Brooklyn Museum: Dig Diary

Dig Diary 2008

2007-12-26T18:31:00.000+02:00

Dig Diary 2008 is just getting started. Follow 2008 at the Brooklyn Museum blog.

An end and a beginning

2007-03-16T10:53:00.000+02:00

On March 23, 2007 the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art opens at the Brooklyn Museum. To celebrate the opening and the accompanying exhibition, "Pharaohs, Queens and Goddesses", we decided to devote the last posting of the 2007 season at the Mut Precinct to some of the female figures, mortal and divine, associated with the site.

Hatshepsut being crowned by Amun-Re and granted life and dominion by the goddess "Great in Magic", from the reconstructed Red Chapel in the Karnak Open Air Museum. An early 18th Dynasty temple at Mut dates to the reign of this woman who ruled as king.

"God's Wife of Amun" was an important female priestly title in Thebes. In the 1st millennium BC it was usually held by a sister or daughter of the reigning king, each God's Wife adopting her successor. They became so powerful that they were able to have themselves represented in roles normally played by the king.

In scenes of goddesses suckling humans, the human is normally the king, with the scene representing the transfer of life and power. Yet in this scene in the Chapel of Osiris-Ruler-of-Eternity at Karnak, not only is the God's Wife of Amun, Shepenwepet I, being suckled, she is also wearing 2 Double Crowns, something shown nowhere else in any period.

In her funerary chapel at the temple of Medinet Habu, Amunirdis makes offerings to Amun and Hathor. The presence of funerary chapels to mortals within the sacred grounds of a temple is rare until the Third Intermediate Period, a time when God's Wives of Amun flourished.

Intangible concepts could also be represented as goddesses. In a scene commemorating an important military campaign by Sheshonq I of Dynasty 22, the goddess "Victorious Thebes", carrying a mace, an axe and a bow, drags conquered cities (shown as bound prisoners with the city names enclosed in cartouches representing fortified walls) to be slaughtered.

Upper and Lower Egypt were represented as the goddesses Nekhbet (right) and Wadjet. Scenes of the king flanked by these protective deities are common in all periods of Egyptian history. This one comes from the Mut Precinct's Ptolemaic Chapel D.

Keeping Mut and Sakhmet happy was a main function of the Mut priesthood. In this scene from the Mut Precinct's main entrance the king (holding Hathor-headed sistra) and two priestesses play music to Mut and Sakhmet to amuse them and keep them contented.

Two busts of Sakhmet in the Mut Precinct. Sakhmet angered could release disease and disaster on Egypt. Contented she could control these forces, which is why she is a goddess of health and healing as well as of death and destruction.

These 3 reliefs of Mut span a period of several hundred years. On the left is a relief from Amunirdis's funerary chapel at Medinet Habu; in the center a relief from the chapel of Osiris-Ruler-of-Eternity at Karnak; and on the right a relief in Chapel D at the Mut Precinct. In all three scenes Mut appears in her usual guise of a human wearing the Double Crown.

And finally, a stela of a king offering to Mut that we uncovered in 2006. While the stela is uninscribed, it is entirely possible that it dates to the reign of the Roman Emperor Tiberius, showing that Mut continued as an important goddess even after Egypt's conquest by Rome.

Richard Fazzini
Director, Mut Expedition

The end of the season

2007-03-09T10:22:00.000+02:00

It's hard to believe that the season is over already. We've put away the tools and said goodbye to the people we worked with. Now it's time for a summary of what we accomplished in 2007.

The east wing of the Mut Temple's 1st Pylon at the end of the 2006 season (top) and at the end of 2007, with much of the Roman Period construction removed. The bottom photo is Bill Peck's plan of the structures at the end of this season. Next year we hope to complete excavation in this area, revealing the pylon as it was in the Ptolemaic Period when the temple was still functioning.

The north side of Temple A's Forecourt at the beginning and end of the season. In addition to clearing the north wall and the enclosure wall behind it, we also cleared the Forecourt itself down to a more-or-less uniform level.

Looking east along the north side of the Forecourt to the temple's 2nd Pylon (top). Between the mud brick enclosure wall (left) and the sandstone foundations of the colonnade (right) are the sandstone and limestone side walls of the Forecourt. Bill Peck's plan of the area includes the small brick and stone building and round stone feature mentioned in an earlier posting.

A similar view along the south side of the Forecourt at the end of 2006 (top) and 2007. The sequence of walls is much clearer.

This photo was taken from the north enclosure wall and shows all of the Temple A Forecourt and area north of Mut's 1st Pylon at the end of the season.

We finally moved the fallen column that lay across the middle of the East Porch (top). It was lying on a thin layer of broken paving beneath which we found the intriguing semi-circle visible in the lower picture. Is this the remains of an earlier, single-row colonnade?

Looking west through the Taharqa Gate at the beginning and end of the season. All we did here this year was to clear the area in preparation for excavation next season.

The SCA is closing all its on-site magazines at Karnak and transferring registered items to a new storage and study facility. At their request, we re-organized our existing mastabas and built 11 new mastabas to accommodate the unregistered worked blocks and pieces of Sakhmet statues that were not transferred but needed safe housing within the precinct.

The pieces of Sakhmet statues now line the south side of our existing mastaba, east of the Precinct entrance.

In the Mut Temple's West Porch 4 new mastabas hold the blocks from the small chapel built into the south end of the Porch. We hope to be able to reconstruct the chapel some day.

The 6 largest mastabas are in the area west of the Precinct entrance and they hold the bulk of the worked blocks. These blocks come primarily from Chapel D, the Mut Temple Porches and the Contra Temple.

We said good-bye to Bill and Elsie Peck earlier this week. Elsie is our indefatigable recorder and artist. You see her here as she is usually found at the site, surrounded by workmen and taking careful notes of the work in progress. We could not function without her skills and, even more important, her patience, cheerfulness and determination to get things right.

