Tag Archives: cartonnage

The 2023 season of the Ankh-Hor project in retrospect

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Today four weeks ago we closed the 2023 season of the Ankh-Hor project in Luxor. Time for a little review of a very successful season.

Work was conducted from September 5 to October 5, 2023, with our very helpful SCA Inspector Mahmoud Sayed Abdelhady. The major goal was to continue the cleaning, consolidation, and documentation of the large number of objects excavated in the 1970s from TT 414, the monumental tomb of Ankh-Hor, High Steward of the Divine Adora-trice Nitocris (26th Dynasty).

Several previously not identified pieces were newly recognised as matches to coffins documented by the Austrian mission in the 1970s. Some of these were joined by our conservators Mohamed and Karima to the already documented pieces. One example is Reg. No. 827 – Fig. 1 shows the state of documentation in the 1970s compared to 2023; this season, we found a small new piece matching to the instep of the lid. All pieces of Reg. No. 827 were cleaned and consolidated.

Fig. 1: Reg. 827, a fragmented Ptolemaic coffin lid. Left the state in 1975, to the right our new match in 2023.

In general, all finds studied in 2023 were digitally photographed and entered in a database, created by File Maker Pro. In total, more than 180 individual objects (mostly coffins and cartonnage elements) were studied and documented by more than 2400 photos. These new photos are suitable for publication and show the colours of the pieces, in contrast to the previous documentation in the 1970s (see Fig. 2).

Fig. 2: Reg. 521, one of the examples showing the benefits of high-resolution photography in full colour.

Since many the painted objects from TT 414 have darkened surface, infrared photography was used to make the original decoration visible (with a Sony Cybershot DSC-F828, an IR-filter and a small magnet). In 2023, this method was applied to a total of 95 objects.

We introduced a new method of documentation in 2023. The app Scaniverse (see https://scaniverse.com/) was used to capture objects in 3D. This photogrammetry application is ultrafast, highly accurate and very easy to use. 170 objects from TT 414 were captured with metrically accurate 3D models this season – simply fantastic!

Ashraf and I with the box of objects we transported in 2023 to the magazine (photo: P. Heindl).

One of the highlights of this season was the transport of objects to the magazine of the West Bank. In addition, we were able to work on coffins we transported to the magazine in earlier years. My personal highlight was the new documentation of one of my favourite coffins from TT 414, of Reg. 655, with infrared photography and with a 3D model.

3D model of coffin Reg. 655 created with the app Scaniverse

The conservators of the LMU Munich Ankh-Hor Project in the 2023 season were the specialists for wood, Mrs. Karima Mohamed Sadiq and Mr. Mahmoud Mohamed Mahmoud. They did a fantastic job, both at our site and in the magazine of the West Bank. A total of 108 wooden and painted objects, mostly coffins, comprising 294 individual pieces, were successfully cleaned and consolidated in 2023.

To conclude, the fifth season of the LMU Ankh-Hor Project was carried out successfully, with much progress regarding the consolidation and documentation of wood and cartonnage coffins from TT 414. Thanks to the transfer of objects to the magazine and the placement of studied finds in sugar bags in corridors of Tomb I, much space was gain in the mission’s magazine which is crucial for the future jigsaw puzzle of coffin fragments, both in wood and cartonnage. New genealogical information regarding coffin owners were unearthed and the stylistic assessment of Ptolemaic cartonnage coffins advanced in 2023 in many aspects, including reconstructing new cartonnage coffins.

The rich potential of our work on the cartonnage coffins can be illustrated with Reg. 23/04. I was able to match several fragments of the edge of the base of a cartonnage coffin which was previously not documented (Fig. 3). Based on the father’s name, the titles and the close similarity with Reg. 860, the coffin of Horakhbjt, I would like to propose to identify the owner of Reg. 23/04, Wesjrwer, as the previously unknown brother of Horakhbjt.

Fig. 3: Reconstruction of nine fragments of the edge of a cartonnage coffin of Wesjrwer.

Since not all fragments of wooden and cartonnage coffins from TT 414 are yet consolidated and documented, our work needs to be continued in the next season.

