Egyptian presence in the Southern Levant during the late fourth millennium BCE (Early Bronze Age IB, henceforward EB IB), centered in southwestern Israel, is an issue thoroughly studied for several decades. These studies covered every aspect of material culture, relative and absolute chronology, socio-political and economic implications, and more. Scholars characterized this Egyptian presence in…
Applied Potmarks between Lebanon and Egypt in the Early Bronze Age
Although potmarks were discovered at many archaeological sites in the Near East and Egypt, interpretations of their functions vary. Despite the diversity of techniques used in potmark production (e.g. incised, painted, impressed, applied), applied potmarks were especially neglected in research, and attracted attention mostly through the so-called ram’s head applications. A recent systematic study of…
Reconsidering Egyptian-South Levantine Interaction: Evidence from Early Bronze Age II Contexts at Tell es-Sultan and Tell el-Far‘ah North
In recent decades, evidence of a two-way relationship between First Dynasty Egypt and the Early Bronze Age II communities of southern Levant progressively emerged. The ongoing investigation hints at a branched network of exchanges between Egypt and the Levant, which was operational at the dawn of the earliest Levantine urbanization and involved multiple Levantine centers….
Contents, Status, and Symbolism: The Study of Residues from Imported Jars at Old Kingdom Giza
Throughout the 4th to 6th Dynasties of the Old Kingdom (c. 2613–2181 BCE), liquid commodities were imported in ceramic combed jars made in workshops in the Byblos region, enabling proximal geographic identification of the original contents. Results of scientific, archaeometric, and archaeological research on a large corpus of jars found in elite tombs at Giza,…
The “Combed Ware” Storage and Transport Vessels from Khirbet ez-Zeraqon: A Reappraisal of the EB II–III Evidence in Light of Recent Petrographic Studies
The present study offers new petrographic data on selected pottery from the EB II-III site of Khirbet ez-Zeraqon in northern Jordan, which includes storage and transport vessels with combed surfaces traditionally grouped under the label “Combed Ware.” The results contribute to our understanding of the role played by these vessels in relation to the wider…
The Three Temples in antis at Megiddo
The date of the Stratum XV Triple-Temple Complex at Megiddo has been the subject of debate since it was first uncovered by the University of Chicago in the 1930s. Generally, an Early Bronze Age III date became the status quo interpretation, but several problems with this date are apparent. First, there was already significant EB…
Origin of the Coffin Set of Meretites (NAMA 2007.12.1–7)
The coffin assemblage of Meretites (NAMA 2007.12.1–7) was purchased by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in 2007 for the reinstallation of the museum’s Egyptian collection in 2010. While the museum initially proposed that the coffins were from Hermopolis, two recent articles argue that the coffin set was instead from Herakleopolis Magna. This paper analyzes Meretites…
An Overview of the Offering Trays and Soul Houses in the Penn Museum
This paper is part of ongoing research into the largely unpublished corpus of offering trays and soul houses currently in the care of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. The goal of this preliminary exposition is to draw attention to the Penn material, examine how it fits with past studies, and explore…
Egypt Through the Magic Lantern: Bringing an Antique Technology Back into the Light
Bryn Mawr College’s magic lantern slides of Egypt from the early 20th century are a significant source of archaeological and historical data. The oldest slides in Bryn Mawr’s collection were introduced between 1908 and 1911 by Dr. Caroline Ransom, the first American woman to receive a PhD in Egyptology. They represent a pivotal moment in…
Untangling the 19th-Century Roots of Southern Illinois’ Egyptian Regional Identity
Southern Illinois has been known as “Egypt” or “Little Egypt” for nearly 200 years. In popular culture, the name “Egypt” evokes images of gold, mummies, exploration, and human achievement, but to 19th-century Americans its biblically linked allusions conjured up darker impressions. This article pinpoints the origins of an Egyptian identity in Southern Illinois and its…
An Interior View: Osiris and Serapis in ca. 2nd-Century Rome
This paper examines the Egyptian god Osiris and his Hellenized counterpart Serapis in ca. 2nd-century Rome. Written in this period were two of the most important texts utilized by modern scholars to elucidate the Egyptian cults: Plutarch’s De Iside et Osiride and Apuleius’s Metamorphoses (“The Golden Ass”). In both texts, Osiris appears as the more…
The Roman Egyptian-Nubian Frontier during the Reigns of Augustus and Amanirenas: Archaeological Evidence from Talmis, Qasr Ibrim, and Meroë
Augustus’ imperial campaigns were memorialized throughout the empire in his Res Gestae. The scene described is of a single, crushing Roman victory over Lower Nubia. Some scholars, such as László Török (2009) and Solange Ashby (2020), have aptly taken issue with the validity of Augustus’s claims; however, there remains a prejudice in the historiography that…
Ideas about “Race” in Nile Valley Histories: A Consideration of “Racial” Paradigms in Recent Presentations on Nile Valley Africa, from “Black Pharaohs” to Mummy Genomest
This paper reviews some concepts, comments, and studies from various time periods, as well as recent presentations in the media and studies, on Nile Valley peoples. It illustrates problems related to ongoing racial paradigms.
