The Gebelein Archaeological Project in 2019: Northern necropolis and the temple complex

Continued archaeological surveys at two sites in the Gebelein area, the Northern Necropolis and the temple complex, have contributed new data for a better understanding of the ancient remains. Geophysical anomalies detected in 2015 in the western part of the Northern Necropolis should now be interpreted most probably as tombs with mud-brick walls. Mounds of earth in the central part of the necropolis yielded numerous artifacts dating from between the Naqada I and the early Old Kingdom periods; they are likely to have been dumped from a nearby settlement site, probably the ancient town of Sumenu. Work in the temple complex was aimed at protecting the structure made of inscribed mud-bricks dating from the Twenty-first Dynasty.

Babylon

Babylon, located on the river Euphrates some 56 miles south of modern Baghdad, is first documented in the second half of the 3rd millennium bce, although very little is known about it from that time. The city rose to prominence in the early 2nd millennium bce after Sumu-la-el (1880–1845 bce), a predecessor of Hammurabi, made it the capital of the newly founded Amorite dynasty of Babylon (the so-called “First Dynasty of Babylon”). From then on Babylon remained the most important city of southern Mesopotamia, achieving the status of imperial capital following the final defeat of Assyria by the Babylonian king Nabopolassar (626–605 bce) and his Median allies in 612 bce. The reign of Nabopolassar’s son, Nebuchadnezzar II (604–562 bce), is regarded as Babylon’s heyday. This was a time of enormous prosperity, intense building activity, and urban population growth. It was also the time of the Babylonian exile, when deported Judeans were settled in Babylonia following Nebuchadnezzar’s sack of Jerusalem in 586 bce. However, the Neo-Babylonian empire was short-lived: with its conquest by Cyrus II in 539 bce, Babylon was no longer an imperial capital, although it remained a major city within the Achaemenid empire. After Alexander the Great conquered the region in 331 bce, Babylon remained important in spite of the new foundation of Seleuceia-on-the-Tigris in around 300 bce. Scholars attached to the great temple of Marduk were instrumental in preserving and handing down Mesopotamian learning right down until the demise of the cuneiform writing tradition in the 1st century ce (or possibly even later). Babylon’s legacy is such that popular accounts have tended to prioritize the well-known classical and Biblical stories at the expense of the contemporary archaeological and cuneiform textual evidence that bear direct testimony to the city and its history. Although the ruins of Babylon had attracted the interest of travelers for several centuries, it was not until the 19th century that archaeological investigation began, and this only took on a more systematic, scientific format with the German excavations that began at the turn of the 20th century. Those campaigns, and the publication of their results, revolutionized our knowledge of the city and made it possible for scholars to integrate information about the city’s topography drawn from the cuneiform tablets. The last fifty years or so have seen further excavation campaigns, more limited in scope, and in some cases associated with ambitious reconstruction projects aimed at making the remains more accessible to the public and showcasing Iraq’s cultural heritage. The archaeological evidence as a whole is skewed toward the city’s later history: the excavators were hardly able to access the 2nd-millennium-bce occupation levels on account of the high ground water. The excavated remains primarily reflect the city layout of Nebuchadnezzar II’s time, although a good many of its monuments survived well into the Seleucid or even the Parthian era.

FRAGMENTS OF THE THIRD MILLENNIUM BC FROM NIGIN

The ancient city of Nigin in the State of Lagash is largely attested in the epigraphic sources of the rulers of the First Dynasty of Lagash. Conversely, the archaeological evidence of the Early Dynastic Period is so far very scanty and limited. This paper presents a small group of documents to be dated to the Early Dynastic Period IIIb that were found out of context, but that nevertheless point to a phase of occupation of Nigin in the third millennium BC and are coherent with the information we already know about history of the city and the State of Lagash.

Three Papyrus Sheaths of Priestesses of Amun

During the Twenty-First Dynasty, funerary customs of the priesthood of Amun in Thebes were relatively altered due to the socio-political and economic circumstances of that period. The quest for security compelled the priests to use hidden collective tombs with no decorations or inscriptions other than those written on funerary objects. Of these are three papyrus sheaths that once belonged to three priestesses of Amun. Those formerly unpublished statuettes have been particularly intriguing as they were found within the priestesses’ burials in two collective tombs of Deir el-Bahari - the Royal Cache (DB 320), and Bab el-Gusus - and hence belong to a class of objects that has not been sufficiently investigated.

The Characterization of Some Ancient Egyptian Funerary Linens from the Twenty-First Dynasty Discovered in the Bab El-Gasus Excavation

The ancient Egyptians had a distinct and flourishing textile industry with diverse characteristics. The developments in archaeological textile studies over the last few decades have assisted in identifying the techniques used in the manufacture of fabrics and demonstrated the complexity of this ancient industry. The ancient Egyptians are well-known for the production of linen fabrics of varying structures and purposes for everyday use by different social classes. The Bab El-Gasus tomb at Deir El-Bahari, the tomb of the priests and priestesses of Amun, is one of the most important excavations for this subject as within the tomb several types of funerary linen textiles from the Twenty-First Dynasty (1070–945 BC) were discovered. This paper aims to characterize some of these linen pieces that were preserved and displayed at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The pieces are of high-quality linen, were decorated, and retain their original colours. Investigations were carried out to study their main textile characteristics such as thread diameter, twist direction, thread count and weave type, in addition to characterizing the diagnostic features of the textiles such as fringes, selvedges, self-bands, hues, decoration and their state of deterioration. A Dino-Lite portable digital microscope was used to examine the linen textiles. There were various significant findings and the study revealed some of the distinctive characteristics and versatility of ancient Egyptian textiles, offering new insights for the textile production techniques used at that time.

Introduction: Definitions, Themes, and Debate

This chapter introduces Erlitou as the first dynasty of the Bronze Age by reviewing differing opinions and the basis for identifying the Erlitou Culture as that of Xia, ca. 2100–1600 bce. After tracing the historiography of excavations and definitions the chapter reviews connections with the preceding and overlapping Longshan era, particularly Taosi in Shanxi province. Finally analysis focuses on the history of excavations and finds (1959–present) and the current state of research on the significance of the Erlitou culture. Due to the elusiveness of any transmitted textual data to verify the historicity of Xia, the debate surrounding the “Xia dynasty” goes on.

Between Silences: The Coronation of Portuguese Medieval Kings (12th–14th Centuries)

The coronations of Portugal’s first dynasty constitute a complex topic. Approaching the theme requires understanding that an omission of words in written documentation can both affirm and deny possibilities. Likewise, visual documentation, such as illuminations, sculptures and other figurative arts, is scarce, raising a significant number of questions and thus is not trustworthy as a historical source. For this reason, the study of Portuguese coronations is filled with questions and silences. Art does not testify to these ceremonies, but shows that Portuguese kings valued regalia pertaining to both religious and secular ceremonies affirming their power, and that those insignias were different from those used by French or English kings in the same time period. In this study, I will use art, particularly funerary sculpture, but also objects with iconographic value, to demonstrate how these reflect elements of thought and the emotional pulsar of the various European societies that produced them.