Picture (im)perfect

Hello again from CLA (or at least from our home offices)! As we’ve mentioned before, conservators love to look at records relating to the objects we’re treating. It helps us to gain insights into the artifact’s history and gives us context for what we see on the bench in front of us. While we don’t always have exhaustive information about every single piece, it’s always interesting to do a little research when we can. One of our recent blog posts discussed how we’ve used archaeological renderings to understand traces of colors on our objects; this post will take a look at how photographic records can inform us about the current condition of the pieces.

Photograph of the Penn Museum Archives
A view of the Penn Museum Archives.
Each of these boxes is filled with a treasure trove of information.

Before the CLA team dove into the hands-on work last fall, we took a trip to the museum’s extensive archive collection to do some digging into the history of Merenptah’s palace. With the help of Alex Pezzati, Senior Archivist, we were able to read through the records of the excavation, led by Clarence Fisher from 1915-1920. Our research was also guided by the work of Dr. Kevin Cahail, whose own forays into the archives have revealed a lot of missing details about the site. He was able to provide a lot of insights into what we were seeing in the photographs.

One of the things that impressed us most about the excavation images is the sheer scale of the architecture. While we’re very familiar with our columns and doorways by now, it’s quite another thing to see them in situ. The picture below shows columns and pylons (trapezoidal gateways) from Merenptah’s Coronation Chapel. These objects were previously exhibited at half height because the ceilings in the downstairs gallery were too low, but they’re about 25 feet tall. Part of our project for the new galleries is to figure out how to display these columns at their full height so museum visitors can experience them the way the Egyptians would have. In the meantime, it’s a useful reminder to look at images like this to remind ourselves that they stood for several thousand years!

Site image of the Coronation Chapel during excavation
The Coronation Chapel mostly excavated. The columns would have had capitals, but otherwise are at their full height.

Another thing you might notice in that image is all the water on the ground. The site is in the Nile flood plain and experienced several very wet seasons. We could tell from the current condition of the stone that it had been waterlogged. Stone is often thought of as being hard and unchangeable, but this particular Egyptian limestone contains a lot of clay, so it becomes very soft when wet. Fisher’s notes talk about how fragile the stone was, and ultimately how they made the decision to bring the pieces back to Penn before they deteriorated even more. The stone was still damp when it was wrapped in linen and packed into wooden crates – which explains the fabric impressions we see in the surface of some of the pieces.

Workers preparing columns for shipping and stone with textile impressions
(Left) Workers preparing the column pieces for shipping. (Right) An example of the stone surface with impressions of the textile weave.

Images from the site are incredibly useful tools when we’re looking at damage to an object and trying to determine the cause – whether the damage occurred before excavation or due to more recent changes. They’re also helpful when we’re trying to figure out the extent of old repairs. When the pylon pieces were installed in the gallery in the 1920s, they were extensively restored with plaster and paint. We could also tell that some lost stone had been replaced with bricks and cement, but it was difficult to tell where the restoration ended and the stone began. Fortunately, there were a lot of pictures taken of the coronation chapel while it was being excavated.

Coronation Chapel pylon
(Left) The left pylon during excavation. Notice that the row of figures second from bottom is almost completely lost. (Right) The same object with plaster reconstruction. The detail was based on the other pylon, which is much more intact.

Looking at the original photographs of the left pylon, we could tell that it had already suffered significant surface loss to the bottom and middle sections. We could also see that even though it was still standing, the middle part had broken into several pieces. Using that knowledge during the deinstallation process, we were able to rig around the damaged areas and to remove the old restoration material so the pieces could be separated. When the pylons are reinstalled in the renovated galleries, they will be safely displayed on custom steel support structures. We’re working on how to replicate the decoration, but we’ll make it clear what is original and what is new.

During our time in the archives, we discovered one thing that hasn’t changed much – archaeologists love site dogs.

Site animals
Some pictures of very good dig dogs over the years… and one very cute baby fox (bottom left)!

A Puzzling Project at Villa La Pietra, NYU Florence

by Adrienne Gendron

I am a graduate student at the Conservation Center at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University, and I’m spending the majority of my summer here at the Penn Museum as part of my training to become a professional conservator. In late June, I took a break from the Artifact Lab and traveled to Villa La Pietra in Florence along with fellow classmate Andy Wolf to work on a conservation project.