Here is Bill (our master draughtsman) with our Egyptian colleagues and friends on the last full day of work. Without them the expedition would not be possible: our foreman, Reis Farouk Sharid Mohammed (left); the expert Qufti who worked with us this year: Ayman, Salah, Mahmoud, Abdel Aziz, Mamdouh and Abdullah; and Abdin Ahmed Mahfouz (right) our inspector for the latter part of the season. We thank them all and look forward to seeing them again in 2008.

Richard Fazzini

Director

Finishing up - conservation projects

2007-03-02T11:01:00.000+02:00

Restoration is a major part of our work at the Mut Precinct, as it is at any archaeological site. In 2007 we accomplished most of the goals we set ourselves at the beginning of the season. Here are the results.

The east wall of the Mut Temple's East Porch was our first major project this year; you can see its condition at the start of the season. The foundations were in terrible shape and the single block of the intercolumnar wall had split vertically and slipped. You can see the split in the lower photo.

The inner (top) and outer faces of the porch at the end of the season. The foundations are firm, voids where stone had rotted away have been filled, and the intercolumnar wall is once again a single block.

Our second project was to repair the small chapel and the granite ram just inside the Precinct entrance. On the left is what they looked like in December; on the right, the chapel restored.

Once the chapel was finished we could put the ram on its new base. It isn't very big, but granite is heavy and awkward to move, even with a siba.

With the ram in place we could finally re-attach its left foreleg and Mohammed could begin to fill in the missing areas.

The ram at the end of this week - a great improvement.

Looking east (left) and west yesterday along the row of rams, sphinxes and small chapels that line the enclosure wall east of the Precinct entrance. We don't know where the granite ram stood in antiquity but since it was found in this area, restoring it here made sense. It fits in well with its bigger cousins.

In Chapel D this week we built the new section of column out to the proper circumference and applied the finishing coat. As well as reattaching the inscribed upper segments we were able to restore a portion of the lower decoration.

The entrance and first room of Chapel D showing the results of our work in the 2006 and 2007 seasons.

Chapel D will continue to be a focus of next season's conservation efforts. The walls of the inner rooms of the chapel are very badly decayed. This year we were able to shore them up temporarily, but they have to be dismantled and rebuilt.

Our major project next year will be to excavate the Taharqa Gate and to restore it as much as possible. We got a start late this season with the removal of an old baulk (left), but as you can see in the lower photo we've got a lot of work ahead of us.Lisa and her conservation team with the revived ram. Thursday was Lisa's last day at the site and we will miss her. Despite sandstorms, occasional shortages of materials, and the challenges of on-site conservation she was able to maintain her sense of humor and her thorough professionalism. Thanks Lisa!

Mary McKercher

Photographer

New Skills

2007-03-01T13:56:00.000+02:00

As we are finishing up the last few conservation projects on the site, I have had the opportunity to try my hand at some new skills. As an object conservator at the Brooklyn Museum, I don't often (in fact, I've never) worked with lime mortar. Lime mortar is more in the realm of architectural conservators. Last year on the site, was the first time for me using mortar. Our masons Muhammad Gherib and Said Akmed Muhammad have used it a lot, especially when building walls from bricks or stones. They also use it for making reversible fills in stone objects. Here we are putting the finishing touches on the small granite ram.

There is a large mortar fill at the ram's left shoulder. Basically, I watched Muhammad very carefully to see how he held the trowel, how much mortar he put on the trowel, and how he applied the mortar, and then tried it myself. Eventually, Muhammad was telling me, "Good. Good." With that, the season for me is over. I return to Brooklyn tomorrow, looking forward to coming back to Mut Temple next year, inshallah.

Lisa Bruno

Objects Conservator

Soluble salts

2007-02-27T20:30:00.000+02:00

While soluble salts are not found to be too problematic with the pottery and the coins on the site, they are highly destructive to the stone. The site contains all types of stone, including sedimentary rocks such as sandstone, and limestone, as well as the igneous rocks such as granite. Granite is often thought to be more durable than sandstone, but soluble salts, if given the opportunity, will destroy any type of stone. The constant dissolving and recrystallizing of soluble salts in the stone body, eventually breaks the structure apart. This is a wall of sandstone near the Sacred Lake on the site, but it appears more like a white limestone wall because it is covered with salt.

One of the methods to limit the exposure of soluble salts to stone objects on the site is to isolate them from the ground water. If the object is an individual sculpture, such as this granite ram, it can be lifted and placed on a base, much like the stone fragments that are stored on mastabas. Here, a tool in the form of a tripod, called a ciba is being used to lift the ram onto a new sandstone base, which will effectively isolate it from the ground water.

Lisa Bruno, Objects Conservator

Ceramics

2007-02-27T20:05:00.000+02:00

The archaeologists have stopped digging, and now what is left is the clean up, mapping and processing of the pottery. Depending on the season, many fragments of pottery shards are found. Sometimes, as much as tons of shards have been found at some archaeological sites. Not all the shards are important, nor can they all be processed and stored. Abdel Aziz as found a sweet, nearly whole vessel, but more often than not, the pottery shards are fragments from the bodys of anonymous vessels.

Elsie Peck is sorting through the containers of pottery found this year. We save shards that are diagnostic, such as rims, bases, handles, or areas of especially fine painted decoration or maker's marks, for photography and drawing. When possible, a broken vessel will be re-joined with adhesive to make drawing or photography easier. Some ceramics have soluble salts in the ceramic fabric, which can be highly destructive. Usually, the washing process for the shards removes the salts, so these are generally not problematic at Mut.

Lisa Bruno, Objects Conservator

Coins

2007-02-24T15:55:00.000+02:00

Almost everyone, who has ever worked with archaeological objects, or on a dig, has a coin story. It usually begins like this, "I was told to put the coins in some chemical...", and then after a certain amount of hours or days, depending on whether the person forgot that the coins were in "some chemical", the coins are gone, having disappeared or dissolved into the bath.

