Egypt Exploration Society London Study Day: ‘Grand Designs’: Amenhotep III and the landscape of Thebes

Time and Place

Start Time: Saturday, 9th June 2012, 10:00 am
End Time: Saturday, 9th June 2012, 5:00 pm
Location: The Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre, SOAS
Street: Brunei Gallery, Thornhaugh St, Russell Square
City/Town: London WC1H 0XG
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Contact Details

Email: contact@ees.ac.uk
Phone: +44 (0)20 7242 1880
Link:

Description

The monuments of Amenhotep III were part of the landscape of Thebes, although due to ancient re-use of materials and re-appropriation of monuments, many of them were unknown until recently. With current research focusing on his great harbour (Birket Habu), his mortuary temple (Kom el-Hettan), and his palace (Malqata), this Study Day will explore the idea that Amenhotep had a ‘grand design’ for the city, encompassing monuments and possibly waterways on both sides of the river.

10.00 Registration and refreshments
10.45 Welcome and Opening Remarks
11.00 Prof. John Baines, Amenhotep III: patron of new urban designs
12.00 Dr Angus Graham/Kris Strutt, Birket Habu: Amenhotep III’s Great Harbour
13.00 Lunch (please make your own arrangements)
14.00 Dr Aidan Dodson, Lost and Found: The Chapel of Amenhotep III at Wadi el-Sebua
14.05 Dr Hourig Sourouzian, A Glimpse of Eternity: Current Work at the Mortuary Temple of Amenhotep III
15.05 Coffee/Tea and biscuits
15.35 Dr Peter Lacovara, Malqata: Amenhotep III’s planned city
16.35 Discussion and closing remarks
17.00 Reception in the Brunei Suite

Prof John Baines is Professor of Egyptology, University of Oxford. The reign of Amenhotep III saw enormously ambitious plans for the design of cities and construction of temples and palaces. In the case of Thebes something of the meaning of these changes can be gathered from inscriptions. The programmes for cities and for the countryside throughout Egypt and Nubia were integral to new styles of presentation of the king and his multiple roles. These developments, which remained influential for centuries, affected many aspects of religion, art, and architecture. This lecture will explore the meaning of the evidence from Thebes and ask how it fits into the context of the king’s reign and of conceptions of kingship.

Dr Angus Graham is the Field Director of the EES Theban Harbours and Waterscapes Survey. Kris Strutt, University of Southampton, is the consultant geophysicist on the project. Amenhotep III excavated a vast basin known today as Birket Habu, in front of his palace at Malkata on the Theban West Bank. The EES Theban Harbours and Waterscapes Survey has begun a programme of work on the West and East Bank at Thebes in order to model how the floodplain was manipulated to create different land- and waterscapes for practical and religious purposes. As part of this work they have started a geophysical survey using Electrical Resistivity Tomography to establish the size and depth of the basin, and its function, both in a practical sense as a harbour for deliveries, and as a ritual and festival space. In this first season they have carried out a profile across the entrance of the birket in order to locate any canals that were cut to connect the basin to the Nile. They have also worked at an enigmatic feature, possibly a pendant basin, on the East Bank and in the area of Amenhotep III’s Mortuary Temple. This lecture will present the preliminary findings of recent fieldwork.

Dr Hourig Sourouzian is the Director of the Colossi of Memnon and Amenhotep III Temple Conservation Project. Amenhotep III’s mortuary temple would have been a the largest single structure ever built in Thebes, but until recently very little of the superstructure remained, except the Colossi of Memnon, which marked the entrance. The work of the Colossi of Memnon and Amenhotep III Temple Conservation Project has uncovered over 80 statues of Sakhmet, as well as half a dozen colossal royal statues, one of which has been re-erected. Other conservation work has focused on the remains that have been uncovered, including column bases, statues and paving slabs. It is now possible to estimate the overall dimensions of the temple and to give an indication of its internal structure. This lecture will present the recent findings from the field.