Villa La Pietra houses an expansive and diverse collection that came into the ownership of New York University from the Acton family in 1994. The Actons were art collectors from England and the US who lived in Florence from the early 1900s onward. Every year, NYU students from a variety of programs travel to Florence to work on educational projects at the estate.

The main building at Villa La Pietra, where the collections and the conservation studio are housed.

For the span of a week, Andy and I worked under the supervision of Pamela Hatchfield (Robert P. and Carol T. Henderson Head of Objects Conservation at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston) to perform a complex treatment on a 17th century majolica pharmacy jar. The jar had fallen off a high bookshelf during an earthquake in 2013 and broken into 40 major pieces and innumerable tiny flakes and chips. Conservators often need to differentiate between different types of physical changes that may occur during an object’s lifetime and may choose not to intervene if an object is stable. In this case, because the damage caused by the earthquake was very recent and extensive, we decided to proceed with reconstructing the jar and minimizing the damage as much as possible.

The main fragments of the pharmacy jar.
The many fragments and chips associated with the jar.

After documenting the damage and finding the locations of each major fragment, it was time to assemble. Andy and I realized that because of the geometries of the fragments, we would have to build most of the jar in one session so the adhesive would remain tacky enough to make necessary adjustments. So, after some deep breathing exercises and words of encouragement from our supervisor, we began the assembly process.

The first pieces assembled (left) with the remaining fragments ready to go (right).

Typically, conservators like to reassemble broken ceramics from the bottom up. That was not possible in this case because half of the jar’s foot had been completely shattered in the earthquake damage. Instead, Andy and I decided to assemble the piece upside down starting from the rim.

The assembly of the main body of the vessel took about 3.5 hours from start to finish. Andy and I worked closely together during the entire process, using pieces of black electrical tape to secure the pieces in place while they dried. We were fortunate that the outer surface was stable enough that the tape could be used safely.

The pot nearly assembled. The stretchy black electrical tape assures that the joins stay tight while the adhesive dries and can be safely removed after drying is complete.

After the main part of the assembly, it was time to work on the shattered foot. This was the most challenging part of the entire treatment. After many hours of searching through a sea of tiny fragments, I was able to reconstruct the profile of the missing outer edge of the foot from sixteen individual pieces. 

About one half of the outer edge of the foot was shattered during the earthquake (in this image, the jar is oriented upside down).
The reconstructed outer profile of the missing part of the foot, which was previously in sixteen tiny pieces.

Andy and I worked together to take a mold of the intact side of the foot to use as a guide for matching the curve of the shattered side. Then, we put the missing outer profile in place, using a stable fill material to bridge the gap between the outer edge and the interior of the break line.

The reconstructed profile of the foot in place. The white material is a reversible facing we applied to protect the delicate fragments during assembly.

There’s only so much that can be accomplished in a week, and by the end of our trip Andy and I had just begun filling the remaining losses. The pharmacy jar will be waiting for another team of students next summer, who will take it to completion by disguising the cracks and losses associated with the earthquake damage.

The reassembled pharmacy jar at the end of our trip.

Somehow, on top of our work with the pharmacy jar, we managed to visit six museums and churches! And, of course, we ate plenty of delicious pizza, pasta, and gelato. I’m so grateful for the opportunity to work at the Villa this summer, and I’m excited to return in future years.

From left to right: Pamela Hatchfield, Adrienne Gendron, and Andy Wolf with the reassembled pharmacy jar.

The Desalination Station II: The Salty Pot Field Diaries

by Tessa de Alarcon

So I have written before about desalination to stabilize ceramics with soluble salts, but this time I’m going out into the world, and setting up a desalination station for the Naxcivan Archaeological Project in Azerbaijan.

I had been given a heads up from colleagues Brittany Dolph Dinneen (the previous conservator on site) and Jennifer Swerida (project registrar), that soluble salts may be an issue with the ceramics from the project’s excavations. Salts can be tricky to identify with freshly excavated material, as the ceramic vessels won’t have visible issues until a while after their excavation; once the salts from the burial environment have had time to go through a few cycles of crystallization and deliquescence.

Before treatment image of QQ.15.155: the white haze is from soluble salts

Here at on the Naxcivan Archaeological project, the salts are mostly manifesting as a white haze over the surface of ceramics.