Cleaning corroded metal objects is hard work. Think about it. Most metal objects (unless made of gold or silver) start out as ores, such as copper carbonate, or copper sulphate. In other words, objects made of metal start out as corrosion, and only after a lot of human intervention do they become metal objects. So, after several thousands of years of being buried in the soil, these metal objects want to revert back to corrosion. It goes without saying that, after discovered by an archaeologist, it usually takes a great deal of intervention on the part of the conservator to get to the metal surface. Yes, chemicals are one way to assist in changing the corrosion, so that it can be removed to possibly reveal a metal surface. Sometimes there is no metal core, below all of the corrosion. The object is completely mineralized. Mechanically removing the corrosion is also a safer, but often very time consuming and physically difficult process. At the site, this year we are trying a mild solution of EDTA (ethylene diamine tetra acetic acid) made basic with ammonia. It has proven to be helpful at softening the corrosion crusts, making the mechanical removal with a scalpel more effective, and safer. The solution turns blue as copper corrosion dissolves.

When the archaeologists register the finds, as Jaap is doing in this photo, it is much more useful to have an actual image on the coin, or other information that may help in dating a layer. This is why finding coins is often exciting, yet painful at the same time. Luckily however, unlike the corrosion that Jakki mentioned in her post on the Wadjet Figure, the corrosion crusts at the Mut Temple are mostly stable.

Lisa Bruno, Objects Conservator

Winding Down

2007-02-23T11:45:00.000+02:00

This was our last full week of digging. It was also our first week of really hot weather, with temperatures in the mid 90s by mid-morning. Despite the heat, we got quite a bit done.

North of Mut's 1st Pylon we're down to the lowest couses of brick in the Roman Period buildings as you can see in this picture looking west to the temple's East Porch.

Mud brick architecture can be complex to excavate, in part because it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between mud brick and the surrounding earth. In addition, people didn't always completely remove the foundations of old buildings when they built new ones, as is the case in the lower picture. In the upper photo, where the Mut Temple's 1st Pylon meets the East Porch, we have the mud brick border of the Porch's foundations and several phases of brick construction of (or against) the Pylon itself. Sorting this out is challenging.

In Temple A's Forecourt, just south of the massive remains of the north colonnade, we discovered the foundations of a small building made of mud brick and small sandstone blocks. To its east, in the rear of the photograph, workers are uncovering a large circular feature made of baked brick and stone that is full of burnt debris.

A general view south of the Forecourt near the end of the week. The stone and brick circle is on the left. The baked brick and ceramic-pipe drain running diagonally across the court is probably of the Roman Period.

While Jaap and our inspector, Mouna, take a break in the shade, Lisa and Khaled work on the coins we have found this season. Their ability to concentrate on this delicate work in the midst of all that is going on is amazing.

Here is one of the coins as found and after cleaning by Lisa and Khaled. Having the images and inscriptions this clear should make it relatively easy to date the coins.

We finally finished work on the small chapel just east of the Precinct entrance. Instead of taking a few days, it has taken a few weeks because the walls were in much worse condition than expected. On Saturday the granite sphinx will go on its new base west of the chapel where Lisa and Khaled can work on it.

With the small chapel out of the way, we were able to get back to the column in Chapel D that we couldn't complete last year. Here's how it looked at the end of the 2006 season. Jaap determined that the column segment on bricks belongs on this column but at a higher level than preserved. This year he found a second segment that joins the first.

Mohammed Gharib and his team cut new sandstone column drums to build the column up to the proper height.

On Thursday, with the new drums in place, Khaled, Jaap and Mohammed consult on the precise placement of the first ancient column segment.Thursday was Jaap's last day with us this season so we were glad he was able to see this project through to its final phase. The final step will be to build out the new section of column to the ancient circumference.
While column restoration goes on in Chapel D, we are beginning to take down an old baulk in the Taharqa Gate (background) in preparation for work there next season.

This week we had to contend not only with the heat but with this huge dust devil that blew through the precinct one morning. A dust devil this size can pick up small objects and even light chairs and toss them about.

Richard Fazzini
Director

Treatment of an Egyptian copper alloy statue of Wadjet

2007-02-20T23:21:00.001+02:00

I just finished treatment on and helped install the Egyptian copper alloy statue of Wadjet. This object, along with many other Egyptian artifacts, are to be on display at the Brooklyn Museum in the Pharaoh’s Queens and Goddesses exhibition opening March 23^rd. Conserving this object has been quite an interesting experience for me.

The primary concern with the statue was that it had some severe areas of bronze disease, pictured at right. Bronze disease is a destructive corrosion process that occurs from the reaction of chlorides on copper in the presence of moisture and oxygen. This type of degradation process produces bright green powdery spots of corrosion while simultaneously eating away at the metal. Once begun, this reaction is very difficult to stop unless one or more of the reacting compounds (chloride, water, oxygen) are removed.

Unfortunately, bronze disease occurs in many archaeological copper-alloy objects given that they often accumulate chlorides during burial. Once the objects are excavated, the moisture and oxygen present in the atmosphere can catalyze the destructive corrosion process. Preventive methods such as elimination of moisture in the form of environmental regulation can sometimes prevent the outbreak of bronze disease, however very often the object will need to be physically treated by a conservator. This was the case with the Wadjet statue.

For treating the statue for bronze disease I first mechanically removed the bright green copper corrosion products, primarily on the bottom of the statue, with small hand tools. Following this, the areas affected by corrosion were chemically treated with a corrosion inhibitor. The inhibitor reacts with the metal to form a stable surface. Preventive methods including reducing the relative humidity (moisture) have been introduced into the exhibition area to ensure that the bronze disease is abated. Pre-treatment and post treatment images of the bottom of the statue are pictured below. I know that Lisa is currently working on copper alloy coins on the dig, which may have the same type of corrosion problems. If so she will treat these coins in a similar manner.

