Early Dynastic Period

In 2009-2012 the northern area of the museum garden on Elephantine was investigated before the construction of a magazine.  This was the area of the north-eastern town extension of the 2nd Dynasty, which was surrounded by a city wall. A stone path led from the landing place for ships to a gate. From the 11th Dynasty onwards, the area in front of the city wall was also built on.  Among other features, several ceramic kilns from the 12th Dynasty were found here. The youngest phase was a house of the 19th century.

By the 1st Dynasty, monumental architecture was beginning to leave its mark on the ancient Egyptian landscape over four centuries before the Pyramid Age. The structures built at this time show impressive architectural skills, and demonstrate a high degree of proficiency by the early designers and the builders who project-managed their construction.

This paper reviews the quantity of material that went into building the tombs of the 1st and 2nd Dynasty kings, elite, and the general population, the labour force and finally the time taken to construct these structures. Following the Nile from north to south, three sites are assessed, beginning at Saqqara before travelling across the Nile to Helwan and finally south to Abydos. Millions of mud bricks, thousands of square metres of plastered surfaces and hundreds of trees cut down – the construction of tombs in the Early Dynastic period were huge undertakings.

During surveys of the northern hinterland of the region of Elkab, in May of 2017 the Elkab Desert Survey Project (of Yale University and the Royal Museums of Art and History, Brussels) discovered a rock art and inscription site near the modern village of el-Khawy. The site comprises three major sections, with the images and inscriptions thus far identified dating from the Naqada I Period through the Old Kingdom. A prominent feature of the site is a large scale early hieroglyphic inscription datable to early Dynasty 0 (with the closest paleographic parallels from Tomb U-j), revealing an early monumental use of the nascent script, indicating a politico-religious use of hieroglyphs already during their earliest period of use, and demonstrating a broader geographic reach for the script than surviving and thus far recognized examples have suggested.

This paper deals with votive gifts from the Aššur temple at Aššur (modern Qalʿat Širgâṭ), from an archaeological point of view and from a diachronic perspective (Early Dynastic period to 614 BCE). The focus lies on portable objects, whose inscriptions or types identify them as dedications. The following aspects of dedicatory practices are discussed: object types donated, the donors, differences in comparison to other sanctuaries, and continuity and change.

[The present article presents the publications of a small private collection of cuneiform text in Barcelona.] The Campalans collection of cuneiform text is a small group of eight texts purchased during last years in the antiquity market in Barcelona by Jordi Campalans. All these texts are administrative in nature (one tablet from the Uruk III period; one tablet from ED IIIb period; three tablets dating to the Ur III period and one tablet dating on the OB period) except for school exercise from the Uruk III period and a brick inscription of Nebuchadnezzar II. 1 Text 1. Measurements: 104×67×18. Provenance: unknown. Period: Uruk III. Unsealed. This text has already been published by Monaco 2016 nr. 197 (see also CDLI P464273). The text is an account of barley and emmer to be purchased (ŠAM 2). According to the description given by Monaco (2016: 197) the lower part of the tablet belongs to a different tablet, but examination of the tablet shows clearly that the tablet is almost complete and that all fragments belong to the same tablet (see photo). Monaco will publish a new edition of the text with some improvements and corrections. Text 2. Measurements: 49×26×10. Provenance: unknown. Period: Uruk III. Unsealed. This small tablet is a school exercise related to the texts published in CUSAS 21 156-304 (Monaco 2014: 133-158). Monaco published the texts according the complexity of their content; our text is similar to CUSAS 21 250 to 283. In all these texts the sign N 1 is followed by three (or four) signs on the obverse of the tablet, while the reverse remains uninscribed. A peculiar characteristic of our text is that the dividing line is vertical instead of being horizontal as in all the other texts of this kind (except for CUSAS 1, 8, see Monaco 2007: 45; Monaco 2014: 6). 1. The abbreviations are as in the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (http://cdli.ox.ac.uk /wiki/abbreviations_for_ assyriology). I would like to express my gratitude to Jordi Campalans for his assistance in studying these texts and to Wilfred Watson who was kind enough to correct the English. Any faults and errors are my own responsibility.

Pierre Montet excavated in 1913-1914 Early Dynastic Cemetery M at Abu Rawash. Among the finds were objects made of copper alloy. A selection of copper tools from large Tomb 1 was published on a photograph in the preliminary report on the excavation in the journal Kêmi (Montet 1938). More copper finds were in Tombs 8 and 11, but only mentioned
The metal finds (45 pieces) are now deposited in the Louvre. The assemblage consists in greatest part of tools and tool fragments, and among them is 28 chisels. The objects are now complemented by new material, site being re-excavated by the IFAO/Macquarie University mission lead by Yann Tristant. The poster is intended as a typological study of the copper material from the Early Dynastic Abu Rawash. It will set the material into the context of the site, comparing these finds with the cemetery 400, excavated by Klasens.

Early Dynastic typology of metal tools is defined for the Dynasty 1 on the finds from Abydos and Saqqara, for the Dynasty 2 on the objects from Abydos and Helwan and for the Dynasty 3 on the tools from Bet Khallaf and Lahun. I will define typological and technological traits that enable to distinguish Early Dynastic metal tools (from Dynasties 1 to 3) from the metal tools of Naqada culture and tools used later, in the Old Kingdom.

Bibliography
o Montet, P. 1938: Tombeaux de la Ire et de la IVe dynasties à Abou Roach, Kêmi VII, 11-69.

Evidence of stone use throughout Pharaonic history abounds from the Old Kingdom pyramid complexes at Saqqara and Giza through to New Kingdom sites at Luxor and Abu Simbel. But what was the forerunner to all this grand scale stone construction? The aim of this paper is to review the extensive use of stone in tomb structures of the Early Dynastic Period and through structural analysis of the retaining walls and roofs of the tombs, demonstrate the proficiency of the early designers and builders. 1

Astronomical Aspects of Early Sacral Architecture in Ancient Egypt as Part of Constructing of the Sacred Space


The paper presents the earliest sacral structures in Egypt. The analysis of the cult places is focused on their orientation to specific astronomical events or celestial bodies. The aim of the paper is to look for common astronomical orientations in attempt to explain the reasons why certain astronomical events or celestial bodies were chosen as the orientation points.
One can observe that the predominant way of orientation of the earliest temples was on an angle from the four cardinal directions of the world, aiming at south-east. These orientations are analysed in context of hierotopy (constructing of the sacred space).

This presentation discusses the gradual change in the form of Conical Bowls (Blumentöpfe) during the third millennium in South and Central Mesopotamia and its potential for dating on the basis of five representative sites (Uruk, Jemdet Nasr, Larsa, Abu Salabikh and Nippur).