Bart Vanthuyne

Bart Vanthuyne presents the preliminary results of the 2022 excavations of two early Old Kingdom cemeteries by the Zawyet Sultan Project, which offer the unique opportunity to examine the burial customs of both the local elite and non-elite population of an Upper Egyptian nome capital.

Naga ed-Deir is located on the east side of the Nile, opposite Reqaqna, Beit Khallaf, and el‑Mahasna, and about 20 kilometres north of Abydos. In 1901-1904 the Phoebe A. Hearst Egyptian Expedition, led by George A. Reisner, carried out extensive excavations in several cemeteries across the site, leading to the discovery of tombs from the Predynastic period up to the early Coptic period. Amongst these were cemeteries N500–N900, N1500, N3000 and N3500, for which Reisner and Arthur C. Mace identified the typo-chronological tomb development between the 1st and 4th Dynasty. A combined study of the tombs, burial customs and material culture, especially the pottery, found in these cemeteries, however, suggests that Reisner and Mace’s dating and hence some of their conclusions are in need of revision, highlighting the need for a complete re-analysis of extant site data and museum objects.

In 1894–95 W. M. F. Petrie and J. E. Quibell conducted excavations in the Naqada-Ballas region (Fifth Upper Egyptian nome). While Petrie’s later work in and around ancient Nubt received plenty of attention, Quibell’s Ballas work was wrongfully largely ignored, even though he likewise made substantial contributions to the Naqada excavations. With the progressive rediscovery of field notebooks, diaries, and pottery documentation of Petrie, Quibell and others, as well as past and ongoing museum work, it is now possible to reassess Quibell’s excavations at Zawaydah/North Town and the Ballas cemeteries further south, where he discovered a Predynastic settlement, many Predynastic burials, as well as Early Dynastic, early Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom and early New Kingdom tombs. The current article will outline the above and show how this information can be used for the study of the Second–Fourth Dynasty cemeteries, as well as the tomb types, burial customs and origin of the buried population.

Surveys carried out in 2012 and 2013 by Bart Vanthuyne
(University of Leuven Deir el-Bersha Project) led to the
discovery of early Old Kingdom rock circle tombs on
the Nile-facing escarpment in the Beni Hasan el-Shuruq
region. An Old Kingdom rock-cut mastaba was likewise
found. The first excavations in the area had been
conducted over a century ago by John Garstang. The
article discusses Garstang’s finds and presents the new
survey results in order to examine the development of the
Beni Hasan el-Shuruq region in the Old Kingdom.

Surveys led to the discovery of several late Early Dynastic – early Old Kingdom campsites around the Maghāra Abū ʿAzīz calcite alabaster quarry in Middle Egypt. An overview of a selection of pottery types is presented and compared with pottery from nearby contemporary sites.

W. M. F. Petrie and F. Ll. Griffith undertook a journey by boat down the
Nile in late 1886/early 1887, during which time they visited numerous
ancient sites. Petrie’s journey notebook reveals that he also stopped
at Nuwayrat. Bart Vanthuyne presents Petrie’s hitherto unreported
Nuwayrat observations and discoveries.

Surveys in 2012 and 2013 by the University of Leuven Dayr al-Barshā project led to the discovery of rock circle tombs on the Nile-facing escarpment in Dayr Abū Ḥinnis over a distance of up to 2.6 km. Tombs were found containing small and large ceramic burial containers, as well as a diverse set of offering vessels. These show that the cemetery
was is use from the latter half of the 2nd Dynasty into the 3rd Dynasty.
This article summarises the results of the work done in the rock circle cemetery in Dayr Abū Ḥinnis. In addition, finds will be compared with those from the three other known rock circle cemeteries in Dayr al-Barshā, in Banī Ḥasan al-Shurūq, and in Nuwayrāt.

Since 2002 the Deir el-Bersha Project has been investigating several cemetery and settlement sites at Deir el-Bersha and the surrounding region. In 2009 excavations started in the early Old Kingdom cemetery, located primarily on the escarpment north of the Wadi Nakhla, and this work has already yielded surprising results. The cemetery not only turned out to be very large but also contained many hundreds of burials. The methods of burial in fact continue a tradition already well established in the preceding dynasties, i.e. adults and children were interred in or under a variety of burial containers. However, new is that this container was mainly placed directly on the bedrock and surrounded and covered up by many stones and boulders, thus forming the so-called rock circle tomb. The author also discovered similar tombs in Deir Abu Hinnis, just north of Deir el-Bersha, whilst it was already known that in Nuwayrat a similar contemporary rock circle cemetery existed.
A preliminary report on the work in the rock circle cemeteries in Deir el-Bersha and Deir Abu Hinnis is presented, in which a selection of tombs is illustrated and some initial results described. Thus, it will become clear that this type of tomb was actually common in this part of Middle Egypt.

Collared / Kragenhals beer jars, with their characteristic groove under the plastic rib in the rim of the vessel, are key diagnostic vessels for a short period of time, mainly between the late 2nd to early 4th Dynasties. The article lists forty sites along the Nile Valley and Delta where these beer jars (may) have been found, allowing to identify and describe five broad subtypes.