During treatment of the statue, a modern plaster fill on the base of the figure’s throne was removed. This action was taken because the plaster was exacerbating the bronze disease by holding moisture at the metal surface. Upon removal of the plaster fill an exciting find was unearthed – an animal skeleton. See image below. After discussion with colleagues and some research, it was discovered that these bones might possibly be ichneumon or Egyptian mongoose bones. Some literature indicates that seated, bronze Wadjet figures, such as the one being discussed, were often used as coffins for ichneumon. The ichneumon, revered for its ability to kill snakes and crush crocodile eggs, became a sacred animal of the goddess Wadjet in the Late Period.

Jakki Godfrey
Brooklyn Museum
Conservation Intern

Working on Site

2007-02-16T13:35:00.000+02:00

Pictured above are fragments of stone on the long, and numerous mastabas, or raised platforms found at Mut Temple and many other archaeological sites throughout Egypt. These mastabas provide safe areas to store fragmentary blocks away from the often very salty soil. Soluble salt, by dissolving and recrystalizing within the body of a fragment, can cause a great deal of damage to even very durable stones.
Khaled and I spend much of our time on site, joining fragments. The purpose of this is so that inscriptions are more easily read and frankly, so that these often small fragments do not become lost. In an outdoor environment, we need to use a durable adhesive. In this case, we use an epoxy with a barrier layer of a more reversable adhesive. Making joins that are perfect can be tough.
Often the surfaces are so eroded, there are not good clean areas to join. Also, getting the right balance, so that the pieces stay together while the adhesive cures can be a challenge. At least in Egypt, there is enough sand to make many sandboxes to assist in this effort.

Lisa Bruno
Objects Consevator

Working Conditions

2007-02-16T12:58:00.000+02:00

As Mary, our photographer pointed out in the last posting, the cleaning of the lintel is complete, or more precisely, we have taken it to a uniform level, given the time and materials we have on hand. Conservators, as well as photographers, working on archaeological digs often work under very difficult conditions. As you can see in this photo above, the team is getting in some weight lifting, while trying to position the lintel so that there is the raking light needed for Mary to photograph the shallow, carved design.
We have been cleaning the lintel in the conservaton laboratory at the Luxor Museum, where there is running water, electricity, and chairs. We have had the good fortune this week to go to the museum in the afternoons, avoiding the hot sun. With those basic services, we could take the cleaning to a certain level, and stabilize the very fragile paint and gilded surfaces. At the site, we do not have running water, or electricity and little shade, and since I'm having technical difficulties with the photographs, I'll talk about conservation on site in the next posting.

Lisa Bruno

Objects Conservator

More of the same plus a few surprises

2007-02-16T11:30:00.000+02:00

Archaeology has exciting weeks and weeks when the work just plods on. This week was a plodder, although we had a few surprises.

In Temple A we are uncovering the remains of the paving that led from the gate in the 1st Pylon (background) to the 2nd Pylon. We suspected this path was paved but now we've confirmed it.

Work on the north wall of the Forecourt is finished and Bill has begun the task of mapping it.

We are continuing to take down the structures built against the Mut Temple's 1st Pylon. The week's first surprise was the discovery of the actual plastered face of the pylon, just visible behind the meter stick. It projects several centimeters in front of the taller remains of the pylon, preserved by the structures built against it.

We also uncovered a neat, brick-bordered oval in the center of the western room, seen on the left in a view to the northeast. It is full of pottery that Qufti Abdel Aziz is removing piece by piece while other members of his team continue to work behind him.

Herman te Velde, expert in Egyptian religion and iconography, was able to join us for a few days this season. He, William and Jaap discuss the work while standing on the north wall of Temple A's Forecourt.

One of the monuments removed from the site by the SCA at the end of the previous week was this large limestone statue of Tuthmosis IV (re-used by Ramesses II) that stood against Temple A's 2nd Pylon.

When we cleaned the area in which it had stood, we discovered a large hole where the lower course of stone should be. To our surprise, we discovered that the core of the pylon is mud brick; the stone is only a facing. However, one of the blocks in the upper course was held in place mainly by the pressure of the blocks on either side. Repairing this hole immediately became a priority.

Our restorers got to work filling in the hole with stone and the compound we use in stone repair. New blocks were cut for the missing lower course of the pylon; the first to be put in place is visible in front of the workman above.

When the patch was complete, our stone restorer, Mohammed Gharib put the final touches on the new surface. Below, the finished product. Mohammed's earlier repair to the north wall of Temple A's Forecourt can also be seen. He's a superb craftsman.

Talk about a flash from the past: pharaonic reliefs show stones being dragged on sledges, just as these workmen are doing. This block will be used in the new base for the granite sphinx behind them . The foundations for the base were being dug as the block was dragged in.

The work on those foundations provided the week's final surprise: in the last hour of work yesterday, we came on a large piece of black stone. Our foreman, Farouk Sharid Mohammed, supervises the excavation personally.

Here's the stone as it came out of the ground. It turns out to be the lower legs and feet of yet another Sakhmet statue, with the epithets preserved on one side. We'll clean it and stand it up on Saturday.

The week ended on a high note. Conservation work on the lintel is complete and it looks splendid, particularly the 5 gilded child gods. Lisa, Khaled and the Luxor Museum conservators have done a wonderful job. Congratulations!

Mary McKercher
Photographer

Reunions

2007-02-11T16:36:00.000+02:00

After more than 20 hours of travel, and three planes later (nearly missing the first plane in NYC, but never mind...), I find myself in Egypt. I have completed one week of work, and have had the opportunity to work with my old friends from the site. Above, I am standing with Mohammed, the mason for the site, in front of the ram that Tina, and I helped to conserve last year. On the surface, Mohammed and I do not have much in common. Mohammed does not speak English (although he likes the word, "awesome") and I really don't speak much Arabic, but we manage to communicate, because we do share at least one thing in common. That is, we both like to work with our hands to preserve material culture.
Pictured here is Jaap, the epigrapher trying to read the inscriptions on this beautiful lintel that Richard has described in previous postings. To his left is Khaled, my co-conservator on the site. Like Mohammed and I, Khaled also likes to work with his hands.
Here are two conservators for the Luxor Museum who are assisting Khaled and I as we do tests to clean the surface of the lintel. In the weeks to come, I look forward to sharing my experiences on the site.

