Category Archives: Asasif

Short summary of week 2

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Week 2 of work on the finds from TT 414, the tomb of Ankh-Hor in Asasif, was just completed – it has been a very successful week with quite a number of tasks accomplished.

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Drawing of pottery and small finds continued – besides faience vessels, shabtis and amulets from bead nets, Patrizia also made beautiful drawings of some peculiar wooden fragments (of which we are still discussing the precise function). Right now, she is busy with the numerous faience shabtis from the family of Pa-di-Amun-neb-nesut-tawy.

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Mona worked primarily on Ptolemaic pottery from the “Lichthof” of Ankh-Hor – these pieces nicely illustrate the function of this part of TT 414 as offering place. Besides small offering cups and plates, fragments of so-called Hadra ware are notable.

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Photographing various groups of objects was continued by Cajetan – with today, we started focusing on larger coffin fragments. Besides, all pieces already consolidated by Daniel are also documented with photos of our full frame camera. Cleaning and consolidation is progressing were well, focusing both on 26th Dynasty objects like the stela of Her-Aset and qrsw-coffins and on Ptolemaic objects like Ptah-Sokar-Osiris figures and of course various coffin fragments.

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Furthermore, I am very happy that Philippe Martinez studied and photographed during this week the re-used New Kingdom blocks from the foundations of the Ramesses IV temple excavated by Manfred Bietak. Philippe kindly also documented small relief fragments from TT 414 stored in the magazine.

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Re-organising the magazine is also making much progress – I’ve just ordered more wooden boxes for a new storage system according to priorities which will be developed further next week.

We’re now off to a well-deserved weekend, many thanks to all team members and looking much forward to Saturday!

Conservation work started on objects from TT 414

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Thanks to the support of the Austrian Archaeological Institute, the institute’s conservator Daniel Oberndorfer joined us and started his work on the wooden objects from TT 414 today.

Large amounts of coffin fragments and other wooden objects are in urgent need of cleaning and also consolidation – for now, I have made a list of priorities for Daniel according to both significance of the object and its state of preservation. In focus are some 26th Dynasty coffin remains which have not yet been studied in detail, but foremost several Ptolemaic fragments because of their significance for reconstructing genealogies and family trees.

Some pieces are also highly significant of the history of exploration of TT 414: Daniel started working on the small fragment of the stela of Her-Aset (Reg. 508). Bietak and Reiser-Haslauer noted already that it belongs to the larger part of stela BM EA 8457 which came via Henry Salt to London (Bietak/Reiser-Haslauer 1982, pl. 155; Budka 2010, 56).

Stele heraset

Like for so many other objects from TT 414, this example illustrates how much information can be gained from a joint puzzle of data deriving from both, material excavated by the Austrian Mission in TT 414 and objects currently kept in European museums originating from non-scientific work in the tomb during the 19th century (see Budka/Mekis 2017). For the identification of further objects in museums and collections as coming originally from TT 414, conservation work of the still unpublished material stored here in the Asasif is of prime importance in order to document all relevant pieces in full detail for future comparison.

References

Bietak/Reiser-Haslauer 1982 = M. Bietak/E. Reiser-Haslauer, Das Grab des Anch-Hor, vol. II, Vienna 1982.

Budka 2010 = J. Budka, Varianz im Regelwerk. Bestattungsabläufe im Monumentalgrab von Anch-Hor, Obersthofmeister der Gottesgemahlin Nitokris (TT 414), Egypt & the Levant 20, 2010, 49-66.

Budka/Mekis 2017 = J. Budka and T. Mekis, The Family of Wah-ib-Re I (TT 414) from Thebes, Egypt & the Levant 27, 219‒240.

Too many Pa-di-Amun-neb-nesut-tawys…

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Yesterday and today, the focus of our current big jigsaw puzzle from TT 414 was not only on coffins, but also on shabtis. A small amount of shabtis from Ankh-Hor himself were found by Bietak and his team and is already published (Bietak and Reiser Haslauer 1982, pl. 97). Elfriede Reiser-Haslauer managed to locate many more Ankh-Hor shabtis throughout various collections and museums (Bietak and Reiser Haslauer 1982, pls. 98-116), attesting to the early phase of collecting objects from the tomb in the 19th century prior to its scientific excavation.

