Multidisciplinary discovery of ancient restoration using a rare mud carapace on a mummified individual from late New Kingdom Egypt.

Funder: Rundle Foundation for Egyptian ArchaeologyCT scans of an unnamed mummified adult from Egypt, now in the Chau Chak Wing Museum, University of Sydney (NMR.27.3), reveal it to be fully sheathed in a mud shell or carapace, exposing a mortuary treatment not previously documented in the Egyptian archaeological record. The carapace was placed between layers of linen wrappings thus it was not externally visible. Radiocarbon dating of textile samples provide a range of c.1370-1113 cal BC (95.4% probability), with a median date of 1207 cal BC. When assessed against mummification techniques of the era, the individual is placed in the late 19th-20th Dynasty, at the later end of this date range. Multi-proxy analysis including μ-XRF and Raman spectroscopy of carapace fragments from the head area revealed it to consist of three layers, comprising a thin base layer of mud, coated with a white calcite-based pigment and a red-painted surface of mixed composition. Whether the whole surface of the carapace was painted red is unknown. The carapace was a form of ancient conservation applied subsequent to post-mortem damage to the body, intended to reconfigure the body and enable continued existence of the deceased in the afterlife. The carapace can also be interpreted as a form of elite emulation imitating resin shells found within the wrappings of royal bodies from this period

Dendara métropole

Le chantier « Dendara métropole » vise à étudier les divers aspects du temple d’Hathor dans son environnement, en portant les investigations sur l’étude architecturale des monuments ainsi que sur l’exploration archéologique des quartiers d’habitations et des cimetières. Outre la poursuite des travaux sur l’architecture monumentale, sur les secteurs associés aux fondations de Montouhotep II et sur la nécropole de l’Ancien Empire, la campagne 2019 a ouvert de nouvelles perspectives de recherche..

Never the twain shall meet? Synchronising Egyptian and Levantine chronologies in the 3rd millennium BC

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Report on a project to synchronize Egyptian and Levantine chronologies of the third millennium BCE

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Mortuary landscapes and social change in the Teti Cemetery at Saqqara

Over the last 80 years, the Teti Cemetery at Saqqara has yielded many minor burials belonging to the inhabitants of ancient Memphis. The importance of these graves is often overlooked amid the riches of built tombs belonging to the elite. However, the renewal of excavations by the Australian Centre for Egyptology in the early 1980s and beyond has provided important new information about the anthropology of the local population, particularly for the New Kingdom.2 page(s

Forgotten Cemetery F at Abydos and burial practices of the late Old Kingdom

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Evidence for late third millenium weather events from Six Dynasty tomb at Saqqara

During excavations in 1996 on a tomb in the Teti Cemetery at Saqqara by the Australian Centre for Egyptology (Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia), evidence of ancient weather events was revealed. The tomb belonged to the high official Inumin, who late in his career served as vizier of King Pepy I of the Sixth Dynasty. Over a metre of eolian sand sealed by extensive laminated silt deposits in the subterranean burial chamber was the result of a sustained diy windy period, followed by a short period of intense rainfall. These events are dated on stratigraphic grounds to the Late Old Kingdom - early First Intermediate Period. Evidence of the same weather event was recorded near the enclosure of Netjerykhet Djoser at Saqqara, which was dated by the excavators to the 23rd century BC.6 page(s

Report on the excavation and the finds

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Ceramics from New Kingdom tombs at Dra Abu el-Naga seasons 1990-2005

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