New evidence illuminates several problems in the historical geography of Nubia and its political relations with Egypt. At Gebel Uweinat, an inscription naming the country of Yam has changed what we know of the political and cultural geography of the peoples south of Egypt in the late Third Millennium. Regions of Northeastern Africa have been…
Creating and Re-Shaping Egypt in Kush: Responses at Amara West
An ongoing British Museum researh project at Amara West, Ramesside administrative center of Upper Nubia (Kush), is producing a range of evidence that allows different experiences of the colonial environment to be investigated. This paper considers the formal built environment (walled town, temple and associated decorative programs), household space, domestic cult, material culture and the…
Tirhakah, King of Kush and Sennacherib
According to the Assyrian sources, Sennacherib, King of Assyria (704–681 BCE) went on campaign to the West to quell a rebellion in 701 BCE. During his campaign he conducted a pitched battle against the forces of Egypt and Kush and won the war. However, according to the Biblical narrative the Assyrians suffered an enormous defeat…
Peripatetic Nomads along the Nile: Unfolding the Nubian Pan-Grave Culture of the Second Intermediate Period
This paper argues that the earliest Pan-Grave evidence was not necessarily related to Medjayw specialized workmen, reported to be employed in Egypt since the Old Kingdom, but mainly to families of Eastern Desert pastoral nomads looking for a better living, who took advantage of cracks in the Egyptian political control at the end of the…
At the Border between Egypt and Nubia: Skeletal Material from El-Hesa Cemetery 2
In 1924, the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York acquired a large collection of both archaeological and documentary material that had belonged to Austrian medical doctor, anthropologist and collector Felix von Luschan. Colloquially termed “The von Luschan Collection”, a large portion of this collection consisted of human skeletal remains. Of these remains…
Editorial Essay: Nubia, Coming Out of the Shadow of Egypt
The Pyla-Koutsopetria Archaeological Project: A Preliminary Report of Excavations at Pyla-Viglia, a Fortified Settlement Dating to the Hellensitic Era
Since 2003 the Pyla-Koutsopetria Archaeological Project has systematically investigated a small region near the modern village of Pyla in southeastern Cyprus. Within this study region, the Hellenistic site of Pyla-Vigla is set atop a promontory of the same name, a toponym meaning “lookout.” Dating to the late 4th and early 3rd centuries B.C., the site was founded…
Overseers of an Entangled Island: Hybrid Cultural Identities of Early Iron Age Cyprus
Archaeologists studying Late Bronze and Iron Age Cyprus have produced diverse theories regarding the origins of the Cypriot Iron Age city kingdoms, but it has proved difficult to integrate Cyprus within larger models designed to evaluate relationships between communities of the East Mediterranean. In this article I use cultural hybridization theory to investigate material from…
Accumulations: Updating the Role of Cypriot Bichrome Ware in Egypt
Cypriot Bichrome Wheel-made Ware is an important index for the study of interrelations in the Ancient Eastern Mediterranean World. The ware is a chronological marker for the beginning of the Late Cypriot Bronze Age and was the subject of a research project during the last decade within the Cyprus project of SCIEM 2000 (FWF, F1412). …
From Egyptian to Egyptianizing in Cypriot Glyptic of the Late Bronze Age
The 228 contextualized seals at Enkomi allow for detailed views into how Egyptian seal types were used in the Late Bronze Age(ca. 1650–1050 BCE) in one settlement on Cyprus. Over time the emphasis shifted from Egyptian seal rings and uncarved scarabs and scaraboids in tombs to Egyptianizing designs on Cypriot cylinder and conoid stamp seals…
Cyprus and Egypt in the Late Bronze Age
