat dung.

Together with Vera and Ludwig Albustin and other colleagues, we were busy on the first day firing high quality replicas of Classical Kerma beakers. We used goat dung as the main fuel, but also some fresh wood and the results were really good – it went fast, and the appearance of the pots is very close to the ancient ones. We will clearly continue in this line, making more experiments with mixed fuels for firing pottery, for example with adding reed or straw.

Pottery firing in progress.

The second part of our experiments this year in Asparn was dedicated to fire dogs, their possible use and cooking pots. Our current line of research aims to test the advantage of using fire dogs together with Nubian style cooking pots – they differ slightly in shape and size of the Egyptian ones. I believe it is possible that the inhabitants of Sai found some creative ways to combine Egyptian fire dogs with Nubian cooking pots – thus they might have created something new.

Our new set of fire dogs which was fired and is now ready for use.
New replicas of Nubian cooking pots placed on fire dogs.

For some canines, all this effort and attention to the curious fire dogs remains incomprehensible. The different smells at the experimental archaeological site were a lot more exciting here.  

References

Budka and D’Ercole 2022 = Budka, J. and D’Ercole, G. 2022. An Experimental Approach to Assessing the Tempering and Firing of Local Pottery Production in Nubia during the New Kingdom Period. EXARC Journal 2022/2. https://exarc.net/ark:/88735/10638

Verly et al. 2021 = Verly, G., Rademakers, F.W., Somaglino, C., Tallet, P., Delvaux, L. and Degryse, P. 2021. The chaîne opératoire of Middle Kingdom smelting batteries and the problem of fuel: excavation, experimental and analytical studies on ancient Egyptian metallurgy. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 37 (article no. 102708) DOI: 10.1016/j.jasrep.2020.102708

Fire dogs and more at Asparn: glimpses of experimental archaeology

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As the new student assistant of the DiverseNile Project, I am happy to give in my first blog post an overview and summary about the experimental archaeology days at the MAMUZ Museum in Asparn/Zaya and of course about our experiments with the fire dogs, dung fires and pottery making.

Over the course of four days many archaeologists, experts and students came together in Asparn to work on several different experiments, share ideas, discuss questions and, of course, creating the possibility to experience archaeology in a practical and exciting way. Being outside in the nature, doing practical tasks and having a slight glimpse into how life was in the past was especially refreshing for everyone who had (and still has) to sit daily in front of a computer screen to follow online lectures.

I’ll start with a short summary about the event itself before I’ll describe our experiments.

In the big garden that belongs to the MAMUZ Museum, which is worth a visit and currently showcases an exhibition about experimental archaeology, are several reconstructed buildings and structures that showcase the history of humans in that area. Starting from tents of the palaeolithic times and ending at the current experimental construction of a medieval church. Inside and next to these buildings all different kinds of experiments were conducted, and certain techniques showcased, all part of a class of the University of Vienna where we could participate as guests from Munich. Experts showed how stones were chipped during the Stone Age and what materials were used for that, another explained how bones and horns were carved into tools and accessories, pottery was being made, as well as weaving, cooking a pig for a whole day in a pit and Ritschert (a stew the people who worked inside the Hallstatt mine ate everyday), iron and bronze smelting, creating jewellery and much more. One experiment I found extremely fascinating was the cremation of a pig on a pyre to figure out more about human burials of the European Bronze Age. The pig (which died naturally of an old age and not explicitly for this experiment!) was even dressed up and got ritual offerings for its descend into the fire and therefore afterlife, whatever that might have looked like for the people of the Bronze Age. Watching this, I can really imagine how special and touching such a burial practice was for these people, watching a loved one being consumed by the flames over several hours in such a way seems bizarre from our current, modern perspective of life and death.
Recapitulating I can really recommend the experimental archaeology days in Asparn. It was an incredible insight into life with its problems in the past and amazing that everyone showed you their skills and techniques while letting you try them out as well.

