Archaeological Fieldwork

The past ten years have seen a rise in positive organizational psychology in a variety of workplaces: most prominently schools and large corporations. We believe the application of these new approaches to archaeological field schools and/or fieldwork programs would increase staff and student fulfilment and overall individual and group flourishing whilst lowering negativity which can be caused by high-intensity fieldwork environments.

This paper presents a selection of epigraphic documents dispersed over three quarry faces (C11–C13) in the Main Quarry (Q34) at Gebel el-Silsila’s east bank, dating from the reign of the Emperor Augustus. The aim is to describe and decipher the various marks and depictions, and to translate the Demotic and Greek texts, in order to determine for what structure the stone from the quarry was intended. Based on the results, it will be argued that the quarry was the source of blocks used to construct the unfinished enclosure wall, sections of the Roman Mammisi, and plausibly the eastern gate at Dendera. That said, any conclusions at this point must be considered preliminary. Documents included here are part of a corpus of 537 quarry marks and 52 texts displayed over quarry faces C11–13 (with overviews in Appendix 3). The majority of the inscriptions have been unpublished until now. Due to the high number of documents in the collection, however, in this essay a selection has been made based on marks and texts that best communicate a relationship with the temple. A selection of the Dendera quarry mark corpus is presented, as well.

Following the initial excavations of the Temple of Sobek at Gebel el-Silsila East in 2015, the Swedish archaeological concession (Lund University) discovered an adjacent temple structure located to its west, towards the Nile. Excavations of this structure began in 2017 and work is still ongoing. Soon after documenting the main temple, in 2016, the team also started working in an adjacent cemetery dating back to the New Kingdom. This paper presents a general summary of the two sites and archaeological work done so far.

The subject of this article is a selected group of textual graffiti intended as a preview to a comprehensive hieroglyphic and hieratic corpus of Middle Kingdom rock inscriptions at Gebel el-Silsila currently being prepared for publication. All texts included were incised into the sandstone bedrock and stretched along the so-called Middle Kingdom road as well as along today’s main touristic pathway along the New Kingdom cenotaphs, also on the west bank of Gebel el-Silsila. The inscriptions were documented by the current scientific team during the course of several survey seasons (2012–15) and demonstrate various administrative and official titles providing an insight into activity during the Middle Kingdom, which otherwise is difficult to demonstrate archaeologically, i.e. within the physical remains of the ancient quarries. Titles included herein, such as sHD – inspector, imy-r mSa – general/mission leader, xtmty nTr – seal-bearer of the God and sDAwty bit – Royal seal-bearer, indicate an official politico-economic interest in the site, while simultaneously demonstrating religious activity and involvement. The current selection of texts is merely intended as a very brief introduction to the variety of titles and individuals once active at Gebel el-Silsila.

The current paper is aimed as a primary publication of eight scarabs assembled by the Swedish-Egyptian excavation team between 2015 and 2016, found in private tombs of the Eighteenth Dynasty necropolis at Gebel el-Silsila East. Each entry includes information about field number, dimensions, material, description, inscription, and dating if possible. Typology conclusions are based on comparisons to other scarabs, while dating is indicated by their archaeological context. Scarabs containing royal names, herein including Thutmose III and Amenhotep II, reveal a terminus post quem for production, which is consistent with their archaeological context, but the postproduction of Thutmose III scarabs prevent any absolute dating. As a primary publication of objects, interpretation of function and meaning will be avoided at this point.