Karanis Revealed: Discovering the Past and Present of a Michigan Excavation in Egypt - A Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2015.05.38

Terry G. Wilfong, Andrew W. S. Ferrara (ed.), Karanis Revealed: Discovering the Past and Present of a Michigan Excavation in Egypt. Kelsey Museum publications, 7.   Ann Arbor, MI:  Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, 2014.  Pp. viii, 192.  ISBN 9780974187396.

Reviewed by Bethany Simpson, University of California, Los Angeles

The volume under review was produced as the result of a two-part exhibition organized by the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology at the University of Michigan in 2011 and 2012. The exhibit focused not only on objects from ancient Karanis, a Greco-Roman settlement in the Egyptian Fayum, but also on the history of Michigan’s archaeological mission at the site from 1924 to 1935. The exhibit combined artifacts and papyri with archival evidence. The resulting volume thoroughly details not only the history of Karanis, but also the excavation: how it was recorded, archived, studied, and published.

The publication is divided into three chapters. The first introduces the reader to the Karanis materials housed in both the Kelsey Museum collections and in the archives. The second chapter contains the exhibit catalogue, and the third section comprises individual papers outlining current research that pertains to the Karanis materials. Finally, indices include the museum accession numbers and field numbers for Karanis artifacts, designations for buildings specifically referenced in the text, a complete list of illustrations, and a general subject index.

The first chapter, “Archives,” begins with an introduction by Sebastián Encina, Collections Manager at the Kelsey Museum. Encina outlines the history of Michigan’s project in Egypt as preserved through the archive’s materials. This includes a discussion of sources relevant to the development of ancient Karanis and the history of the dig itself, and gives considerable insight into the daily life of the excavators who worked at Karanis.

Papyri on display

A collection of papyri from the Fayoum has been put on display for the first time in nine decades at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, writes Nevine El-Aref

Some 80 km southeast of Cairo is the small village of Karanis, once one of the largest Graeco-Roman towns in Fayoum. It was established in antiquity by Ptolemy II Philadelphus, as part of a scheme to settle Greek mercenaries among indigenous Egyptians and exploit the fertile Fayoum basin.

Karanis flourished until the end of the 3rd century CE, when the town started to decline due to troubles in the wider Roman Empire. The town was abandoned by the beginning of the 5th century, as part of momentous socioeconomic, political and religious changes taking place throughout the Mediterranean region.

The site was forgotten, buried by the sands, until the early 19th century when farmers unearthed papyri among organic debris left by the ancient inhabitants. It is these papyri, suitably conserved and restored, that have now been put on display at the Egyptian Museum.

Archaeological excavation, led by British Egyptologist Bernard Pyne Grenfell and papyrologist Arthur Surridge Hunt, started in Karanis in 1895. However, they did not continue their work, deciding that the site had been too plundered in antiquity to produce anything of value. The few papyri and artefacts they stumbled upon were not considered important enough to lead to a better understanding of the history of the site during the Graeco-Roman period.

In 1924 the archaeological rescue of the site began, continuing for the next 12 years under the leadership of an American mission from Michigan University directed by Francis W Kelsey. Two temples, residential houses and urban districts were discovered, along with cisterns, public baths and a collection of household objects of different shapes, sizes and materials. A large collection of papyri, now exhibited at the Kelsey Museum in Michigan in the US, was also unearthed.