For now, I would like to express my gratitude to all of our Egyptian colleagues without whom work would not have been possible. I am very grateful to all team members of the 2023 season: Patrizia Heindl, Caroline Stadlmann, Ahmed Elmaklizi, all LMU Munich, and Karima Mohamed Sadiq and Mohamed Mahmoud Mohamed Mahmoud as the conservators of the Ministry of Antiquities and Tourism. Ashraf Hosni Teegi did another great job as the head of logistics. Many thanks to all and we are all very much looking forward to the next season!

The 2023 team of the LMU Ankh-Hor Project.

A puzzle of wooden coffins and cartonnage coffins from TT 414

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To all who celebrate around the world, a very happy Mawlid an-Nabi! Because of this holiday, our week 4 ended already yesterday and we could catch up with some paperwork working today from home.

In week 4, our conservators Karima and Mohammed continued with the consolidation and cleaning of coffins from TT 414, focusing on Ptolemaic pieces. They managed to clean fragments of 16 coffins this week, comprising partly a large number of individual pieces. Like last week, puzzling with the fragments and gluing them back together after cleaning was very time consuming. One of my favourite coffins they finished this week is Reg. 829 – the beautiful base of a wooden anthropoid coffin showing a felid skin on the exterior.

The beautiful bottom side of the cartonnage coffin Reg. 829.

I am particularly proud that I managed to relocate the fragments of the edges of the coffin – this is new information which was not yet recorded in the previous documentation in the 1970s.

Interior of Reg. 829 with placement of fragments of the coffin edges.

Not only the coffin is remarkable, but also its owner. Reg. 829 was owned by the god’s father and prophet of Amun in Karnak, sakh-wedjat and prophet of Sobek who dwells in Qus Hor-pa-bjk. He belongs to a very interesting, but also quite complicated priestly family which was active most probably during mid-Ptolemaic time. All the family members buried in TT 414 had very similar wooden coffins as well as cartonnage coffins – this produces several challenges in identifying the individuals. Both the female and male members of the family show a little variety of titles but share very common names; this caused already confusion in the 1970s when Elfriede Reiser-Haslauer tried to reconstruct the family tree.

Very interesting is the connection of the family to Sobek of Qus – this is something we can trace already since the time of Pa-di-Amun-neb-nesut-tawy I who started reusing TT 414 in the fourth century BCE (Budka and Mekis 2022). Tamas Mekis and I have proposed that maybe the ancestors of Pa-di-Amun-neb-nesut-tawy I moved to Qus during the Second Persian Period and returned to Thebes during the Nectanebid Period, bringing the cult of the gods of Gesy with them. The cult of Sobek in Karnak is both connected to Amun as well as to Osiris (see Budka and Mekis 2022 with references; for Sobek and his cult in general see Kockelmann 2017) – and, as Hor-pa-bjk illustrates, the Sobek cult was an integral part of the duties of the Karnak priests reusing TT 414, even many generations after Pa-di-Amun-neb-nesut-tawy I.

Coming back to the coffin assemblage of Hor-pa-bjk, I completely agree with Reiser-Haslauer (1982) – although final proof is still lacking, it is very tempting to identify Hor-pa-bjk as the brother of Hor-akh-bjt, owner of the cartonnage coffin Reg. 860, which shows a very similar felid skin on the bottom in an almost identical style.

We know that Hor-pa-bjk also had a cartonnage coffin like his presumed brother (and his father, mother and sister-in-law…) – it most probably also showed a zodiac on the interior of the lid. Since the cartonnage coffins from TT 414 are even stronger fragmented than the wooden ones, I am still sorting through fragments and trying to make sense of this large jigsaw puzzle.

My workplace was very chaotic at times this week – just too many mixed up little fragments to sort through!

As one of the most important results this week, I believe that I managed to identify another brother of Hor-pa-bjk and Hor-akh-bjt by means of a very fragmented cartonnage coffin which is again similar to Reg. 860. This would most probably be the eldest son of Nes-ba-neb-Djedet – a previously unrecorded Wesjr-wer III, named after his grandfather Wesjr-wer II. Thus, with the family tree around Hor-pa-bjk increasing, I am positive that we will soon be able to answer some of the open questions.