Dr Peter Lacovara is a Director of the Joint Expedition to Malqata (JEM), and Curator at the Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia. One of the long term goals of JEM is to study, in a comprehensive way, the official buildings and supporting villages that make up Malqata. The ancient city was created by one of the 18th dynasty’s greatest pharaohs, Amenhotep III, and by studying each area as part of a whole (rather than as an independent site), we hope to better understand Amenhotep’s vision for Malqata. Our work at Malqata is a long term project to increase our understanding of the city and plan for the long term preservation of the monuments. This season our work took place in four areas, all of which were the subject of excavation by the Metropolitan Museum of Art between 1910 and 1920; the records from these early seasons are not as detailed as one would like, so part of our work is to learn more about these areas and preserve them for the future. This lecture will present the results of recent field work at the site.

This weeked was a great symposium on Amehotep III  organized by Dr. Hourig  Sourouzian and the highlight was a visit to the incredible excavations at the colossi of Memnon and all the wonderful discovereies and the magical conservation being done there- truly worthy of “The Magnificent Amenhotep.”CONFERENCE%20PROGRAM%20FINAL-1

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

This morning we crossed the Nile for the last time to inspect the site and turn in our preliminary report on the season’s work. Our early morning and afternoon rides on the river have been a pleasure – the water taxi has met us right below the entrance to Chicago House this year. Four weeks ago, this was rather challenging as the Nile was quite low and the boat couldn’t pull in to the stairs. Carrying Joel’s scanner six feet or so across a gang plank less than a foot wide was an adventure. But, within a few days, the water rose about two feet, and we’ve been able to step onto the boat from the bottom step.

The corniche on the east bank has been redesigned several times in the past few years. The newest version has two levels – the lower one will have a row of shops, but they haven’t been finished yet. To the Egyptologists on the boat, the empty openings in this arcade make it resemble the Middle Kingdom porticoed tombs on the west bank.

Unfinished Arched Arcade in Front of the Hospital
Two other features on the new part of the corniche are waterfalls, but with the water is turned off and they look a bit like the wild animal habitats at the zoo. We expect a bear or a lion (or maybe a sea lion) to appear around one of the rocks any minute.

Water Feature on the New Corniche with the Water Turned Off
One fountain was turned on the other day for the opening of an African film festival that’s taking place in town and it was quite charming seen from the river, the moving water sparkling in the sun. Water features have a very long tradition in Egypt (a country surrounded by desert), going back to ancient times when every palace or estate is represented with a pool inside the grounds.
The corniche is a construction site at the moment and one morning last week we found that our way to the boat had been blocked by barbed wire across the top of the stairs to the lower corniche, and a pole blocked the bottom. Every stairway was blocked in this way, but a helpful man pushed the wire down and motioned for us to step across –

we preferred to climb over the railing and hand our equipment across. By the afternoon, the barbed wire was gone, but another afternoon there was a huge pile of sand at the top of the stairs. The construction workers were mixing concrete and wanted to have easy access to water. We look forward to seeing the completed corniche next year.

After driving around the site for the last time (and the site is very large – about 7 km long), and turing in our report, we said goodbye to some people we will particularly miss, our inspector Shaimma, our reis Hassan, and our driver Mohammed. They have all been a great help to us this season, and we couldn’t have accomplished what we have without them.

Joel has promised to write a blog on his work with the scanner, and Peter will be attending and speaking at the symposium this weekend. We’ll also be doing periodic updates – so keep checking the blog for further entries.

Catharine Roehrig
Peter Lacovara

Diana Craig Patch (from New York)

Tuesday, February 29, 2012

Although once a palace-city that housed hundreds of people, as an archaeological site Malqata is part of Egypt’s low desert. When you visit the site, it is not immediately apparent that wildlife is part of Maqata, but if one is quiet and patient after a little time local birds –like the crested lark appear. But not all the wildlife is innocuous and this season we were reminded of that while clearing the large patches of camelthorn (see blog post for Feb. 15, 2010) from across the site. Camelthorn is damaging to mud brick if it is allowed to grow in archaeological sites because its tough roots explode the brick as it grows. Since we don’t have much left in the way of brick, down to the last few rows, eliminating camelthorn to preserve any piece that still survives, is part of our site management program.

