EGYPTIAN
under direction of Manfred Bietak within the concession of the University of Würzburg at the site of the MK palace with surveying and laserscanning of the architecture. In spring a wing of an older MK palace was discovered. During this season ceramic material was studied, showing that the stratigraphy of the palace and the accumulations above contained, besides the Egyptian ceramic corpus of the Twelfth Dynasty, Levantine Painted Ware, Kamares Ware and other Middle Minoan Ware as imports. Dahshur: For the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Dieter Arnold and Adela Oppenheim continued work on the pyramid complex of Senwosret III (October to December). Excavations concentrated on the area between the southern outer enclosure wall and the socalled south temple. The excavation showed that the court area was paved with pebble layers, surrounded by walkways covered with a mortar surface, suggesting that the ‘empty spaces’ between buildings were organized and maintained. Three projections of the bastion configuration that encircled the pyramid foot were partially rebuilt east of the pyramid’s north chapel. Priority was given to the recording of material (human remains, relief fragments, potsherds) from previous seasons. Upper Egypt Coptos: Work was resumed in October/ November 2014 by Laure Pantalacci for IFAO/ Université Lumière Lyon 2 south of the mammisi sanctuary of Ptolemy IV. It exposed slabs from the pavement of the courtyard or antechamber preceding the naos. East of the mammisi area, a Late Byzantine north-south gate, about 4 m wide and 6.5 m long, was identified. It had been installed between two Roman mud brick enclosures, on top of the levelled Ptolemaic enclosure wall of the main temple. Further east, the cleaning, conservation and anastylosis of the Roman colonnade also built on the top of this same Ptolemaic wall and dated to the 1st century ad, has continued. At the north-east corner of the Ptolemaic enclosure, this colonnade led to a chapel where a colossal statue from the reign of Emperor Vespasian was standing on a high limestone pedestal. Lastly, in the ‘Coptic’ area, to the west of the site, a test trench was opened under the enigmatic structure entirely built with blocks from a temple of Ptolemy IX Soter II. It appears that this ruined Christian building sits partly upon a huge dump area, including several complete amphorae (type AE3, 1st century ad), numerous stone tools and remains indicating an important cooking activity. http://www.ifao.egnet.net/ archeologie/coptos. Medinet Habu: The OI epigraphic team under the supervision of J. Brett McClain continued documentation work in the small Amun temple of Hatshepsut and Thutmosis III on the final drawings for Medinet Habu X (now completed) and Medinet Habu XI and XII between October 2014 and January 2015. Epigrapher Jen Kimpton assisted by Anait Helmholz continued her preliminary survey and cataloguing of blocks and fragments of the destroyed Medinet Habu western High Gate, part of a comprehensive conservation and restoration programme for the entire southern and western sectors of the Medinet Habu complex. Preliminary conservation and cleaning of the house of Butehamun began in October under the supervision of conservator Lotfi Hassan, assisted by Nahed Samir. Lotfi and Nahed were also supervising the second year of the Epigraphic Survey’s two-year conservation student training programme for fourteen local Egyptian conservation students. Master mason Frank Helmholz, assisted by mason Johannes Weninger and the stone team, are in the final months of restoring and re-erecting the Domitian
ARCHAEOLOGY
Gate with new sandstone blocks that replace the lowest courses destroyed by ground water salt. Tina Di Cerbo and Richard Jasnow continued their digital documentation of Late Period and medieval graffiti in the northern Ptolemaic annex of the small Amun temple, a Ptolemaic gate on the south, plus the roof area of the Ramesses III mortuary temple. This season saw the collaboration of Chicago House and the Ramesseum team led by Christian LeBlanc and Philippe Martinez in the documentation of reused blocks from the Ramesseum in the Ptolemaic and Roman additions to the small Amun temple. The documentation, conservation, and restoration work at MH is funded by a grant from USAID Egypt. http://oi.uchicago.edu/research/projects/epi. Luxor: The OI Epigraphic Survey under W. Raymond Johnson continued work between October and December. Chicago House architect/ artist Jay Heidel continued the facsimile epigraphic documentation of the Ptolemy I Bentresh inscription blocks, utilising a new Cintiq Wacom Companion drawing tablet for digital ‘penciling’ on site. He also continued to refine the new Luxor Temple blockyard data management programme for documenting and tracking the 50,000 inscribed architectural blocks and fragments stored and displayed there, and continued to enter data on the new database. Egyptologist/artist Krisztián Vertés continued his facsimile pencilling of the Tetrarchic Roman frescos in the Imperial Cult Chamber, south wall, eastern side, and will finish the entire southern wall this season. Luxor Temple conservator Hiroko Kariya conducted her annual condition survey, maintenance, and treatment of the blockyard material, and has started inventorying the entire collection with Heidel. The work at Luxor Temple is supported in part by a grant from USAID Egypt. http://oi.uchicago.edu/ research/projects/epi. Armant: The joint IFAO/Cnrs-Univ. Montpellier 3/USR 3172 mission directed by Christophe Thiers (Cnrs, USR 