Lisa Bruno

An Interesting Lintel

2007-02-10T15:34:00.000+02:00

For several weeks now we've been excavating the inner face of the Precinct's enclosure wall where it runs along the north side of the Forecourt of Temple A, in the northeast corner of the Precinct. The photo on the left is a view to the north of the area. The wall itself is interesting. The original wall, which suffered considerable slippage at some point, was re-faced, probably in the Ptolemaic or Roman Periods, with mud brick that was coated in plaster. The two phases can be seen in the photo on the right, which looks east along the wall. Visible in both photos is a slab of sandstone leaning against the face of the wall; it is not part of the wall itself.

On January 29 we turned the block over and got a real surprise: a gilded and painted raised relief lintel. These 2 photos show the lintel as found, and the impression it left in the mud brick wall behind it.

We immediately called the local SCA officials. Mansour Boreik, General Director for Luxor (left) and Ibrahim Soliman, Director for Karnak (right) examine the newly-discovered object with SCA inspector Ahmed Araby Yunis. Drs. Boreik and Soliman decided it was a significant enough find to be reported to the main SCA offices in Cairo.

We moved the lintel, whose decoration is rather fragile, to our on-site magazine where SCA conservator Khaled Mohammed Wassel began the painstaking work of cleaning the object.

Jacobus van Dijk, of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, and I examine the lintel's decoration while Khaled goes on with the cleaning. The lintel is 110 cm long, 45 cm high and 8 cm deep. Based on its style and its inscriptions, it dates to the Ptolemaic or Roman Period (late 4th to early 1st century BC).
Here's the lintel after its initial cleaning. The top is a cavetto cornice adorned with a gilded sun disk from which hang two gilded uraeus-serpents representing Upper and Lower Egypt. Below is a temple-shaped scene with 5 child-gods sitting on lotuses rising from strips of water, all of which are symbolic of birth. They face an altar heaped with offerings beyond which stand two female deities. Each child-god holds his finger to his mouth (typical of ancient Egyptian depictions of children) and carries the royal crook and flail.
The first of the figures to the right is a female Bes-image, the second a crowned, pregnant hippopotamus with a crocodile on her back and holding a hieroglyph for "protection" – a formidable mother symbol.
Temple A was a mammisi, or temple celebrating the birth of a child-god (here Khonsu, son of Amun and Mut) -- and eventually of the king himself -- from the Third Intermediate Period through the Roman Period, so the discovery here of a lintel with birth-related scenes should not come as a surprise.

The Egyptian government decided that the lintel was of sufficient significance that its discovery should be announced formally by Farok Hosni, Egyptian Minister of Culture. They also determined that it really belongs in the Luxor Museum, where visitors can enjoy it. Therefore, once the lintel was cleaned and stabilized, it was packed it in a specially constructed box, carried out of the Precinct and moved to the Museum.

Dr. Saymia Abdel Aziz Abdel Razik, Assistant Director of the Luxor Museum (right) and Khaled examine the lintel in the museum's conservation lab.

Lisa Bruno, Brooklyn Museum objects conservator and a member of the Mut Expedition, arrived on February 4 and with Khaled was able to get her first look at the lintel the next day in the Luxor Museum conservation laboratory.

Lisa, Khaled and the museum's conservators work as a team on treating the lintel, which will go on display in the Luxor Museum in the near future.

Richard Fazzini

Director, Mut Expedition

The Work Goes On

2007-02-09T14:18:00.000+02:00

Because of technical problems and time constraints we were not able to post a blog last week, so this blog covers the 2 weeks from Jan. 26 to Feb. 8. The most exciting event of the period was the discovery of a gilded and painted lintel; it is described in a separate posting.

We finished up the south side of Temple A's Forecourt late last week. The various limestone and mud brick walls are now clearly defined, from the wall running east off the Lepsius Gate (right) to the foundations of the Forecourt's colonnade.

In the left photo, Elsie Peck (lower center) supervises workmen as they begin work in the area of the entrance to Temple A, while work on the Forecourt's north wall continues in the background. The photo on the right, taken at the end of this week, looks west along the remains of the paving of the gateway in the temple's 1st Pylon; not much remains.
We have now cleared the entire length of the enclosure wall, the north wall of the Forecourt, and have uncovered the bases and footings of the colonnade on this side of the court. The apparent 2nd wall between the enclosure wall and the wall of the Forecourt (mentioned last time) turns out to be a mud-brick re-facing that was coated in plaster.

In the past 2 weeks we have been able to start dismantling the Roman Period structures built against the Mut Temple's 1st Pylon (top). In the lower photo, Qufti Mahmoud Abbadi, an extraordinarily skilled archaeologist, brushes off the top of a brick wall to make the brick patterns clear.

Mahmoud, Bill Peck and I discuss the newly-revealed bricks while two workmen look on. It turns out this wall wasn't a single construction as we originally thought. The row of bricks under Mahmoud's hand is a later phase, probably added to support a vaulted roof.Once we're agreed, Bill begins to add the new details to his map of the area. The backdrop of temple, village and mountains is spectacular.
Dr. W. Benson Harer was able to join us again this season for a few weeks, and we promptly set him to work drawing pottery we have excavated. This is exacting work requiring a good eye, a steady hand, and much patience, all of which Dr. Ben has in abundance. Pottery drawing isn't glamorous but it is an important part of archaeological work. Thanks, Ben.

In the photo on the left you can see the restored east wall of the East Porch. Once that work was finished, we could go ahead and remove the fallen column that has lain across the area for hundreds of years so that we can excavate below it. The column drums are large and awkward to handle, but the area was cleared in a day.