The socioeconomic and ideological transformations that characterize Late Bronze Age Cyprus have been linked to a major expansion in interconnections with the older cultures of ancient western Asia and Egypt. This study considers the likely impact of Egyptian symbolism and royal ideology on Cyprus, explicitly from a perspective that sees distance and access to ‘exotic’…
K(no)w More Spears From The Backs Of Chariots: Problems With The Battle Of Kadesh’s Thrusting Spears
Although it has been argued that the Hittite chariot forces at the Battle of Kadesh utilized thrusting-spears while fighting, there is very little evidence to confirm this. The pictorial record demonstrates that this interpretation derives from a set of scenes depicting just one event. Such assertions neglect to consider the depictions of Ramesses II’s predecessor,…
Fishing for Meaning: The Significance of Net Weights, Fishhooks and Netting Needles in Mortuary Contexts at Tell el-‘Ajjul
Many of the items found in funerary assemblages can be understood as objects employed in the performance of funerary ritual or as luxury products reflecting the social status of the deceased. Other utilitarian items seem to fall outside these spheres, and while they may be indicative of former lifestyle or profession, they may also hold…
Critical Remarks on a Proposed Etymology of Hebrew נצר and Aramaic Nqr
Toward Pinpointing the Timing of the Egyptian Abandonment of Avaris During the Middle of the 18th Dynasty
The Austrian archaeological team led by Manfred Bietak that excavated the palatial district at Avaris (Tell el-Dab‘a) has produced some significant results for illuminating Lower Egypt’s history during the 15th and 18th Dynasties. While Bietak’s subsequent publications primarily have focused on the exquisite Minoan wall paintings and the site’s likely association with Peru-nefer, much less attention has…
An Analysis of Two Theories Proposing Domestic Goats, Sheep, and Other Goods Were Imported into Egypt by Sea During the Neolithic Period
Based on her work in the Sinai and an evaluation of the appearance of domestic goats and sheep at sites in northeast Africa, Angela Close has proposed a sea route connecting the Sinai and Egypt as the entry point for these animals c. 7000 BP. In an earlier work Béatrix Midant-Reynes had proposed that turquoise,…
Research Report: Brief Report of the Project of the Second Boat of King Khufu
This brief report summarizes the investigation of the second boat of King Khufu at Giza from 1987 to the present. In the late 1980s the Institute of Egyptology at Waseda University began preliminary investigations, including the first sampling of timbers from the boat. Based on the results of these surveys, plans for safeguarding the second…
Research Report: The Wadi el-Jarf Site: A Harbor of Khufu on the Red Sea
Wadi el-Jarf, located south of Zarafana, has parallels to two other Red Sea sites, Ain Sukhna (Ayn Soukhna) and Mersa/Wadi Gawasis. Over the course of two campaigns (2011-2012), an elaborate complex of storage galleries (some for storage of boat parts), including a system for closure, was excavated, as were camps, facilities for pottery production, dry-stone…
Research Report: Thonis-Heracleion, Emporion of Egypt, Recent Discoveries and Research Perspectives: The Shipwrecks
The European Institute of Underwater Archaeology’s work on the city of Thonis-Heracleion, which is located in the submerged Canopic region in the west of the Egyptian Nile Delta, has revealed this ancient port-city in all of its detail. From the 8th century BCE, this town was the custom and border post and the emporion that…
A Late Period Riverine and Maritime Port Town and Cult Center at Tell Tebilla (Ro-nefer)
Tell Tebilla (Ro-nefer) represents one of several riverine and maritime ports in Egypt’s delta during Dynasties 21–30 (1069–343 BCE). It displays diverse relations, including with southern Egypt, the East Mediterranean, and Near East. Tebilla apparently flourished, despite periodic political fragmentation, economic decline, civil wars, rebellions, and attacks and invasions by Kushites, Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians….
