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A MA student in the Netherlands is doing research on how effectively blogs and other social media communicate about archaeology. I'm interested in her research, so I'm inviting anyone who visits this blog to take a quick survey here: http://goo.gl/forms/z3BAUTyYUL. The survey closes at the end of this month (July 2015).

Offseason work

Our project is in the middle of our offseason; we've written a report on some of our work that will appear in the journal Sudan & Nubia. A little plug for this journal--it's the best way to find out about the latest archaeological work in Sudan, it's in color, and it costs $28 per year. You get it by becoming a member of the Sudan Archaeological Research Society.

But also making exciting plans for this coming season--a focus on the medieval village, some exploration of new buildings that we've identified but haven't excavated yet...stay tuned!

Excavating a Pyramid (film clip)

(guest post by Jack Cheng, our draftsman, artist, and my friend and colleague for almost 20 years!)

In excavating the pyramid at El Kurru, we calculated that about 100 tons of fill had been deposited in just the last room (similar amounts were removed from the first two rooms in last season). Some of the fill would have been washed in from the desert, and some of it would have been rock collapse from the roof of the chamber. 

Digging it out was difficult, and so was removing the dirt from 8 meters below ground to the surface. The workmen organized themselves to move the dirt as efficiently as possible, as you can see in this video:

Our team

We’ve had a great team this season…

(Left to right, sort of: Geoff Emberling, Martin Makinson, Rikke Therkildsen (she's in the back), Nacho Forcadell, Jack Cheng (also in the back), Luis Martín Díaz, Kate Rose, Sebastian Anstis (in the back--he's not really that tall), Carrie Roberts, Suzanne Davis, Martin Uildriks, Sarah Duffy, Naomi Miller, Jacke Phillips, and Mahmoud Suliman (he's not really that grouchy)

It’s nice to be able to highlight some of their work.

One of our projects, directed by my colleague Rachael Dann at the University of Copenhagen, has focused on documenting the painted tombs of the 25^th Dynasty at El Kurru. Sarah Duffy has done amazingly detailed photographic documentation in the tombs, both last season and this year. Here she is in the tomb of Tanutamani (photo by Jack Cheng):

She is photographing in part to made 3-dimensional models of the tombs themselves. You can see more of her work at El Kurru here: http://sarahmduffy.uk/2014/06/21/sudan/. Some of her other work doing cutting-edge photographic documentation and modelling of archaeological sites is also on her website: sarahmduffy.uk.

End-of-Season: The pyramid burial chamber

Between the hectic work at the end of the season and the terrible internet connection, I wasn’t able to post about our final results for the season. So in the next few days, I’ll write about where things stand and our plans for next season.

Our most dramatic result was in the burial chamber of the pyramid. After two years of work, and about 250 tons of sand removed by hand, we came down on a big granite slab, about 10 feet (3.3 meters) long that was aligned between the door and the “stele niche” in the back of the burial chamber. 

Granite slab when first cleaned (Jaffar Madani of El Kurru village at left)

Would this be the inscribed stele that would finally give us the name of the king who built the pyramid?

Well, we cleaned off the stone and it was pretty roughly finished. So we thought maybe on the other face…so we looked underneath, but the space was too confined for us to see.

Me and Mahmoud Suliman Bashir, my Sudanese friend and colleague
 (and the project's Inspector from the Department of Antiquities)
trying to see under the stele

So we got all our strongest guys and turned it so it was vertical. 

And that face was unfinished too! Here's what I thought about that:

When we excavated the rest of the room, the granite slab turned out to be resting right on an unfinished sandstone "coffin bench" that was originally intended to support the coffin of the king. But the rest of the room was completely empty, showing that the pyramid burial chamber was NEVER USED! 

Granite slab on top of the coffin bench, with the beginnings of the "stele niche" at the back wall

We had more indications that the pyramid was also unfinished above ground. Next post!

The face of a pyramid

We have decided to remove the fallen rubble from the north face of the pyramid to see if there might be further indications of how and when it was built and how it may have been connected to the pyramid of one of the most important kings buried at El Kurru—Piye (also called Piankhy)—whose pyramid burial is immediately to the north.

This work will also transform the appearance of the pyramid and of the site. The pyramid was built of stone blocks around a rubble core. Right now, it’s mostly the rubble core that’s visible—the upper stone blocks were taken for re-use elsewhere in medieval times, and the rubble simply spilled out over the pyramid stones.

We are excited to see how this will develop in the remainder of the season.

Pyramid niche

It continues to be an amazing experience to excavate a pyramid. I went into the innermost burial chamber that we are excavating after the workmen had left for the day, and really experienced what it means to be as quiet as the tomb.

Based on other pyramids of this date in Nubia, we expect to find two features in the inner burial chamber: a coffin bench and a stele niche.

Kings and queens of Kush adopted many aspects of Egyptian burial practice, including burial in coffins. But they retained their traditional idea of being buried on a bed, so around the stone benches in their pyramid burials are usually four holes that would have supported bed legs. Other Nubian royal burials have sometimes contained fragments of the coffin itself that were left after looters smashed them.

The stele niche is a small alcove at the back of the room in which an inscribed stone would usually name the king or queen and inscribe funerary spells. And we have just found the stele niche! Empty, unfortunately…but there remain several possibilities—the stele could have fallen onto the floor, for example. We will know more soon!