This small case study hopefully illustrates why all this work with the gigantic puzzle of fragments from the tomb of Ankh-Hor is worth doing – not only to reconstruct the actual objects from TT 414, but also to gain more information about the priesthood of Karnak in Ptolemaic times.

References:

Budka, J. and T. Mekis 2022. The family of Pa-di-Amun-neb-nesut-tawy from Thebes (TT 414) revisited. The case study of Kalutj/Nes-Khonsu (G108 + G137) (with contributions by Marc Etienne and Malcolm Jr. Mosher), Archaeopress Egyptology 42, Oxford [open access].

Kockelmann, H. 2017. Der Herr der Seen, Sümpfe und Flußläufe. Untersuchungen zum Gott Sobek und den ägyptischen Krokodilgötter-Kulten von den Anfängen bis zur Römerzeit. Ägyptologische Abhandlungen 74, Wiesbaden.

Reiser-Haslauer, E. 1982, C. Die Familien um Wsjr-wr und Ns-bA-nb-Ddt (spätptolemäisch), 257, in: M. Bietak and E. Reiser-Haslauer, Das Grab des Anch-Hor, Obersthofmeister der Gottesgemahlin Nitokris, Band II. Mit Beiträgen von Joachim Boessneck, Angela von den Driesch, Jan Quaegebeur, Helga Liese-Kleiber und Helmut Schlichtherle und Relief- und Fundzeichnungen von Heinz Satzinger, Untersuchungen der Zweigstelle Kairo 5, Wien.

Much progress in week 3 of the 2023 season

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This week just flew by very quickly – we made much progress in many respects.

The consolidation and cleaning of coffins from TT 414 was carried out continuously by our conservators Karima and Mohammed. They managed to clean seven additional coffins this week, comprised of more than 60 individual pieces. Very time consuming was therefore the puzzling with the fragments and gluing them back together after cleaning.

This week, Mohammed and Karima had to fit many pieces of fragmented coffins together.

One case study of these working tasks is shown here – Reg. 825 is a nice example of a looted inner anthropoid coffins with clear damages caused by the robbers. Karima and Mohammed managed to fit the fragments back together in a way that also the original shape of the lid becomes visible again.

Reg. 825 was one of the coffins successfully cleaned, glued and documented in week 3.

Another great achievement in terms of consolidation was the work by Mohammed on a very fragile pedestal of a 26th Dynasty Ptah-Sokar-Osiris statue from the tomb of Ankh-Hor. The piece is not inscribed, but covered with linen and painted in yellow, red and blue. Mohammed fixed all of the remaining painted parts. The 3D model I created of the object with Scaniverse shows in great accuracy the “footprint” of the statue – the tenon hole, but also the shape of the lower base of the figure. The almost square cavity in front of the pedestal was closed with a lid on which we traced the negative of a falcon statue.

3D model of Reg. 23/02 (created with Scaniverse) showing all the details of this 26th Dynasty Ptah-Sokar-Osiris-pedestal. The small lid of the cavity was removed for this scan.

This week the work on the cartonnage coffins from TT 414 really picked up speed. To begin, Ahmed and Caroline, our student assistants, searched and sorted through several boxes of fragments. We focused on the reconstruction of a wonderful two-part coffin of the Ptolemaic Amun priest Horakhbjt, Reg. 860- its painting is exquisite and large fragments were documented back in the 1970s. However, we realised that most of these fragments are currently missing. The good news is: I have now been able to relocate numerous pieces; they were scattered in dozens of boxes in the magazine.

Ahmed and Caroline did a great job sorting through boxes with cartonnage fragments from TT 414.

I show you here a particularly charming fragment from the lid: just check out the details of the figure of Anubis and the way he is here depicted bent over the mummy on the lion bed.

One small fragment from the lid of Reg. 860 – unusual is the representation of Anubis in this scene with the mummy bier.

I did anticipate that work on Reg. 860 will be time-consuming – maybe not as much as it turned out to be, but I am still optimistic that we will manage to document much of this important piece during this season. In addition, I managed to find matching pieces to a lot of other cartonnage coffins. The most exciting one is maybe the beautiful lid of the cartonnage of the priest Twt. Just last year, I managed to identify this cartonnage coffin and now we have a full representation of Twt kneeling in front of an offering table in delicate painting.