Equally well-known are the shabtis from the undisturbed burial of Wah-ib-Ra, datable to the 30th Dynasty and also already published (Bietak and Reiser Haslauer 1982, pl. 128).

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But still unpublished until today is a very large number – several dozens – of faience shabtis with the name of Pa-di-Amun-neb-nesut-tawy. There are various sizes and different types of these blue- or green-glazed shabtis, but most are fragmented and only give part of the name. These shabtis were primarily found in the debris within the burial chamber of Ankh-Hor – which was reused by the Amun priest Pa-di-Amun-neb-nesut-tawy I in the 30th Dynasty. Followed by several generations of his family, and a good number of individuals with the same name (and titles)!

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Eleven Pa-di-Amun-neb-nesut-tawys were listed by Elfriede Reiser-Haslauer in her genealogical register of people buried in TT 414. Two types of shabtis fortunately have a specific addition to the common title “divine father and prophet of Amun” – they mention the temple of Khonsw and can therefore be attributed to Pa-di-Amun-neb-nesut-tawy II.  For the other shabtis, though, it is almost impossible to reconstruct to which specific individual they once belonged. But work is still in progress: although there are far too many same-named persons who were all buried in TT 414, there is some hope that we will also attribute some of these numerous Ptolemaic faience shabtis in the near future by means of a typology and stylistic and palaeographic attributes.

Reference

Bietak and Reiser Haslauer 1982 = M. Bietak and E. Reiser-Haslauer, Das Grab des ‘Anch-Hor, Obersthofmeister der Gottesgemahlin Nitokris II, UZK 5, Vienna 1982.

Starting week 2 with new matches

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We just started week 2 of our 2018 season – drawing, photographing and studying the finds from TT 414 continued.

For time reasons, I do a lot of work of puzzling with the coffin fragments in the afternoon on the laptop, using photos, the original registration book of the Austrian mission and my notes from the tomb/magazine. Today was a very successful day for new matches! Not only did I manage to relocate some coffins in the magazine, but a new match worked virtually on the computer!

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The object in question is a beautiful, multi-coloured painted Ptolemaic coffin. The picture shows the successful match: at the top, there is a photo from 1974 of a piece which is currently still missing and which I only know by this photograph; the fragment below is actually a new joint – in 1974, it was not noted as belonging to the coffin, again stressing the rich potential of our current re-investigation of all finds from TT 414!

Reg. 682 is the board from the foot part of an outer anthropoid coffin; its decoration shows a figure of a winged goddess with a sun-disc on her head, standing on the “gold”-hieroglyph. The texts in the upper part give the name and titles as well as the filiation of the owner. And this owner is a well-known person from TT 414: the divine father and prophet of Amun in Karnak Pa-di-Amun-neb-nesut-tawy III, son of Pa-char-Chonsw II and grandson of Pa-di-Amun-neb-nesut-tawy I, the Amun priest who started the re-use of TT 414 in the 30th Dynasty (for the genealogy of this family see Reiser-Hauslauer 1982). Many more fragments of tomb equipment of Pa-di-Amun-neb-nesut-tawy III, his parents, uncles and cousins are still waiting to be studied and will keep us quite busy!

Reference

Reiser-Hauslauer 1982 = E. Reiser-Hauslauer, B. Familien aus der zweiten Belegungszeit des Grabes (ca. Zeit der 30. Dynastie und frühe Ptolemäerzeit), in: M. Bietak and E. Reiser-Haslauer, Das Grab des ‘Anch-Hor, Obersthofmeister der Gottesgemahlin Nitokris II, UZK 5, Vienna 1982, 252–256.

End of week 1

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Time flies by – the first week of our 2018 season just ended! It was very successful and comprised the opening of the magazine, cleaning, reorganizing and prioritizing objects to be studied. I’ve gone through all the pottery which still needs drawings; Mona has already completed a good number of these vessels from TT 414. Patrizia focused on shabtis and wooden objects, mostly from the Ptolemaic period.

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For photographing, Cajetan finished coffin fragments, stelae and several small finds as well as some papyrus fragments. Photographing was in general quite a challenge – adapting not only to the outer circumstances like one very windy day, two quite hot days and the different light conditions according to day time etc., but of course first of all to the different properties and sizes of the objects. Cajetan was, as always, very creative and used a number of equipment I would never have dreamed of being useful for photographing ;-)!

