conference

Lecture Abstracts

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Ashley Cooke (National Museums of Liverpool)

The Experimental Work of F.C.J. Spurrell: Faience, Glass and Beads.

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Pearce Paul Creasman (Curator of Collections, Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, The University of Arizona (USA)

Exposing Ancient Shipbuilders Secrets Through Experimental Reconstruction

For as long as humans have taken to the water, ships have been one of the primary vectors of cultural and technological exchange. A shipwreck or boat burial offers a glimpse of the past, but it is only the last chapter in a complex story.

Boats and boat-models are well-known, if not universal, features of Egyptian funerary practices. In contrast to the abundance of boat-models and representations from tombs, interments of actual vessels are comparatively rare and recovered examples are usually confined to royal contexts. As a vessel embodies the culture that produced it, much can be learned by interpreting them as artifacts of the people who built them. Despite the available archaeological evidence, many fundamental questions remain unanswered.

Experimental ship and boat reconstructions can help to address a wide range of these outstanding questions, including: construction technology, resource procurement, and navigation, to name a few. This presentation will discuss some of the benefits of experimental ship reconstructions, highlighting recent examples, and introduce a reconstruction based on an ancient Nilotic vessel, which is in development.

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Andrzej Ćwiek (Institute of Prehistory, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan and the Archaeological Museum in Poznan)

Limestone Speaking: Experience and Experiments in the Field.

This will deal with various kinds of limestone to be met at Deir el-Bahari in the temples and surrounding area and their properties and meanings for archaeological work.

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Sonia Focke (Staatliches Museum Ägyptischer Kunst, München)

The Horn Bow - Egyptology's Problem Child

Finds of bows made from oryx horns are known from the subsidiary tombs at Abydos , yet many Egyptologists have doubted their functionality. This paper aims to explain the construction of the horn bows, present the various arguments against it being a functional weapon and present the insights gained in the reconstruction of such a bow.

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Carolyn Graves-Brown (Swansea University)

Experimental Work on Egyptian Lithics: From Spurrell to Lund.

Technology essentially involves a number of parts: know-how (knowledge) and practiced embodied ‘skill’, ‘craft’ and ‘art’ (tekhnē) as well as logic. While we can never fully understand the past, how than can we possibly claim to have any real understanding of ancient technologies without experimental work, without physical attempts to replicate the past?

Experimental lithics has greatly contributed to a study of the discipline of lithic technology generally, but in Egyptology specifically it will be shown that experimental work has shown the steps used in knapping, social organisation related to knapping and an understanding of the fallacy of typologising through surface similarity. Even a very basic skill in lithic technological practice can throw new light on the past. Use of lithic tools shows the efficacy of the tool and finally, experimental work has the added value of humanizing the past. The value of these aspects extends not only to lithic technology but to understanding Egyptian religion and society more generally.

Those who have attempted experimental work in Egyptology are often on the fringes of the discipline and yet so very essential to its past development and to its future. I demonstrate this through an exploration of the work of those movers and shakers from the fringe, experimental lithicists from Spurrell to Lund .

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Salima Ikram (American University in Cairo)

From the Meadow to the Em-baa-lming Table: Experimental Archaeology and Mummification.

This lecture (and limited demonstration) will provide a brief, general introduction to the ideas behind Experimental Archaeology and its application to Egyptology. This will be illustrated by a group of experimental mummifications of animals carried out recently at the American University in Cairo, as well as a modest demonstration on choice cuts of meat from a local butcher.

Please note: Some of the images in this presentation are graphic.

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Rosalind Janssen (Birbeck College)

Textile Demonstration

The aim of this innovative workshop is to demonstrate the role of experimental archaeology in conducting research. We will use exact replicas of four so-called wooden ‘pleating boards’ surviving in museums in Turin, Florence, and London, together with different qualities of linen dating from the time of the Second World War. Our practical attempts will enable us to contemplate just how the Egyptians created their famous pleated diaphanous garments. The results are guaranteed to be surprising!

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Janet Johnstone (Egyptian Cultural Heritage Organisation)

Practical Dressmaking for Ancient Egyptians: Ancient Sewing Techniques and Replica Clothing Construction.

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Geoffrey Killen

Ancient Egyptian Woodworking

A practical demonstration and short illustrated talk of those woodworking tools used by Ancient Egyptian carpenters. A discussion of the tools marks that can be identified on woodwork including attempts to turn wood using a simple replica lathe similar to that illustrated in the tomb of Petosiris.

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Marquardt Lund

Flintknapping scenes from the Beni-Hasan tombs viewed and interpreted by a contemporary flintknapper.

Two flint knapping related scenes are known from the Middle Kingdom tombs at Beni Hasan. These had formerly been questioned as to whether they were closely related to the true ancient manufacturing process. Recent experiments indicate that it seems possible that several details were indeed accurately depicted.

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Sally McAleely (University College London)

Experimental Recreation of an Ancient Egyptian Funerary Garland Found on the Mummy of Ramesses II.

Experimental archaeology is a valid and well tried methodology for interpreting archaeological evidence. It enables us to explore practical aspects of past technologies, giving insights into prowess and the chaîne opératoire, and in my view also provides a platform to explore aspects of human cognition, namely the notions of savoir-faire and connaissance, through practical experience.