So we tackled this unpleasant task in a big way each season, setting a crew of about 12 men to cut the camelthorn and burn it. During this process, another of Malqata’s hidden occupants was discovered. Buried in the sand under two separate clusters of camelthorn were horned vipers. Regrettably but not surprisingly the immediate reaction of the workmen was to kill the snakes; they did so instantly.

Horned Viper

The presence of the vipers for me was a surprise since we are so near modern settlement –only a few hundred meters—that I didn’t expect snakes to be comfortable living where there is constant traffic. However I was intrigued and decided to a carry out a little research on the reptiles which are the snake represented in the striking hieroglyph used for the sound “f “in ancient Egyptian.

A Horned Viper Hieroglyph Representing the Sound ‘f’ in the Word “Nefer” (meaning beautiful or good)

Widespread across North Africa, the Desert Horned Viper (Cerastes cerastes) makes its home in the stony desert, a perfect description of the topography around Malqata. Surviving on lizards, rodents, and small mammals, the viper buries its body under the sand leaving its head exposed during the day. It actively hunts at night. The camelthorn where they were discovered at Malqata probably helps to keep the snakes cool during the day. I suspect that a few of those lovely little larks that hunt insects in the camelthorn fall victim to vipers occasionally.

This species of viper is distinctive because the snake often has supraorbital horns whose purpose is not yet understood. The horned viper is not an aggressive snake, and although it produces a cytotoxin, venom is rarely injected in large amounts so fatalities are not common. Adults are about 2 feet long with thick bodies. The ones at Malqata were probably young since the one I saw was just over a foot and not very thick.

A Vignette from a Magical Papyrus on Snakes

The ancient Egyptians had to cope with several species of poisonous snakes. The Brooklyn Museum of Art has a fascinating late New Kingdom papyrus (47.218.156) that was a manual for treating snake bite. Published by Serge Sauneron (Le papyrus magique illustré de Brooklyn, 1970) the sections that survive contain a physical description of a snake, symptoms caused by its bite, whether the bite is mortal, and the deity associated with that snake. Apparently the most common ingredient in the ancient treatment of snake bite is onion, which lived on in Egyptian folk medicine into recent times. I have been unable to verify that information, however.

Diana Craig Patch

Monday, February 27, 2011

This year, with amount of traffic now on the roads on the west bank (busses, huge trucks, mini vans, cars, bicycles, motorcycles, push carts, donkey carts, pedestrians, and the occasional water buffalo) Diana and Catharine decided to give up the pleasures of driving the venerable Chicago House Land Rover – to say nothing of its challanges (it seems that someone in its past did not know how to double clutch, so second gear, or the lack thereof, is particularly entertaining).We decided it was time to hire a driver and we have been fortunate to gain the services of Mohammed Mustafa Mahmoud Soliman as chauffer and much more. Mohammed’s older brother has been a driver for Chicago House for many years, and they were both taught to drive by their father, who led safari tours into the Western Desert. Mohammed is the youngest of six children and grew up in the village of Gezirat el-Bairat, which is near the ferry landing in an area that used to be an island long ago, but is now part of the west bank.

Mohammed and the Land Rover

Although he hated the cantankerous old Land Rover at first, Mohammed quickly became adept at piloting it through the heavily used main roads, and the narrow, twisty, crowded streets of the West bank villages that get us to the site. He now dreams of finding a Land Rover and restoring it as his own car. He is always ready with a clever joke or English/Arabic pun and makes the trip to and from work an amusing and enjoyable ride.

Workmen Covering Walls With Sand

 
Sunday, February 26, 2012

 
Today we finished work in the King’s Palace. The workmen were following hard on Peter’s heals as he tried to do one last drawing of the bricks. They were pouring sand on exposed floor surfaces, on the tops of the walls, and on the remaining stone column bases, which we have also lifted onto fired brick platforms for the time being, to protect them from potential dampness in the soil.

Partially Covered Column Base on its Fired Brick Platform

 
We hope our efforts will protect the palace against further damage from the seasonal sand storms that begin next month, so if you happen to stop by the site in the next year “Please Pardon our Appearance.”