New matching pieces of the cartonnage coffin of Mr. Twt – the lower part of the Ba-bird and of Twt himself were newly found this week.

Last but not least, this week was also very successful in using 3D scanning with Scaniverse to document objects, fragments of cartonnage coffins and wooden coffins from TT 414. More than 50 3D scans now complement our documentation and will allow us to continue the jigsaw puzzle also back home after the season.

Presenting the Ankh-Hor project in Munich

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It is a great pleasure to have been invited by the Collegium Aegyptium, the friends of the Institute of Egyptology and Coptology at LMU Munich to give a lecture about my Ankh-Hor Project.

My talk later today will be in German and focuses on the questions of Ptolemaic wooden coffins and cartonnage fragments from TT 414.

It is the first time that I present some preliminary remarks on the cartonnage cases from the tomb of Ankh-Hor. There is evidence for various types of cartonnages from the 30th Dynasty well into the Ptolemaic era. I will discuss some of the results from the 2022 season.

One particularly interesting topic, that I will briefly mention today in my lecture is the appearance of zodiac representations on the interior of lids of cartonnage coffins.

Interior decoration of the lid of a cartonnage coffin from TT 414 with the Taurus zodiac sign.

The recent publication by Daniela Mendel (2022) is an excellent collection and comparison of representations of astronomical ceilings and zodiacs in Ptolemaic and Roman temples, coffins and sarcophagi as well as tombs. Due to the poor state of publication on Ptolemaic cartonnage coffins from Thebes, there is no reference in the book to cartonnage examples of zodiac representations. It is well known that the wooden coffins of the famous Soter family from Thebes include representations of the sky with zodiac – but as the material from TT 414 shows, there were already examples well before the Roman era.

There is still so much work and research to be done – and hopefully we will be back in Luxor for the 2023 season of the Ankh-Hor Project soon. For now, I am very much looking forward to tonight’s lecture and hope for some constructive feedback and questions.

Reference

Mendel, D. 2022. Die Geographie des Himmels: eine Untersuchung zu den Deckendekorationen in ägyptischen Tempeln der griechisch-römischen Zeit und zeitgleichen Darstellungen auf Särgen und in Gräbern. 3 vols. Studien zur spätägyptischen Religion 37. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz

A short summary of the 2022 season

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Winter has finally arrived in Germany and being back on the desk and in the classrooms at LMU, it is especially nice to reflect a bit on our 2022 season of the Ankh-Hor project in sunny Luxor. It was an extremely pleasant and productive season, and I am grateful to all team members!

The major goal of the 2022 season was to continue the cleaning, consolidation, and documentation of the large number of objects excavated from TT 414, the monumental tomb of Ankh-Hor, High Steward of the Divine Adoratrice Nitocris (26th Dynasty), by the Austrian mission directed by Manfred Bietak. The focus was on wooden coffins and cartonnage elements from TT 414 and included both Late Period pieces and Ptolemaic ones. Work was conducted from September 27 to October 27, 2021 (with our amazing SCA Inspector, Saad Kenawy Mohamed).

The detailed documentation of objects from TT 414 resulted, thanks to the great efforts of Hassan, Saad and Patrizia, in a total of 147 drawings during the 2022 season, comprising wooden objects, stamped mud bricks (deriving not from TT 414), shabtis and pottery.

Fig. 1: Saad, Patrizia and Hassan were a great and very effective drawing team (photo: J. Budka).

Much progress was also made in assigning previously not identified pieces of painted wooden coffins to specific coffins documented by the Austrian mission in the 1970s. One important example is Reg. 680 for which four new matching pieces were found. However, for this important coffin of the founder of the 30th Dynasty reuse of TT 414, Pa-di-Amun-neb-nesut-tawy I, there are still two missing pieces from the left side of the coffin and its foot part which were documented in the 1970s. Fig. 2 shows the comparison between the status of the right side of the upper part of the coffin in 1972 and in 2022 with three matching fragments. This coffin is thus a good example for the challenges in our work – there are still missing pieces for important coffins and the identification of all fragments is not yet fully accomplished.