Where the fallen column once lay we found a few remains of paving (center foreground), but most of the paving in this area was robbed out long ago.With the work on the south side of Temple A completed, we could turn to work in the area of Chapel D, west of the Precinct entrance. We are excavating the west side of the building both to discover how it relates to the enclosure wall behind it and to the Taharqa Gate immediately to its west and to provide enough space to carry out conservation work on the wall.

Here Qufti Ayman, another skilled archaeologist, is clearing the large re-used limestone block that forms the upper preserved course of Chapel D's northwest corner. The rear of the chapel seems to have been built mainly of limestone while the rest of the building is sandstone.

The north side of the big limestone block contains what appears to be part of an offering scene, but the accretions on the surface make it difficult to see details (left). Lisa Bruno, Brooklyn Museum conservator, couldn't have arrived at a better time. As you can see, the space she has to work in is very tight, but Lisa is patient and determined.

We also started a new conservation project: the restoration of what is left of a small chapel just inside the Precinct gateway and of the granite ram to its west, which here is being moved to a more convenient work location. The photo on the right may look chaotic, but the chapel's rear wall is almost finished and restorers are consolidating the blocks of the dismantled east wall.

The SCA has selected a sculptures from a number of sites in Luxor and elsewhere to be exhibited in the new Museum of Civilization in Cairo. Among the objects chosen are several uncovered and/or restored by the Brooklyn Museum Mut Expedition. This week, officials arrived to remove the selected objects, which include this magnificent and rare granite head from a large recumbent sculpture of a ram that dates to Dynasty 25. The ram is Amun, and the figure standing below his chin is King Taharqa of Dynasty 25. We are pleased that it will eventually be on display where everyone can enjoy it.

As most of the sculptures selected for the museum, such as this figure of a baboon, are too heavy to move by hand or siba, the big crane from Karnak was brought in to lift them onto the transports.

Since the crane was already on site, the SCA was kind enough to allow us to use it to move some large blocks in the area of Chapel D that we would otherwise not have been able to shift. Most important was a large ceiling block, which is now clearly visible for the first time in years.

Richard Fazzini

Director, Mut Expedition

I'll Be There Soon

2007-01-31T02:55:00.000+02:00

It has been interesting to read the postings on the Brooklyn Museum: Dig Diary. Especially, as I work here in the conservation lab at the Brooklyn Museum, knowing that I will soon be in Egypt. Last year, my colleague Tina March and I (with the glasses) each spent approximately 4 weeks on the site of the Mut Temple Precinct. I started the season and Tina finished up with a one- week overlap to exchange information, and make a smooth transition. This year I'll be going at the end of the season to close, while an SCA Conservator from the Luxor Temple, Khaled Mohamed Wassel, who Tina and I worked with last year, has been keeping things in order. Being on an archaeological site, as a museum conservator is a fantastic learning experience. Nothing compares to seeing the condition of art objects, be they sandstone, limestone, organics or copper alloys, as they come directly out of the ground, after being buried for hundreds or thousands of years. Many times, in the conservation laboratory at the museum, when working with the archaeological objects in the collection, we see conditions that are a direct result of the burial environment. Seeing first hand what objects go through during burial, makes those conditions, often unstable, seem so much less terrifying to deal with in the museum.

My colleagues Tina March, pictured here with an Egyptian sandstone stele,

And Jakki Godfrey, seen here with an Egyptian copper alloy statue of Wadjet

will be dealing with the conservation issues at the Museum, while I'm at Mut. The sandstone stele, and the statue of Wadjet, are both archaeological objects in the Brooklyn Museum's collection. They are currently undergoing stabilization treatments for exhibition. Tina and Jakki will discuss these treatments, as they relate to the archaeological environment in upcoming posts to this blog. In the mean time, I have a lot of supplies to pack.

Lisa Bruno, Objects Conservator

A Week of Puzzles

2007-01-26T13:07:00.000+02:00

First thing this week we stood the large fragment of the limestone statue of Tuthmosis IV against the 2nd Pylon of Temple A. It was a bit of a struggle because the varying levels here made placing the siba rather difficult and the statue is heavy and awkward to move.

While most people don't associate mud brick with temple architecture, mud brick formed an important element of most temple construction in ancient Egpyt. This is particularly evident at the Mut Precinct, where even some pylons were built of mud brick. Towards the end of this week, we uncovered the corner where the mud brick wall running south from Temple A's stone 2nd Pylon (center) meets the mud brick wall that defines the south side of the Forecourt.

Here you are looking west along the Forecourt's south wall to the Lepsius Gate in the background. To the left is a larger, rather damaged mud brick wall.

While chewed up to the west, at the east end the bricks of this second wall are becoming more distinct. This should be the wall running east off the Lepsius Gate. So far we have followed it as far east as Temple A's 2nd Pylon but have not yet reached a corner.

One goal of our expedition is to uncover and restore the original appearance of the site's temples. In order to do so, we have to remove the Roman Period structures built against the Mut Temple's 1st Pylon that we uncovered and documented in 2006. We began that work mid-week and have already come up with a surprise.

The photo on the left, taken at the end of the 2006 season, is what we thought might be a stairway with bins, just visible toe th right, below the now-vanished upper steps. Now we're not so sure. We removed the northern (front) row of bricks and uncovered 3 distinct hollow spaces. We have no idea yet what they are, although it has been suggested they may have been used for cooking: fuel in the hollow, pots on top.

We also don't know how these 3 hollows (center, behind the meter stick) relates to the large, brick-lined pit in the foreground of this picture that we uncovered last year.

On the north side of the court, things are clearer, if more confusing. We definitely have the south face of the enclosure wall along the full length of the Forecourt and thought that we had uncovered traces of the wall's plaster coating, between the man in the man in jeans and the man to his right. It now appears, however, that this plastered wall is a separate construction between the enclosure wall and the north stone wall of the Forecourt. Another puzzle to decipher.

Conservation work continued in the East Porch, where Khaled is carefully consolidating a deteriorated portion of a column.