Now to our experiments: first we focused to let every participant get a feeling for the material clay while recreating Nubian figurines depicting female idols and animals. After everyone had fun creating figurines and got familiar with the material, we went one step back and created our own usable clay. Therefore, we learned what processes were necessary to get a formable material out of dry earth clumps. One part of our group was busy preparing the dry dung, in this case goat and horse dung, so it can be used to temper the clay. With that we created two types of different clay, one with the horse dung and the other with the goat dung.

The next task was important: recreating new fire dogs (based on the original drawings of the fire dogs from Sai Island and existing replicas made years ago within the AcrossBorders project) with the two different clay types which can be used for upcoming experiments. For all of us, who didn’t use pottery since elementary school, this was quite the big challenge to create them in the right proportions and dealing with the problems if parts breaking off or how to close cracks again. But in my opinion, everyone did a great job and we now have plenty of fire dogs that will hopefully survive a lot of future experiments!

Producing a new set of fire dogs. Photo: J. Budka.

While our figurines, fire dogs and test vessels were drying to be ready for burning, we started to figure out how the different dung types we had available behaved when trying to make a fire out of them. For our first small experiments that way, we split up in two groups where each group had to use camel and horse dung and, in the end, compare the results. For our first attempts the results were not really convincing: in both groups it took us a long time to start a fire with the camel dung, it produced a lot of (not so pleasant) smoke, the flames didn’t last long only with constant blowing into the fire, but when it worked we reached around 500°C. The horse dung was a little bit better, but it was still hard to get to a flame. The two experiments got inconclusive results with the highest temperatures varying in between 300°C and 660°C.
Though there are many reasons why our fires didn’t work the way we hoped, first we had to figure out how we organise the experiments on our own and with try and error we found better ways to observe our fires for the next tasks. Also, the quantity of the dung we used had a big impact on how the fires behaved, small amounts burned down way to quickly, and the windy weather wasn’t great for the flames either. But when experiments don’t work out the way you anticipate you learn a lot more and can change parameters for the coming ones.

Meanwhile, our PI Julia Budka conducted, together with a group of colleagues, the firing of pottery using cow dung as fuel. Surprisingly that fire reached over 1000°C, an incredible heat for such a simple fire. Whereas we found that exciting, the pottery didn’t, and a few were damaged in that heat. But this surprising result needed a follow up experiment, checking whether these high temperatures can be replicated.
Therefore we created two small fires, like in our previous experiments, with two different cow dungs to see which temperatures we could reach. We quickly realized that small fires didn’t reach those high temperatures and were only around 500°C and behaved like horse and camel dung previously. Therefore, we decided to create a bigger fire, which worked surprisingly better! We quickly reached the same temperatures in the small experiment and surpassed them in a short amount of time. While blowing into the fire with three persons in a row, we successfully reached over 1000°C in a few minutes and this in a smaller fire, compared to the one where the pottery was burned. This opens a possibility for different future experiments!

The dung fire used for cooking with a set of firedogs and a Nubian cooking pot. Photo: S. Neumann.

As our last experiments we used two firedogs and one cooking pot to figure out if such a setup is useful for cooking. We started a fire with horse dung in the middle between the two firedogs, above it we placed the pot, so it sat on the two firedogs. For a while it worked pretty well, but as the dung created more and more ash the space was not big enough that the fire could get enough oxygen to burn and be sustained with new dung properly. It was a long and tedious process to cook something this way. Also, the term cooking is misleading, we just barely managed to heat the water inside the pot a little bit.

A trial arrangment of two fire dogs holding a cooking pot above the dung fire. Photo: S. Neumann.

Since this experiment didn’t work well, we decided to change our methods and tried a big fire with cow dung again. We spread out the dung on a bigger area, created a well working fire and placed the firedogs and the pot in the centre of it. The fire was burning and reached a temperature of around 470°C, but surprisingly the contents in our pot only measured around 60°C. Where did all the heat go? Was the pot absorbing all the heat or the firedogs? In the end the firedogs suffered quite a bit in this fire, they ended up turning completely black – nothing which is known from the real archaeological findings.

With that our experiments in Asparn ended with a lot more questions and we still have no definitive answer how the firedogs were used exactly. Let’s hope we can continue our experiments next year with the new knowledge and questions we gained this time!