Fig. 2: Comparison of part of coffin Reg. No. 680 between status in 1972 and 2022 – note three new matching pieces to the right side of the lid.

Many painted wooden coffin fragments were cleaned and consolidated in the 2022 season by our conservators Antje Zygalski and Noura Mustafa El-Taher. Noura did an amazing job in reconstructing free standing elements of coffins in the shape of djed-pillars and Isis-symbols.

Fig. 3: Noura working on the fragments of djed-pillars and Isis-symbols. She managed to reconstruct several pieces out of broken fragments (photo: J. Budka).
Fig. 4: Some examples of the newly reconstructed Isis-symbols (photo: J. Budka).

The best example that we were able to identify new owners of coffins during the 2022 is Reg. No. 689, found in the debris in the burial chamber of Ankh-Hor. The lady Takerheb is now confirmed as the owner of this piece.

During the 2022 season, also some new names of persons buried in TT 414 were identified. For the 26th Dynasty, a possible new female relative of Ankh-Hor was recorded. The fragment of a new anthropoid coffin, K07/243, gives the name Ta-dj-Iset (a common name in the 25th and 26th Dynasties), previously unknown from TT 414. Since there are several Pa-di-Iset attested in Ankh-Hor family, this new female might extend the family tree – for more information, I will need to identify matching pieces to this newly recorded coffin fragment.

In addition to the stylistic assessment of the cartonnages from TT 414, much progress was done this season in identifying the owners of these trappings. Thanks to infrared photography, some names and titles became readable and allow to attribute cartonnage elements to Ptolemaic individuals already known from other objects, for example a new cartonnage element is attested for G 148, Ta-sherit-Khonsw, with K08/85.

One particular important identification of a new cartonnage element is the one for Twt, an individual otherwise only attested by his outer anthropoid coffin in yellow-red on black-style (Reg. No. 510). This also offers us the possibility to compare the motifs and styles on coffins and cartonnages.

New coffins were also assigned to known persons buried in TT 414. As one example, the inner anthropoid coffin fragment of Imhotep (G 16) was identified with Reg. No. 19/04 and is now a new addition to his set of coffins with an outer coffin in black-yellow style, Reg. No. 759.

Fig. 5: Foot part of the inner coffin of Imhotep, already documented in 2019, but now newly assigned to its owner (photo: C. Geiger, ©Ankh-Hor Project).

To conclude, several new observations on the material from TT 414 are possible as direct results of the 2022 season, in particular in three main thematic fields, first of all because of the extended application of infrared photography: 1) genealogical information and new coffin owners, 2) additions to existing tomb groups as well as 3) a better understanding of the coffin design and the main motifs, also in relation to cartonnage elements.

Despite of all this progress, large amounts of fragments of coffins and cartonnage from the Late Period to Ptolemaic and also Roman times remain to be cleaned, are partly in need of reconstruction and of full documentation. Our work therefore needs to be continued in the next season. Our 2022 results hopefully show that these efforts are immensely worthwhile.

Ptolemaic cartonnage elements from TT 414: tentative steps into a promising field

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It is well known that Ptolemaic mummies were typically equipped with trappings made of cartonnage. The most common cartonnage elements are a helmet-style funerary mask, a foot case and several panels along the body. Such elements are commonly displayed in museums and collections worldwide (and frequently found as objects sold on the art market). Several aspects like the manufacture process or stylistic features of such cartonnages have already been discussed by scholars, with a clear focus on funerary masks in Ptolemaic times (see e.g. Stadler 2004, Vandenbeusch et al. 2021).

In Theban funerary archaeology, little research has been done on Ptolemaic cartonnages. Such elements are mentioned frequently in excavation reports, but a concise assessment, including a study of the diachronic development in Ptolemaic times, still needs to be undertaken. Seminal, but only preliminary work was conducted by the late Gabor Schreiber (Schreiber 2006).

The rich corpus of cartonnage elements from TT 414 was also neglected and remains to be studied in detail and of course published. This material from the tomb of Ankh-Hor covers a long and intriguing period. Cartonnage trappings are already known from the in situ burial of Wahibre I (Bietak and Reiser-Haslauer 1982) and thus seem to start in the 30th Dynasty with a peak in early Ptolemaic times. In mid- to late Ptolemaic times cartonnage coffins replacing wooden coffins are attested from TT 414, allowing to compare the iconography of wooden coffins with that of cartonnage pieces.