The Earliest Sailboats in Egypt and Their Influence on the Development of Trade, Seafaring in the Red Sea, and State Development
Based on iconography and trade patterns, Egyptians first outfitted their vessels with sails during the beginning of the Naqada IIc period. As a result, the Nile became such an important trade network that settlements moved from the desert fringes to the Nile floodplain. Furthermore, sailboats were the primary catalyst for the spread of Naqada culture…
‘Šrdn from the Sea’: The Arrival, Integration, and Acculturation of a ‘Sea People’
Despite a broad temporal presence in Egyptian records, the association of the Sherden with another ‘Sea Peoples’ group – the better known and archaeologically-attested Philistines – has led to several assumptions about this people, their culture, and the role they played in the various societies of which they may have been a part. This article…
Gift Exchange and Seaborne Contact in Eighteenth Dynasty Egypt: The Case of Keftiu Artists at Tell el-Dab‘a (Avaris)
Public acquisition and display of imported prestige goods was a well-recognized method by which Egyptian and wider Near Eastern rulers established status in their own societies and negotiated their place among royal peers. Fresco fragments from the palacesat Tell el-Dab‘a (ancient Avaris), constructed and painted in an Aegean technique, suggest that monumental wall decoration was…
The Miners Who Invented the Alphabet – A Response to Christopher Rollston
Was the alphabet an invention of elite Northwest Semitic speakers, officials in the Egyptian apparatus “quite capable with the complex Egyptian,” as recently suggested by Christopher Rollston? Or was the alphabet born at the social and cultural fringe? This article reconstructs the possible milieu in which the alphabet was invented: in the mining camps in…
The Importance of Imports: Petrographic Analysis of Levantine Pottery Jars in Egypt
Interconnections between Egypt and the Levant have been a focus of research for many years. However, only more recently has the scientific method of thin section petrography of ceramic vessels been applied. Through petrography, the raw materials can be identified and related to their known origins, suggesting a provenance. Recent examination of jars dating from…
Egypt and Israel: The Ways of Cultural Contacts in the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age (20th – 26th Dynasty)
When did literary ideas and Egyptian motifs first find their way to Israel/Judah? The article investigates modes of cultural contact in the Late Bronze and Iron Age (20th – 26th Dynasty). According to archaeological, epigraphic and literary material two ways of cultural contact can be found: an indirect one as a kind of ‘leftover’ of the Egyptian…
Synchronisms and Significance: Reevaluating Interconnections Between Middle Kingdom Egypt and the Southern Levant
The relationship and interconnections between Middle Bronze Age Palestine and Middle Kingdom Egypt have long been the subject of continued debate, influenced by chancing perspectives on the nature of the Middle Bronze Age and evidence regarding the chronological synchronisms and correlations between the two regions. Difficulties in understanding this relationship are augmented by the extreme…
News from an Old Excavation: Two Hitherto Unnoticed Measure Capacity Signs on an Egyptian Stone Vessel of the Middle Kingdom from Royal Tomb II at Byblos
Excavated by French Egyptologist P. Montet in the 1920s, Royal Tomb II at Byblos (Bronze Age Gubla) yielded a significant number of Egyptian objects of the Middle Kingdom. Among these finds is a stone vessel with lid that carries the cartouche of a king named Amenemhat, often believed to be Amenemhat IV of the late…
Late Bronze Age Cornelian and Red Jasper Scarabs with Cross Designs. Egyptian, Levantine or Minoan?
This contribution reassesses the date and origin of a particular group of cornelian and red jasper scarabs, displaying line designs such as crosses and stars on their bases. The numbers that surfaced in the southern Levant and the Aegean have led scholars to attribute them to Ramesside Egyptian, Late Bronze Age IIB/III Palestinian, or even…
An Egyptian Loanword in the Book of Isaiah and the Deir ‘Alla Inscription: Heb. nṣr, Aram. nqr, and Eg. nṯr as “[Divinized] Corpse”
The Egyptian noun ntr, “god,” provides a plausible explanation for Hebrew נצר in Isa 14:19 and נצורים in 65:4, both of which have thus far defied positive explanation. In Isa 14 it is perfectly suited to mock the king’s divine aspirations; it commonly refers to the deceased king and to the mummified corpse in Egyptian; it…