Fieldwork in the rock circle cemeteries in Middle Egypt recorded at least ten jars with incised and/or impressed decoration, dating between the late 2nd Dynasty and the early 4th Dynasty. This article discusses the continuous local development of jars with this particular style of decoration from the Predynastic period to the Old Kingdom, containing
motifs that were known in Egypt and abroad. These vessels were found in settlement, funerary and temple contexts. While the smaller, earlier jars had an element of prestige associated with them, this was no longer the case for the larger vessels of the late Early Dynastic–early Old Kingdom period, which were mainly used as storage vessels, with
some ending up being re-used as burial containers.

Calcite alabaster is a soft stone that can readily be worked into a variety of artefacts, ranging from small beads to large statues, or be used as building material. Objects were already made from this stone in the Predynastic period and this continued throughout the pharaonic period and thereafter. A small number of calcite alabaster quarries are located east of the Nile, between modern Cairo and Asyut, and the stone was either quarried in large open air pits or delved in long seams. Both types of quarries are present in the 15 th and 16 th Upper Egyptian nomes in Middle Egypt. I will present new research based on satellite image analysis and ground surveys, discussing the al-Qawatir quarries (16 th UE nome) and the quarries surrounding the Wadi Barshawi and the Wadi Zabayda (15 th UE Nome). The Hatnub quarries (15 th UE Nome) will also be briefly commented on for comparison. Fieldwork in the region led to the discovery of previously unknown large quarries. In addition, a number of quarrymen campsites were likewise identified, of which the earliest can be securely dated to the early Old Kingdom. Material evidence for additional occupation phases in the New Kingdom and the Roman period was also recorded, as were Coptic inscriptions and faint traces of decoration and possible hieroglyphs on a rock-cut stele. The size of the quarries will show that the 15 th and 16 th Upper Egyptian nomes were the source of a large supply of calcite alabaster up to the Roman period.

The KU Leuven Dayr al-Barsha project worked in al-Shaykh Sa'id, just north of Amarna, in 2007-2010 and 2014, and discovered on the hillside, north of the mouth of the Wadi Zabayda, archaeological remains of a royal domain, dating to the reign of Khufu. Afterwards, royal workshops were established on top of the Old Kingdom remains to supply the New Kingdom city of Amarna with a range of different goods. Due to severe erosion, hardly any traces of buildings survive, but the industrial waste left behind provide sufficient clues that besides a vast stone artefact industry, the artisans were also making objects in faience, glass and copper. Objects relating to the textile industry were also uncovered. The presentation will give an overview of the archaeological finds relating to the various industries active at al-Shaykh Sa'id during the Amarna-period, and a comparison will be made with the faience and glass industry in the city of Amarna.

The excavations of PETRIE and QUIBELL, respectively in Naqada and Ballas, at the end of the 19th century led to the discovery of thousands of tombs, and vast amounts of pottery from the early Predynastic period to the early Old Kingdom. These pots were then used by PETRIE to develop his system of sequence dating.
Problematic is that both PETRIE and QUIBELL used an identical tomb number system for approximately the first 900 graves, and during the later division of finds, objects from a tomb in one site ended up being assigned to a grave with an identical tomb number from the other site.
BAUMGARTEL tracked down many of these objects, and tried to identify the finds from Naqada tombs, thus creating her Naqada tomb catalogue supplement, clearly stating that nothing of Ballas is included in it, because she considered the Ballas tombs too poorly documented. Later on, PAYNE also made a list of further corrections and additions to this Naqada tomb catalogue.
A close examination of the edited tomb catalogue indicates that certain pots from Ballas were, nevertheless, still wrongfully assigned to Naqada tombs. This is most apparent with early Old Kingdom pottery forms, whereby these were incorrectly given a Predynastic date. As said before, mistakes were made during the division of finds, and these entered museum and institute records, which were consequently taken over by BAUMGARTEL. Had she consulted the Ballas notebooks, she would have recognized that these pots did not derive from a Predynastic Naqada tomb, but from the early Old Kingdom Ballas tomb with the identical tomb number. As a result, the appearance date of certain pottery types is wrongfully determined. The recent discovery of pottery slips, made by PETRIE, of Naqada and Ballas tombs, provide further proof of the mix-up.
Furthermore, comparing the Ballas notebooks with tomb drawings and associated pottery types in the end publication, revealed a number of additional errors, which again have led to dating problems.
In the presentation an overview of the issues raised above will be given, so that museum and other records can be adjusted, and that certain “Naqada” pots can be reassigned to the site where they were originally found, i.e. Ballas.

Bibliography
W. M. F. PETRIE and J. E. QUIBELL, Naqada and Ballas (London, 1896)
E. J. BAUMGARTEL, Petrie's Naqada excavation: a supplement (London, 1970)
J. C. PAYNE, 'Appendix to Naqada excavations supplement', JEA 73 (1987), 181-189.