By week's end, the new foundations for the intercolumnar wall in the East Porch are basically finished, incorporating the original blocks with modern materials. The finishing coating has also been applied to part of the wall south of the tallest column; it will dry to the color of hte sandstone. Next week we hope to finish this project.

Mary McKercher

Photographer

A Productive Week

2007-01-19T11:59:00.000+02:00

At the start of the week, finding the mud brick of the northern enclosure wall proved easier than we hoped, at least at the west end. Here there was only a relatively thin layer of earth over the bricks. It's dusty work.

Further to the east, the bricks were more deeply covered, but by week's end their pattern was clear. Abdel Aziz (in light blue galabiya) and Mahmoud Abbadi (dark blue galabiya), two of our Qufti, carefully define the bricks. The Qufti are technicians from the village of Quft, north of Luxor, who provide the skilled labor for many archaeological expeditions in Egypt.

Looking east along the enclosure wall at the end of the week. We are fairly certain we have found the south face of the wall along the whole length of Temple A's Forecourt.

Late in the week William and Elsie Peck, former curators at the Detroit Institute of Arts joined the team. William is our architect and surveyor and Elsie is site supervisor and artist. With Jaap van Dijk they admire a block from Chapel D that we reassembled recently from broken pieces. If we can figure out where it belongs in the chapel we'll restore it.

The siba (tripod and winch) arrived Wednesday morning and here is being set up by the East Porch so we can carry out the next phase of work there.

Our conservator, Khaled, supervises rigging the portion of the wall between two columns that needs to be moved. It must be done with great care to protect both the workers and the block.

Success. Despite the close quarters, we are able to remove the top block of the intercolumnar wall without damaging it or the columns on either side. We were also able to remove the course below successfully.

For once we found Mary, the expedition's photographer, a comfortable position; usually she's up a ladder or flat on the ground. The wall in the last photograph has been completely dismantled and she is photographing its foundations. The limestone block just beyond her shoes has part of the name of Ramesses II, as do many of the foundation blocks in this area of the East Porch.

On January 14, President Mubarak visited Luxor. The streets along which he passed were lined with welcoming banners and arches.

One of the purposes of the President's visit was to open the Mubarak Heritage Center, a cultural center and library for Luxor. We didn't see the event itself (we were working that day), but were able to watch a group of children rehearsing for the event the day before. The Center itself is a large and dramatic building.

And now back to the dig. From this picture, taken late Thursday morning, you can get some idea of the scale of the work on the north enclosure wall. At the start of the week, all the workmen were standing on the top of the mound. They have made great progress. The time has come, however, to move the large fragment of a limestone statue leaning against the north side of the court, on the extreme right in this photo.

Supported by the siba and cushioned with foam sheeting, the statue is lowered slowly onto its side so it can be moved to its new location.

The statue now lies on wood supports in front of Temple A's 2nd Pylon where we will re-erect it on Saturday beside its more complete companion.

We haven't been idle on the south side of the Forecourt, either. The limestone foundations of the wall and colonnade are completely clear, as are the brick walls to the south (left). Now the challenge is to figure out how all these structures go together.

Egypt is a land where old and new constantly meet. Cement to build mastabas is delivered to the site on a donkey cart whose owner chats with a friend (or arranges his next delivery) on his cell phone.

We promised to follow the progress of the wall whose design was laid out using the same technique as in pharaonic times. It turns out to be a large mosaic. The color of stone to be used in each area has been written in chalk in the drawing.

Looking west along the sphinx avenue north of the Mut Precinct at noon to the village and the mountains beyond. What a view!

Richard Fazzini
Director

After the Eid

2007-01-12T11:36:00.000+02:00

The early morning light filters through the dust as we get back to work on the first day after the break for the Eid el Adha and Coptic Christmas. We have had a busy week.

One of our projects this year is to re-organize the many blocks of temple decoration and pieces of Sakhmet statues discovered over the years. Moving even the upper half of a single Sakhmet statue from the storage magazine to its new location is hard work.

Thanks to the strength and skill of our workmen, we were able to consolidate all the fragmentary Sakhmet statues onto a single new mastaba.

This is the original "mastaba" (Arabic for "bench") we built many years ago to hold decorated blocks and pieces of statues. Mastabas are constructed of baked brick and cement with a layer of bitumen cloth between the courses to act as a barrier to ground water.

We are hoping to be able to reconstruct more of Chapel D using blocks from there uncovered in the 1970s. To make reconstruction easier, we have built 3 new mastabas just to the east of the chapel and have started organizing the blocks.

On January 8 Dr. Jacobus van Dijk of the University of Groningen arrived joined the expedition. Richard and he were in Chapel D discussing work there when I interrupted them for a photo.

An urgent conservation project for 2007 is the restoration of the east wall of the East Porch of the Mut Temple. Its foundations are deteriorating to the point that a fox has been able to dig a den under one of the columns. The sandstone and limestone blocks of the upper parts of the wall are decayed as well.

We are fortunate this year to have the SCA conservator, Khaled Mohammed Wassel (right) working with us again. Here he, Richard, Jaap, and our inspector Mouna discuss the work to be done in the East Porch.

Before work could begin on the foundations of the column, we had to shore it up with metal supports to prevent its collapse.

By the end of work on Thursday the basic restoration work on the south part of the wall and on the column's foundations had been completed. The rough new surfaces will be coated with a layer of material tinted to match the stone, as has been done elsewhere in the site. Now we have to dismantle and restore the wall to the north (left) of the column.

Excavation in the Forecourt of Temple A also proceeded while all the block moving and restoration were going on. The south edge of the north wall has been uncovered along its entire length. In order to go any further, however, we are going to have to remove much of the mountain of earth and decayed brick that has collapsed onto the wall. We need to do this both to prevent any possible collapse of the mound and to try to find the face of the Precinct's enclosure wall behind the Forecourt.