Rediscovering the Links between the Earthen Pyramids of West Africa and Ancient Nubia: Restoring William Leo Hansberry’s Vision of Ancient Kush and Sudanic Africa
William Leo Hansberry, a pioneer and founder of African studies in the United States, proposed in 1921 that the origins of Egyptian pyramids were in Central Africa. Hansberry’s analysis was based upon the discovery of earthen pyramids (mounds/tumuli) in the Inland Niger Delta in the modern country of Mali. This paper provides an overview of…
The Barbarians at the Gate: The Early Historiographic Battle to Define the Role of Kush in World History
Nineteenth-century ideas of race and racial hierarchy found their way into the theoretical and conceptual orientations of early Egyptology and the interpretations of the Egyptian and Nubian archaeological materials. Consequently, African American and Caribbean scholars developed counternarratives to resist these interpretations as well as restore the ancient Nile Valley to its place in African history….
Kushite Kings before the Twenty-fifth Dynasty
Before the beginning of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty with pharaoh Shebitqo, we lack reliable historical and chronological sources. Although the succession Alara–Kashta–Pi(ankh)y is generally accepted, it is far from clear if there were other rulers between them. Apart from having possible gaps in the line of the known kings, there is the question of the chronological…
Afterlives of Kerma Religion: Rams, Lions, and Fantastical Winged Animals (Hippopotami and Giraffes) in Classic Kerma and Later Kush Contexts
An analysis of key elements of Classic Kerman religious imagery can provide suggestions of possible precursors for some aspects of Napatan and Meroitic religion. The connections between Kerman and later Kushite cultural practices are difficult to determine with certainty, and a one-to-one relationship between elements cannot be established with the current set of archaeological evidence….