 

We still have a few more tasks before we leave – so stay tuned.

 
Catharine Roehrig

Covered Column Base

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Hassan

One of the most important figures on an excavation in Egypt is the “reis,” which is loosely translated as ‘foreman,’ but is much more than that. The reis is a respected figure that selects and organizes the workmen on a dig and makes sure everything is running smoothly. It is a long tradition in Egyptian archaeology and dates back more than a century and many men who become a reis have been involved in archaeological work their whole lives.

You can usually spot a reis watching over the site work as he is usually a dignified, older gentleman with a long robe and a big stick to convey his authority. Our reis, Hassan, however, is different. He is a reis for the 21st century. Rather than a stick, he carries a cell phone and usually wears jeans and a t-shirt. Hassan’s father has worked as a reis for German and American excavations for 42 years now and has worked everywhere in Egypt, from the Delta to Aswan. Hassan not only grew up around excavations, but his family home was built over a tomb! (His family now lives in a house near the colossi of Memnon)  As a child, temples and tombs were his playground and he formed a life long interest in his ancient ancestors.

Hassan’s uncle was an Inspector with the Department of Antiquities and as a young man Hassan accompanied him on his research trips to the oases. Hassan also enrolled in the Egyptology program at Sohag University , which he recently completed, and hopes to get his PhD in Egyptology.

Hassan makes every aspect of our work easier and is always ready with help and advice, along with a joke and a surprise treat at lunchtime. We would never be able to accomplish all that we do without him, and it wouldn’t be nearly as much fun, either.

Peter Lacovara
Catharine Roehrig
Diana Craig Patch

Friday, February 24, 2012

Today we took a field trip to visit the site of Hierakonpolis – probably the most significant site for studying the formation of Egypt as a nation state more than 5000 years ago. At the beginning of the 20th Century, the Met’s Egyptian Expedition excavated at the site, and some of the finds from this expedition are on view in Gallery 101 of the Egyptian Department, including the decorated jar below.

Decorated Ware Jar Depicting Boats, Rogers Fund, 1936 (courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art)

For more about the pot above, follow the link below.

http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/100003934?rpp=20&pg=3&rndkey=20120224&ft=*&deptids=10&where=Kom+al+Ahmar&pos=57

The director of the Hierakonpolis expedition is Renee Friedman, who was a graduate student at U. C. Berkeley with Joel and me – she gave us a great tour of the site. One of the places we visited was the “fort,” an immense sun-dried mud brick structure that is the only piece of standing architecture at the site. Its walls are 5 meters thick (about 16 feet) and still stand about 9 meters tall (about 30 feet). The fort was once surrounded by a perimeter wall and had a niched façade, only part of which is still visible today.

View Between the Perimeter Wall and the Niched façade of the “Fort” at Hierakonpolis

Seeing this structure was particular interesting to us because the Hierakonpolis expedition has been doing conservation work on the fort and it was interesting to find out what techniques they have found effective.

4700 Year Old Bricks

To find out more about the site and the work of the Hierakonpolis expedition, you can look at their website:

http://www.hierakonpolis-online.org/site/fort.html

At the beginning of April, Diana’s exhibition “The Dawn of Egyptian Art” will open at the Met. As the name implies, this exhibition concentrates on the earliest artworks from ancient Egypt that date to the same period as Hierakonpolis and its fort.

http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2012/dawn-of-egyptian-art

Catharine Roehrig

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Faience ring with the name of Amenhotep III from Malqata and now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

By the time of Amenhotep III Egyptian kings had five names. The most commonly used were the throne name (sometimes called the prenomen) and the personal name (called the nomen), sort of corresponding to our last and first names. The pharaoh’s throne name, which was taken when he became king, is one of the two names that are written inside the oval, coiled rope that was called a cartouche by Napoleon’s soldiers because it reminded them of their rifle cartridges. This name is usually preceded by the title “King of Upper and Lower Egypt” and is sometimes accompanied by the epithet “lord of the two lands.”

