Causeway discovered in ancient Aswan tomb

The causeway leads to the tomb of the first Middle Kingdom provincial governor of Elephantine Island

By Nevine El-Aref , Tuesday 8 Nov 2016

During excavation work at Aswan's Qubbet El-Hawa necropolis, a British mission from Birmingham University and the Egypt Exploration Society uncovered a causeway leading to the tomb of Sarenput I, the first Middle Kingdom nomarch (provincial governor) of Aswan's Elephantine Island.

Mahmoud Afifi, head of the Ancient Egyptian Antiquities Department at the Ministry of Antiquities, told Ahram Online that the newly discovered causeway is considered the longest ever found on the western bank of the Nile in Aswan, stretching for 133 metres to connect the tomb of Sarenput I to the Nile bank.

Afifi explains that the causeway is decorated with engravings, the most important of which are found on the eastern part of the ramp's northern wall and depict a group of men pulling a bull and presenting it as an offering to Sarenput I after his death.

Hani Abul Azm, head of the central administration of Upper Egypt, told Ahram Online that the mission has also unearthed a collection of clay containers from a pit within the causeway, which archaeologists believe are canopic jars used in mummification.

Abul Azm said the containers will be studied, along with the organic materials found inside, in an attempt to better understand the mummification process.

The mission's field director Martin Yumath says he is very enthusiastic about the discovery, describing it as "a wonderful success that could change the original features of Qubbet El-Hawa area."

Barque station of Queen Hatshepsut discovered on Elephantine Island

Ancient Egyptian Antiquities Sector Dr. Mahmoud Afify declared the discovery of a number of blocks that most probably belong to a previously unknown building of Queen Hatshepsut that was discovered this year by the German Archaeological Institute on the Island of Elephantine, Aswan.

According to Dr Felix Arnold, the field director of the mission, the building served as a waystation for the festival barque of the god Khnum. The building was later dismantled and about 30 of its blocks have now been found in the foundations of the Khnum temple of Nectanebo II. Some of the blocks were discovered in previous excavation seasons by members of the Swiss Institute, but the meaning of the blocks has only now become clear.

On several of the blocks discovered this year Queen Hatshepsut was originally represented as a woman. The building must therefore have been erected during the early years of her reign, before she began to be represented as a male king. Only very few buildings from this early stage of her career have been discovered so far. The only other examples have been found at Karnak. The newly discovered building thus adds to our knowledge of the early years of Queen Hatshepsut and her engagement in the region of Aswan. In the reign of Thutmosis III. all mentions of her name were erased and all representations of her female figure were replaced by images of a male king, her deceased husband Thutmosis II.

Based on the blocks discovered so far the original appearance of the building can be reconstructed. The building thus comprised a chamber for the barque of the god Khnum, which was surrounded on all four sides by pillars. On the pillars are representations of several versions of the god Khnum, as well as other gods, such as Imi-peref “He-who-is-in-his-house”, Nebet-menit “Lady-of-the-mooring-post” and Min-Amun of Nubia. The building thus not only adds to our knowledge of the history of Queen Hatshepsut but also to our understanding of the religious beliefs current on the Island of Elephantine during her reign.

Ministry of Antiquities, Press Office
Based on the the Mission's Report.

X-Rays Reveal The Secrets of Egyptian Scrolls

By Megan Gannon ON 1/17/16

“Usually, in this area, no visitor gets in,” Verena Lepper tells me on a gray Friday morning in Berlin. She gently closed a set of double doors behind us, careful not to create any vibrations in the walls. We were standing in a room that was white from floor to ceiling, without a single scuff. It felt more like an airlock on a spaceship than a vestibule in the city’s Archaeological Center, completed just four years ago. There, I would sign my third guestbook of the day.

The procedure was not just a German reflex for meticulous record-keeping but also a security policy: Inside was the nation’s largest collection of papyri, among the four largest in the world, two floors crammed with scrolls that were pressed between glass and tucked away in metal drawers. Although academics hesitate to put a price tag on research material they consider priceless, any one of these scraps of paper would sell for thousands of dollars on the antiquities market.

Among the manuscripts was a section of The Ahiqar, a proverb-loaded narrative about a betrayed chancellor of the Assyrian King Sennacherib. The 2,500-year-old text was written in Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke, and one of the 15 that Lepper, a curator at the Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection in Berlin, knows herself. “Literary studies people claim this is the first novel ever to be written,” she says. But for Lepper what is most interesting about this first copy of The Ahiqar is where it came from: Elephantine Island, a narrow patch of land less than a square mile large in the middle of the Nile River, opposite Aswan in southern Egypt.

The hundreds of documents that have turned up at Elephantine include 10 different languages and range four continuous millennia, from Egypt’s Old Kingdom around 2500 B.C. to the Middle Ages. “I’m not aware of any other place in the world where you have 4,000 years covered by textural resources from one single place,” Lepper says. And yet most of the texts from the island haven’t been studied or published—and many haven’t even been unfurled because they're so delicate.

New Kingdom tombs discovered in Egypt's Aswan

Four rock-hewn New Kingdom tombs uncovered in Aswan may change the history of Elephantine Island

by Nevine El-Aref , Monday 3 Mar 2014

East Aswan inhabitants have accidentally stumbled upon what is believed to be a set of rock-hewn tombs on Elephantine Island, which displays a wide range of monuments from the prehistoric period to the Greco-Roman era.

Minister of Antiquities Mohamed Ibrahim told Ahram Online on Monday that early studies on the tombs' wall paintings reveal that they are dated to the New Kingdom era, which makes a very important discovery that may change the history of Elephantine Island.

Ali El-Asfar, head of the Ancient Egyptian Antiquities section, explains that the first tomb belongs to a top official in Elephantine named User who was a prince of Elephantine during the New Kingdom. 

(Photocredit: Nevine El-Aref/Aharm Online)

User’s tomb is well decorated with scenes depicting him in different positions with his family and deities. Among the distinguished wall paintings is a scene featuring the deceased wearing leopard fur along with five priests before an offering table, El-Asfar said.

Head of Aswan monuments Nasr Salama said that the second tomb belongs to Ba-Nefer, supervisor of the gods' priests of Elephantine. His tomb is also engraved with scenes depicting him in different positions with his family and deities. 

The third tomb belongs to the holder of the stamps of upper Egypt and Elephantine ruler Amenhotep, while the fourth one belongs to Elephantine ruler User Wadjat.

Salama told Ahram Online that the tomb of Amenhotep has a distinguished façade decorated with hieroglyphic texts without any scenes. Its inner walls are decorated with scenes depicting the deceased with his wife, the purification priest and the field scribe.

Ibrahim said that these tombs are under restoration in order to open them to tourists.

Source: http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/9/40/95767/Heritage/Ancient-Egypt/New-Kingdom-tombs-discovered-in-Egypts-Aswan.aspx