 

I am still busy sorting through the large number of coffins, trying to find joints on one hand and setting a task list for consolidation, drawing and photographing on the other. Just perfect timing for the weekend was that I relocated today a small fragment of the beautiful Ptolemaic coffin of Ta-remetj-Bastet – giving much hope that we will be able to identify most of the pieces still missing on our lists.

The next week will see the arrival of new team members and will thus enlarge our scope a bit further. Of prime importance will be the start of the conservation work thanks to the cooperation with the Austrian Archaeological Institute.

A complex jigsaw puzzle

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We’re making very good progress with documenting the objects from TT 414. After the general cleaning at the beginning, we are now focusing on wooden objects and here in particular on coffin fragments. More than 200 coffins/coffin fragments were registered during work in TT 414. Some of them are in very good state of preservation, but the majority urgently needs consolidation.

Seminal work on the coffins from TT 414 was conducted in the 1970s by Elfriede Reiser-Haslauer who registered all the coffins and documented the texts and decorative programmes (see Reiser-Haslauer 1982). However, it goes without saying how much effort this meant during excavation, with new pieces coming in and various tasks at one time. The Austrian team did a great job back then, but at that moment detailed studies and especially the cleaning and consolidation of the coffins were not possible.

This is where our project steps in – aiming for a reconstruction of the phases of use of TT 414 and its burials, we now focus on details and a revised prosopographical study (cf. Budka/Mekis/Bruwier 2013; Budka/Mekis 2017). At this stage, quite a number of registered coffins are still scattered within the magazine, without indication of find location or find number – the big challenge is therefore reconstructing all joining pieces for one object and identifiying small fragments. Some joints were also not noted back in the 1970s, simply because of the large amounts of finds.

Identification

Today, we can built upon the original documentation and photos by the Austrian mission – also small fragments can be identified, although it is quite a time-consuming task requiring sometimes luck and of course always patience. With two new joints of important pieces today, I am really satisfied!

Our work resembles a big and quite complex jigsaw puzzle – but all efforts are definitely worth it, not only because of the high quality of the pieces and their significance for contextualising funerary customs in Late Period and Ptolemaic Thebes, but also because previous work in the magazine has shown that unexpected finds might show up during consolidation work – Book of the Dead papyri and mummy labels were found in the study seasons 2007-2009 (see Budka 2010). The material from TT 414 definitely still holds much potential for surprises!

References

Budka, Julia and Tamás Mekis 2017. The Family of Wah-ib-Re I (TT 414) from Thebes, Egypt & the Levant 27, 219‒240.

Budka, Julia, Tamás Mekis and Marie-Cécile Bruwier 2013. Re-use of Saite temple tombs in the Asasif during the early Ptolemaic time – the tomb group of Mw.t-Mnw from TT 414, Egypt & the Levant 22/23, 2012/2013, 209–251.

Budka, Julia 2010. Ankh-Hor Revisited: Study, Documentation and Publication of Forgotten Finds from the Asasif/Thebes, in: Fifth Central European Conference of Egyptologists. Egypt 2009: Perspectives of Research, Pułtusk 2009, ed. by J. Popielska and J. Iwaszczuk, Acta Archaeologica Pułtuskiensia, Pułtusk, 23–31.

Reiser-Haslauer, Elfriede 1982. IX. Genealogisches Register, in: Manfred Bietak und Elfriede Reiser-Haslauer, Das Grab des ‘Anch-Hor, Obersthofmeister der Gottesgemahlin Nitokris II, UZK 5, Vienna, 267–284.

Start of 2018 Season

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Today we reopened the Middle Kingdom saff tomb which serves as magazine for the finds from TT 414, the tomb of Ankh-Hor and started our 2018 season!

The tasks for today were mainly cleaning and dust removal – nine years have passed since the last opening and this clearly left some marks – also on us, I really really needed a shower afterwards…

Thanks to the support of the local authorities and our workmen, we started very well into the new season – the first objects from TT 414 were already drawn by Mona and Patrizia and also photographed by Cajetan!

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The goal for the first week will be re-organizing the magazine into categories of priority – with hundreds of objects waiting for us, we will not be able to study and document all of them. The focus will be on coffins and cartonnage fragments, dating from the Saite Period to Roman times.