The Invention of Aithiopian Antecedence
During the 1st century BCE, Diodorus Siculus reported claims of an “Aithiopian” origin for Egyptian civilization. This theory of Aithiopian antecedence was then repeatedly invoked by numerous ancient, medieval, and modern authors for the next two millennia until the middle of the 19th century CE, when Egyptologists drew its premises into question. For the nonspecialist…
“Backwater Puritans”? Racism, Egyptological Stereotypes, and Cosmopolitan Society at Kushite Tombos
Egyptological and more popular perceptions of Nubia and the Kushite dynasty have framed Kush as a periphery to civilized Egypt. But to what extent was Nubia a “backwater” to “effete and sophisticated” Egypt, as John Wilson once asserted? It is clear from recent archaeological work at Tombos and elsewhere that Nubia was not an unsophisticated…
The Victorious and the Defeated: The Legacy of the Egyptian New Kingdom in Meroitic Martial Imagery
The kingdoms of Kush, especially Meroe (300 BCE–450 CE), present the opportunity to observe the result of continual relations between a land positioned far south in northeastern Africa and a multi-thousand-year-old Egypt to its north. Kushites used scenes of triumph and massacre to reinforce their royal ideology and political position in the same way that…
The Kushite Queen Irtieru and Her Tomb, Nuri 53
The tomb of Irtieru, wife of the king (Atlanersa), sister of the king, daughter of the king (Taharka or Tanutamani?), “rmT n Kmt,” is a typical Napatan monument. The burial chamber, which is one of the very few remaining Kushite painted rooms, has been ignored by Egyptologists since its excavation, falling into a large group…
Countering the Racist Scholarship of Morphological Research in Nubia: Centering the “People” in the Past and Present
The early morphological research on the skeletal remains of the people who once lived in ancient Nubia was beleaguered by biased interpretations stemming from racist paradigms. Corresponding with subjective explanations of archaeological material remains, individuals from ancient Nubia were assumed to be incapable of grand accomplishments by many researchers who equated biological or racial characteristics…
Cretans in the Levant
Decoupling the Philistine settlement in the Levant from its Cretan connotations makes a check of the historical and archaeological record for evidence for earlier Cretan colonization, separate from the Sea People´s invasion, necessary. The paper identifies a sizable group of Cretan artifacts produced in a Levant setting beginning with the Middle Bronze Age. It can…
Elements for an Attribution of Letter KBo 28.13+ to the Marriage Dossier of the Hittite-Egyptian Correspondence
More than one hundred letters were exchanged between Egypt and ≈atti from the reign of Šuppiluliuma I onward, several of which were part of the correspondence between Ramesses II and ≈attušili III and their families. The chronological and/or thematic attribution of these letters is difficult. KBo 28.13+ is among the letters that are not attributed…
Pithom and Rameses (Exodus 1:11): Historical, Archaeological, and Linguistic Issues (Part II)
The present article continues our study of the city-names Pithom and Rameses in Exodus 1:11 (the first part having been published in the Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections 33), along with related matters, with particular attention to the linguistic evidence. It is determined that: a) the transcription of the Hebrew writing of r’-ms-sw as “Rameses”…
Two Pivots of the 7th Century BCE from Thebes, Egypt, and the Beginning of Woodturning
A group of metal objects was unearthed by Flinders M.W. Petrie at the end of the 19th century in Thebes (Luxor, Egypt). Petrie dated these items to the Assyrian occupation of Egypt, in the first half of the 7th century BCE. The present paper suggests identifying two of these items as pivots of a lathe….
Textual Evidence for the Diplomatic Role of the Egyptian Official Tutu from Amarna
This article provides an analysis of the textual evidence for the role of the Egyptian official Tutu in the Egyptian foreign policy and in the Amarna diplomacy. Tutu’s distinguishing traits and certain themes such as the request of the “breath of life” by foreign rulers, the value of truth, and his role in mediating relations…
Astrological Botany and Greco-Egyptian Plant Names
The various texts and textual excerpts dealing with astral plants are a heterogeneous group of technical and semi-technical writings on the networks of alignments between plants and heavenly bodies. Originated probably in the Late Hellenistic and Roman Imperial Period (roughly, 2nd century BCE–4th century CE), they mostly derive from the knowledge archives of Greek and…
Musuri (“the Egyptian”), King of Moab
A king of Moab (a state centered in modern-day Jordan) named Muṣurī (written mMu-ṣur-i in Mesopotamian cuneiform) is mentioned in the royal inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian kings Esarhaddon (680–669 BCE) and Ashurbanipal (668–c. 630 BCE) as providing material resources to Esarhaddon and as participating in one of Ashurbanipal’s military campaigns (to Egypt). The name Muṣurī…
Pithom and Rameses (Exodus 1:11): Historical, Archaeological, and Linguistic Issues (Part I)
This paper examines the historical and archaeological background to the toponyms Pithom and Rameses in Exodus 1:11 as a counterargument to those who deny the traditional understanding that they refer to sites attested in the Ramesside era and favor the theory that they reflect 7th BCE (and even later) geopolitical realities. Recent excavations at Tell…