We are continuing to trace the limestone and brick walls that form the south side of the Forecourt. By sometime next week the two squares should meet and we'll have a clearer idea of the relation between the various features we are uncovering. So far there has been little pottery uncovered in either area.

Locally made pottery is still important to the people of Luxor. With the exception of the few stone cats and small obelisks, all the wares displayed by this potter are for everyday use.

We were fascinated to watch this wall along the road to the Mut Temple being prepared for decoration just as pharaonic artists prepared tomb and temples walls. The wall has been smoothed and gridlines drawn. Using the grid to scale up preliminary sketches, local artists have drawn the outlines of the decoration just as their ancient counterparts did. The next step will be to fill in the outlines. We aren't sure whether this is to be a painting or a mosaic. We'll follow its progress.

On a sunny, bright day in Luxor (which, let's face it, is most days) the view across the Nile to the hills of the west is breathtaking. No matter how hot and dusty we may be, spending a few moments looking at scenery like this refreshes us all.

Mary McKercher

Photographer

Getting Started

2007-01-02T11:33:00.000+02:00

The 2007 season actually got underway on December 21, 2006, when we began cutting the vegetation that had grown up since last season. There wasn't much grass this year, but camel thorn blanketed much of the site. Its roots are shallow, but its sharp spines make it painful to remove.

One of the workmen gingerly carries a basket of cut camel thorn past the fallen statue of Amunhotep III (usurped by Ramesses II) lying in front of Temple A in the northeast corner of the precinct (for maps of the site showing the major monuments go to the Mut Expedition pages at the Brooklyn Museum website).

Our Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) Inspector this year is Ms. Mouna Fathi Sayed. She and I sit and discuss the site and the Expedition's plans for the season while the camel thorn is being cut.One of our projects this year is to clear the north and south sides of Temple A's Forecourt. On the north side we began work where the Forecourt wall meets the temple's stone 2nd Pylon. On the left is half of a limestone statue of Tuthmosis IV (father of Amenhotep III of Dynasty XVIII) that we will have to move eventually. A more complete statue of the same king leans against the pylon. They were not original to the temple but were brought here at some point to be broken up.

We found that two sandstone blocks of the north wall's upper course had slipped forward out of position as you can see in this photo looking west along the wall. The blocks supporting them are very badly deteriorated, so we put in wood supports until the lower part of the wall could be repaired.

The restoration work was well underway and we had exposed more of the top course of the wall to the west by December 28, the last day of work before the 5-day break to celebrate the Eid el-Adha, one of the most important Muslim religious feasts.

This photo looks south at the south side of the Forecourt during the 2006 season. The Lepsius Gate (see the 2006 dig diary) is to the right. Here the limestone foundations of the Forecourt's colonnade (foreground) and south wall have been exposed. Between the two is a slightly higher (and later) row of limestone blocks into which three large storage jars had been set.

This area was partially excavated in 1978 and became completely covered with blown earth in the intervening years, so that some of what we are doing is re-exploration. By December 28 we had once again uncovered the baked brick wall that runs parallel to the south wall of the Forecourt and is faced with small limestone blocks. To the south (rear) are the remains of a large mud brick wall that ran east from the Lepsius Gate. It has been robbed out by a large pit in the center. The baked brick part of the wall may, in fact, be a Ptolemaic or Roman Period repair to the wall's foundations or an extension of the wall to the north.

When we started work, the weather was cool but pleasant - perfect for digging. But when we saw the bank of clouds over the mountains to the west on the morning of December 23, we knew a change was coming.

Over the course of the morning the winds increased and the temperature dropped. And when the wind picks up, what it picks up is dust that blows in sheets across the site, making work and photography difficult. Looking through the Mut Temple's main gate you can hardly see the rear of the temple, and the sides of the work tents put up by the Johns Hopkins University team are billowing in the wind. It has been cold ever since, but at least the wind has dropped.

We got in a full week of work before the break for the Eid el-Adha. The rest of the Mut team arrives after Coptic Christmas on January 7, celebrated as a national holiday. Watch for the next posting in mid-January.

Richard Fazzini

Director, Mut Expedition

The Mut Expedition: An Introduction

2006-12-12T16:11:00.000+02:00

The goddess Mut was consort of Amun, one of Egypt's major gods, and mother of the moon god Khonsu and was one of the most important ancient Egyptian deities for over 2,000 years.

Mut was one of a group of goddesses known as the "Eye of Re" who had both a human and feline form. In her human form, Mut was protector of the Egyptian kingship and generally beneficent. As lioness-headed Sakhmet ("The Powerful One"), however, she controlled forces of pestilence and destruction that could defend Egypt but could be unleashed on Egypt if the goddess were not kept contented.
Pacifying Sakhmet was one of the major goals of the priests in the Mut Precinct from at least the New Kingdom onward. Temple inscriptions tell that there was continual singing, dancing and feasting in the precinct -- all aimed at keeping Mut/Sakhmet happy and entertained.

Since 1976, the Brooklyn Museum has been carrying out archaeological work at the Mut Precinct. The Museum's team, which has shared the site with an expedition from Johns Hopkins University since 2001, continues to explore how the Mut Precinct grew and what its inscriptions reveal about ancient Egyptian religion and life. Both expeditions are also devoted to the conservation and restoration of the site's monuments. The work of the Mut Expeditions is conducted under the auspices of the American Research Center in Egypt and is supervised by the Supreme Council of Antiquities, which authorizes and supervises all archaeological work in the country. Under the direction of its Secretary General, Dr. Zahi Hawass, the Supreme Council is responsible for the exploration, preservation, and restoration of Egypt's rich cultural heritage.The Mut Expedition's 21st season of fieldwork begins in January 2007. We will start posting regularly to this blog in mid-January and hope to continue through the end of the season in March. In the meantime, for more information on the site and on past seasons of work there (including the 2005 and 2006 Dig Diaries), please visit the Mut pages of the Brooklyn Museum website.

Richard Fazzini
Director, Mut Expedition