During the current 2022 season of the LMU Ankh-Hor project, I managed to get a good overview of all the cartonnage elements from TT 414. It became obvious that there are many matching pieces throughout several boxes – it is a large jigsaw-puzzle very much comparable to the wooden coffin fragments. Many cartonnage elements belong to funerary masks, but also foot cases and trappings placed on the mummified body are well attested. Among my favourite elements are pectorals in the shape of broad collars. These usually show alternating dotted and floral motifs and include the representation of a winged scarab and falcon heads on the sides. Representations of the goddess Nut spreading her wings are also attested – thus a range of motifs also known from various types of coffins. In line with this, many of the cartonnage elements are decorated on both sides. Some cartonnage trappings also show actual scenes like the deceased being led by Anubis to Osiris (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1: examples for the high quality but fragmentation of the cartonnage elements from TT 414.

In addition to the stylistic assessment of the cartonnages from TT 414, much progress was done this season in identifying the owners of these trappings. Thanks to infrared photography, some names and titles became readable and allow to attribute cartonnage elements to Ptolemaic individuals already known from other objects.

One of my personal highlights is the identification of a new cartonnage element for Mr. Twt – an individual otherwise only attested by his outer anthropoid coffin in yellow-red on black-style (Fig. 2). Already in 2019, I was convinced that there must be other objects belonging to Twt – well, here we are, three years later with new evidence of cartonnage trappings.

Fig. 2: We can now assign cartonnage trappings to Twt, owner of coffin Reg. No. 510. This also offers us the possibility to compare the motifs and styles on coffins and cartonnages.

These are just the first tentative steps into a very promising fields! Updates will follow, work continues!

References

Bietak, Manfred and Elfriede Reiser-Haslauer 1982. Das Grab des ‘Anch-Hor vol. II. Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.

Schreiber, Gábor 2006. Ptolemaic cartonnages from Thebes. In Győry, Hedvig (ed.), Aegyptus et Pannonia III: Acta symposii anno 2004, 227-246. Budapest: MEBT-ÓEB.

Stadler, Martin Andreas 2004. Ägyptische Mumienmasken in Würzburg (Schenkung Gütte). Wiesbaden: Reicher.

Vandenbeusch, Marie, Daniel O’Flynn, and Benjamin Moreno 2021. Layer by layer: the manufacture of Graeco-Roman funerary masks. Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 107 (1-2), 281-298.

Week 3 of field season 2022: a short update

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We have just completed week 3 of our field season 2022. We managed to make good progress on many of our work tasks. I had to go back to Germany for other important tasks, but thanks to Patrizia, Hassan and Ashraf as well as the support from the local authorities, the remote supervision from Munich is really easy.

Most importantly, Patrizia arrived last weekend and started her work in week 3 which focuses this year on drawing special objects like stamped bricks and unclear painted mud fragments.

Patrizia and Hassan busy drawing various kinds of small finds.

Strengthened by Hassan Ramadan and our inspector Saad Knawy, the drawing team of this season is extremely effective and covers all categories of small finds – from ceramics to mud shabtis, faience shabtis, wooden statues and boxes as well as a few selected coffin fragments.

Our inspector Saad is making great progress in drawing small finds (photo: P. Heindl).

The conservation team continued its work – Antje Zygalski focused on the reconstruction of a Middle Kingdom rectangular coffin which was found in one of the shaft tombs in the Austrian concession while Noura was busy cleaning Ptolemaic coffin fragments from TT 414.

Antje working on the Middle Kingdom coffin (photo: P. Heindl).
Our Egyptian colleague Noura cleaning Ptolemaic coffin fragments (photo: P. Heindl).

I managed to complete the documentation of the most important boxes with cartonnage fragments – there are already some exciting new data gained from this which I will share in a separate blog post. Much progress was also made in documenting Ptolemaic wooden coffins by photography. It was already highlighted that one of my most favourite coffins from TT 414, Reg. No. 657, is adding fresh ideas about the tomb group of Isetemkheb and the family of Wahibre I.