This paper discusses these theoretical concepts and their contribution to the interpretation of artefacts; describes the experimental reconstruction of an ancient Egyptian garland found on the mummy of Ramesses II; and shows how experimental archaeology was used to address a number of research questions.

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Paul Nicholson (School of history and Archaeology, Cardiff University)

Could the Egyptians Make Glass? An Integrated Approach to Experimental Archaeology.

The question of whether or not the Egyptians could make their own glass, rather than simply working glass from imported raw material, has been a vexed one. This paper examines the debate over the evidence for glass working in Egypt and demonstrates how an experimental approach has been used to in combination with archaeological evidence in order to provide a possible answer to this question. Emphasis is put on the strengths and limitations of the experimental approach.

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Pauline Norris

Keeping the Horse in Front of the Chariot: Experiments and Observations on Harnessing and Handling Horses in Ancient Egypt.

Early harness systems were based on the use of the ox as the source of motive power. The anatomy of the bovine species differs greatly from that of the equine species and the ox harness was unsuitable and inefficient for use with horses.

In 1983 Spruytte published a short treatise about his experiments in testing the harness systems depicted in Egyptian art and the first part of the paper examines these experiments.

The second part looks at what can be learned from Egyptian art about how well the Egyptians understood the behaviour of horses and how this influenced the ways in which they handled their animals. A number of depictions may have been misinterpreted by earlier researchers and some alternative interpretations are suggested.

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Richard Parkinson (British Museum) and Barbara Ewing (actress)

Experimental Philology: Performing Ancient Egyptian Poetry

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Ann Richards

Could Ancient Egyptian Textiles Have Pleated Themselves?

It is widely assumed that, in Ancient Egypt, all pleated linens were produced by imposing pleats on finished fabrics, either by hand or using pleating boards. However Rosalind Janssen has suggested that some fabrics may have been woven in such a way that they pleated ‘naturally’ when washed. I am a weaver who makes extensive use of such spontaneous pleating techniques in my own textiles. I will explain the mechanisms involved and describe experiments I have carried out, with various yarn thicknesses, twists and densities, to investigate the possibility that Ancient Egyptian textiles could have pleated themselves.

Ann Richards is a designer/maker specialising in textiles with ‘naturally emerging’ textures. She has exhibited widely and has work in a number of public collections. She was formerly a lecturer in woven textiles at the University of the Creative Arts, Farnham.

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Donald Ryan

Reed Boat Building: Early Experiments

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Denys Stocks (Consultant Experimental Scholar)

Some Experiments in Ancient Egyptian Stone Technology

This paper will be presented in two parts. The first part discusses the tools and techniques for ancient Egyptian stone vessel manufacture, covering key processes and tools that stretched from Predynastic times to the end of Egyptian civilization. Important epigraphic and archaeological evidence will be introduced and examined, with appropriate illustrations, together with the manner that this evidence, combined with mechanical engineering training, directed the experimental manufacture, evaluation and use of reconstructed tools for creating vessels of different shapes, which were made of both hard and soft stones. These reconstructed tools will be demonstrated to conference members for shaping, for drilling and for boring two replica stone vessels: ancient design ideas for tools, using plant’s structural features, will also be scrutinized.

The paper’s illustrated second part concentrates upon the development of a multiple, simultaneous stone bead drilling procedure that developed in the New Kingdom Period at Thebes , Upper Egypt , and which is illustrated in six private tombs. This remarkable development replaced single bead-drilling methods to make the threading hole, ushering in a new and exciting manufacturing technique that dramatically speeded up the most difficult part of manufacturing hard stone beads. The experiments needed to make and test the drilling tools will be described in detail. Drilling up to five beads simultaneously by one worker, in the same time period for drilling a threading hole in a single bead, considerably lowered the economic cost of producing many types of jewellery. Both the single and multiple drilling techniques will be demonstrated to conference members using a flint tool, a replica single bead drill and the reconstructed multiple bead drilling tools. Related ancient technological methods and materials will be discussed while demonstrations take place.

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Kasia Szpakowska (Swansea University)

Making and Breaking Ritual Figurines

Clay figures shaped like rearing cobras were prevalent in Ancient Egyptian settlements and military installations in the Late Bronze Age. All the evidence points to them having been used in religious rituals, the details of which are as yet unclear. As part of a project to help us understand these figures (how were they used? who used them? who made them? what for?) a short presentation will be made, followed by a hands-on workshop during which we will form cobra figurines from clay. Pre-made figures will also be broken to see if patterns emerge providing clues as to whether they were broken ritually or accidentally. Because this is a hand-on workshop, there is room for only 50 people, and separate enrolment will be required (children are welcome!)

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Willeke Wendrich (Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, University of California)

Apprenticeship as a Research Method

The study of ancient technology, understanding the chaîne opératoire, the physical and social contexts, as well as the history of economics, distribution, use and discard, benefits greatly from hands on experience by the researcher. Traditional apprenticeships to master a technique typically take multiple years of increasingly advanced steps. A researcher who lacks this experience and tries to understand very particular archaeological and technological questions, may come to skewed or false conclusions. In order to avoid failure of experiments, and understand the difficulties of particular technologies a sound research strategy is to take on an abbreviated apprenticeship. Learning from the specialists, and benefiting directly from their experience by involving them closely in the experiments thus puts apprenticeship at the cross-roads of ethnoarchaeology and experimental archaeology.

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