3172-CFEETK) continued the archaeological survey in Armant, focusing on the area of the naos/pronaos of the Montu Temple. The bottom of the foundation pit of the naos and pronaos was reached. In the Ptolemaic naos, the first course of stone was lying on a layer of sand river, but the first course of the pronaos foundation was built directly on a previous archaeological level, which seems to date to the OK (mud brick structure and very few pot sherds were found). A fragment of an incense burner of Senwesret I, and part of a scribe statue, both in granodiorite, were uncovered on the destruction levels of the temple. When cleaning the foundation stones of the façade of the pronaos it was possible to identify a head of a colossus reused upside down. It was decided to remove two blocks of the upper course in order to reach the head of the colossus. These two blocks bear parts of scenes from the Hatshepsut temple. The pillar of the colossus bears the name of Tuthmose III. The colour of the face and of the reliefs is well preserved. Fragments of two other Osirian colossi bearing an inscription of Sethy II were also uncovered close to the colossus of Tuthmose III. Sandra Lippert (CNRS UMR 5140) studied the Demotic graffiti that were discovered on reused blocks from the NK, on the pylon and two lion gargoyles. Romain David (Univ. Montpellier 3-LabEx Archimede) continued the study of the Late Roman pottery coming from the kom. Lilian Postel (Univ. Lyon 2) continued the study of the MK limestone blocks. Sébastien BistonMoulin (CNRS USR 3172) continued the epigraphic survey of the reused NK blocks. Pierre Zignani (CNRS UMR 5060), with the help of Olivier Onezime (topographer, IFAO), resumed the architectural survey of the foundations blocks. Olivier Onezime and Kevin Guadagnini
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(topographer, CFEETK) made ortho-images of the temple area. Hassan el-Amir (IFAO) continued the conservation-restoration programme of sandstone blocks lying around Bab el-Maganin, and on the blocks and fragments of the colossus found on the façade of the pronaos: http://recherche. univ-montp3.fr/egyptologie/ermant. Aswan (Syene): The 15th season of work of the joint team of the Swiss Institute and the MSA Aswan, headed by C. von Pilgrim and Nasr Salama, and directed in the field by Wolfgang Müller, started end of August 2014. Fieldwork lasted until 13 December and concentrated on a salvage excavation (Area 84) located about 100 m north of the Isis Temple. In the long and narrow trench a sequence of well-preserved buildings of the Fatimid and Ayyubid Period was investigated. At the bottom, an exceptional building of the Roman Period was discovered. It is built in mud bricks and the walls were provided with coloured plaster. Additional investigations were necessary in Area 61 to the east of the temple of Domitian after further work of the contractor had revealed a rock tomb at the edge of the area. It contained a number of skeletons, and some vessels of the late MK. Above the tomb, a masonry foundation built of well-shaped sandstone blocks became visible at the edge of the pit. The type of masonry points to a Ptolemaic date of construction. The wall may be connected to similar wall segments already recorded in adjacent areas evidencing the location of a temple at the south-western slope of a hill to the east of temple of Domitian. www.swissinst.ch. Aswan (Elephantine): The joint DAI/Swiss Inst team directed by Stephan Seidlmayer, Felix Arnold and Cornelius von Pilgrim, continued fieldwork in October (until December), resuming investigation of H55 located immediately to the south of the Heqaib sanctuary. Work was conducted in close cooperation with J. Budka and her ECR project AcrossBorders. The main task of the season was the removal of a central baulk, which had been left during earlier excavations in order to study the debris above the ruined house. The house had been built into the slope of the eastern town mound at the beginning of the Eighteenth Dynasty. A second building phase was attested in the eastern part of the house, where two rooms were rebuilt on a higher level and a subterranean cellar was installed. The well-preserved back wall of the house has been only partially uncovered. It is provided with ordinary mud-plaster that shows traces of a simple painting depicting sailing ships. After the house was abandoned the ruin was intentionally covered with debris most probably deriving from the area of the Khnum Temple when further construction activities took place in the reign of Amenhotep II. www.swissinst.ch. WINTER 2014-15 Upper Egypt Dendera: The second campaign of the joint IFAO-Oriental Institute-Macquarie University mission was conducted in December 2014 (http:// www.ifao.egnet.net/archeologie/dendara). In addition to the study of the well-preserved sanctuaries, the aim of this new project is to investigate extensively and on a diachronic basis the combined development of settlement, necropolis and landscape at Dendera. Pierre Zignani (CNRS-IFAO), co-director for the architectural study of the sanctuaries, focused his research on the Roman Mammisi. In addition to its architectural mapping, a deep trench has been opened in the northwestern corner of the monument in order to study the foundation techniques. This operation also confirmed that the great temple enclosure wall is made up of two successive phases, an earlier and another posterior to the Mammisi. A systematic XRF survey on the metallic door-sockets and dovetails has been conducted by Philippe Fluzin (CNRS). Gregory