The conservation, cleaning, photography and drawing of the rich material from the tomb of Ankh-Hor in the 2022 season has already provided very interesting results – and we have two more weeks to go, so stay tuned for more exciting news!

Week 2 of field season 2022 in pictures

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It is always a miracle that the time on an excavation goes by even faster than at home. Week 2 of our field season 2022 just ended and was very successful in many respects.

Most importantly, the new conservator of the project has arrived and joined the team this week. Antje Zygalski is a researching conservator for archaeological wooden objects (furniture, sculptures, panel paintings etc.) and a preventive conservator for archaeological and historical objects. She has started her work and is now very productive cleaning and consolidating coffin fragments from TT 414.

Antje busy documenting already cleaned pieces from a Ptolemaic wooden painted coffin.

We also have an Egyptian conservator, Noura, as a new team member who is helping us with the cleaning of the large number of objects (I need to take a working pic of her next week 😉).

Hassan Ramadan continued the documentation of various small finds by drawing in week 2. He also introduced our inspector Saad Knawy to the archaeological illustration of objects – Saad got an intense training with Late Period clay shabtis and is already making great progress.

Hassan and Saad produced a considerable amount of drawings of objects in week 2.

From now until the end of the season, Hassan will focus mostly on wooden objects like shrines and pedestals for stelae – he has already much experience with this kind of material from TT 414.

Fragmented shrines and other wooden objects are documented in detail by Hassan.

I started the week with finding more fitting pieces of coffins as well as identifying unnumbered ones and photographing these. I then proceeded to study and document fragmented Ptolemaic cartonnages. There are many boxes with small and sometimes larger pieces for which the challenge is to identify related pieces originally belonging to the same cartonnage element. Many of the pieces represent funerary masks of a well-known Theban Ptolemaic type. Larger fragments covering the body of the mummy are often decorated on both sides, with very interesting designs of the sky and deities on the interior.

The typical content of one of the dozens of boxes of cartonnage elements – here, there are mostly fragments from Ptolmaic funerary masks.

Infrared photography works perfect for pieces of cartonnage with darkened surfaces and I could identify some names and titles using this method. This allows me to attribute cartonnage elements to persons buried in TT 414 who are already known from their wooden coffins. In the 1970s, the fragmented cartonnage pieces could not be studied because of time restrictions – therefore this new study is of key importance to reconstruct the former burial assemblages. Apart from this great advancement in attributing cartonnage elements to Ptolemaic individuals using the tomb of Ankh-Hor as a burial place, the stylistic assessment, and the comparison of the design of cartonnages with the one of coffins is extremely promising and will take more time and a detailed study.

For now, we are very much looking forward to week 3 of our 2022 season! Conservation, cleaning, photography, study and drawing of the rich material from the tomb of Ankh-Hor will of course continue.

Finally: preparing the 2021 season

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After a long break because of the pandemic, it is finally happening again: we are preparing our next season for the Ankh-Hor project in Luxor, Asasif. Because of the covid-19 crisis, the season will be a bit shorter and the team smaller than originally envisaged – nevertheless I am very excited and happy to soon be back in Egypt! We will start by mid-September for four weeks. I also plan to join the South Asasif conservation project and document the new ceramics the team found this year and in 2020.

For the Ankh-Hor project, the goals of the 2021 season are to continue what was sucessfully started in the 2019 season: the large-scale conservation programme and our detailed documentation of finds from the tomb of Ankh-Hor (TT 414). A fresh team of young conservators, both students and graduates from the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, will join us for the consolidation work. This season, we will focus besides the wooden coffin fragments also on a large number of cartonnage pieces of which many are still unregistered.

These fragments, covering a large time span and showing various styles and colouring schemes, will potentially reveal important prosopographic information on the persons buried in TT 414 starting from the 4th century BCE. My hope is that we can find new evidence on such cartonnage cases for the names of fathers or mothers of persons holding the same name (and sometimes the same titles) to identify specific individuals. There is no doubt that this will be again a challenging jigsaw puzzle and of course we will keep you updated about the process and the results.