The titulary of Amenhotep III, with his five names, beginning with his Horus name was Kanakht Khaemmaat (“Strong Bull, Arising in Thebes”) followed by his Nebty name, Semenhepusegerehtawy (“One establishing laws, pacifying the two lands”)   and his Golden Horus name which was Aakhepesh-husetiu (“Great of valour, smiting the Asiatics”). Lastly are his (prenomen), which was “King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Lord of the two lands” Nub-maat-re (“Lord of Truth is Re”), and his (nomen) which was  “The son of Re” Amenhotep Heqawaset (“Amun is Pleased, Ruler of Thebes) “May he be given life”

Faience scarab with the name "Neb Maat Re" in the Michael C. Carlos Museum

The pharaoh’s personal name, the one given to him at birth, was preceded by the title “Son of Re.” Personal names tended to be repeated in ruling families, so we now distinguish them by numbers, such as “Ramesses I,” “Thutmosis II,” and Amenhotep III.

Other royal names include the Horus name which is written inside a device called a serekh. The serekh represents a palace entrance and it has a falcon above – symbol of the god Horus. Another name determined by a falcon is the, Golden Horus name, which is introduced by an image of a falcon standing on the hieroglyph for gold.

The nebty or two ladies name associated the king with the goddesses of Upper and Lower Egypt, Nekhbet, the vulture goddess of the south and Wadjet the cobra goddess of the Delta.
Kings could also change their names or epithets during their reign. Amenhotep III added the title Aten-tjehen, which means “the Dazzling Sun Disk,” later in his reign. This foreshadowed his son’s reign in which Amenhotep VI became Akhenaten.

-Peter Lacovara

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

2012 is turning out to be the year of Amenhotep III. In addition to our work at his jubilee palace-city at Malqata, excavations and restoration projects are going on in the king’s mortuary temple, his tomb in the West Valley of the Kings, and at the tomb of his Steward, Nefersekheru who was probably in charge of all the goings-on at Malqata.

The walls of Amenhotep’s immense mortuary temple disappeared long ago, but what visitors to Egypt know as the Colossi of Memnon, are, in fact, two seated statues of the king that originally flanked the entrance to this temple. At over 700 meters in length (more than 2200 feet) this was the largest single temple ever built in Egypt (Karnak is, of course, much larger, but it consists of several temple buildings, and the main temple was added to over some 2000 years).
Much of the stone of Amenhotep’s mortuary temple was used later for other building projects, and the remains of the temple were eventually covered by a deep deposit of mud from the Nile’s annual inundation. By the 20th Century, little remained above ground save for the two colossi. The temple site, known today as the Kom el-Hetan, was not well documented until 2000 when Dr. Hourig Sourouzian, Director of the Colossi of Memnon and Amenhotep III Temple Conservation Project began her work.
http://www.wmf.org/slide-show/conservation-egypts-colossi-memnon-and-amenhotep-iii-temple

The temple was originally furnished with a huge number of statues of the king and various deities. In the past decade, more than 80 statues of the goddess Sakhmet have come to light, and more than half a dozen immense statues of the king have been uncovered. The lower half of one of these was recently raised to an upright position, and on our daily drive to Malqata, we watch as work continues on the restoration of this statue.
In addition to his mortuary temple, the Amenhotep III built a magnificent tomb in the West Valley of the Kings (KV or WV 22). In 1989, a Japanese team from Waseda University began working at the tomb and a complete clearance was carried out. Currently, conservation of the wall paintings is in progress and the results are spectacular (we had the chance to visit our Japanese colleagues in the tomb last week).
http://www.unesco.emb-japan.go.jp/htm/amenophis.htm
The University of Chicago’s Epigraphic Survey, headquartered at Chicago House where we’re staying, has been carefully documenting the tomb of (TT 107), who was Steward of the jubilee palace complex at Malqata. The beautiful relief work is being painstakingly copied and plans are underway for the stabilization of this tomb.
http://oi.uchicago.edu/research/projects/epi/#1011_season
From March 3rd to 5th an international symposium will be held in Luxor, that will include all those working on various aspects of “Amenhotep the Magnificent” and his remarkable reign.

-Peter Lacovara
- Catharine Roehrig