Detail of QQ-15-193 showing small salt crystals, rather than just hazing, on the surface.

A few are also showing clear crystallization, but the hazing has been the more frequent symptom of the salt problem, especially as this hazing was not observed when they were first excavated.

Detail of QQ-15-155: the poultice in place.

To confirm that what we were seeing was in fact soluble salts, I poultice the surface.

Detail of QQ-15-155: after the poultice was removed

Once the cotton poultice was dry, I removed it from the surface, re-wet and checked the conductivity, and tested it for nitrates and chlorides with test strips (there are lots of other types of soluble salts, but these are two common ones that are easy to test for). The results were positive, and as you can see the poultice also removed the white haze clearly showing how soluble these salts are.

Here Calypso Owen and I are filtering water from the sink with a deionizing column to get salt free water.

The next step is getting the water, and while we used to use a similar system at the museum to make deionized water, the scenery is pretty different.

Salty ceramics soaking in deionized water: the tags outside the buckets are being used to help track the objects during treatment.

The pot then soaked for a day, while I checked the conductivity until it reached the end point of the desalination process.

Desalinated ceramics after they are removed from the water and are now drying: again the tags are moving with the objects so we can track them.

Once it was removed from the water I rinsed it with fresh clean water, blotted it dry, then left it to air dry.

QQ.15.155 after treatment: white haze free!

Finally, here is the bowl after desalination. As you can see it is now white haze free. Most importantly, it can now be handed over to the Naxcivan Museum with no risk of damage from ongoing salt cycles.

View from the current excavation: Azerbaijan is beautiful

As a final note, it has not been all work, I did get to hike up to the current excavation and I wanted to end on this photo taken from the site, as Azerbaijan is stunning, and I can’t resist the opportunity to share.

Update from the Gordion Excavations

Julia Commander is a third-year graduate student in the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation. She is currently completing a curriculum internship at the Penn Museum.

In my last post, I introduced the Gordion Archaeological Project and what I’ve been up to as a conservation intern here. The season has continued at a quick pace, with a steady stream of incoming small finds and projects at the Gordion Museum.

While some objects only require a light cleaning, others can take a few days to process. I mentioned two pairs of copper alloy tweezers, and second pair has now been fully treated. In addition to mechanical cleaning, the copper alloy object was treated with the corrosion inhibitor benzotriazole, also called BTA. Objects are immersed in the solution and placed in a vacuum chamber to ensure effective application. The corrosion inhibitor is then protected by a coating of dilute acrylic resin. After these treatment steps, any structural breaks can be reconstructed and joined with an adhesive. For objects with weak points that may be susceptible to further breakage, small supports can be added to the housing. Here I included an Ethafoam support with a cavity cut out to hold the pair of tweezers.

Copper alloy objects are rinsed with acetone prior to treatment with BTA, a corrosion inhibitor.

Copper alloy objects drying after treatment. This group includes an arrowhead, a fibula, tweezers, and a decorative fitting.

Another example is this small ceramic figurine fragment. In this case, the female figure has a stable structure but a very delicate pigmented surface. The pigment was consolidated with a dilute adhesive mixture, applied by pipette to avoid any action on the surface. To further protect the surface, the figure was cavity packed with a layer of smooth Tyvek, which will prevent abrasion and further pigment loss.

Ceramic figurine fragment in protective housing, made from an Ethafoam cavity with smooth Tyvek barrier.

Processing small finds often involves unexpected discoveries. While working on a small ceramic vessel, I was interested to learn what was contained inside. One of the best parts about working on site is the opportunity for immediate collaboration. After talking about the soil samples with an archaeobotany student, I knew to expect small bones in the vessel interior, potentially from a mouse. After pulling out many, many vertebrae and rib bones, I consulted our zooarchaeologist to figure out what the bones may be. There were no signs of a skull, which likely deteriorated further due to its fragility. However, the other bones indicated not a mouse but a snake coiled inside the vessel. We can’t say what the snake was doing there, but all the associated bones and soil will be kept for potential further study.

Excavating the interior of a small intact jug.

Small rib and vertebrae bones, likely from a snake, from the interior of the jug.

During the season, we’ve also had some very large finds in the active excavation areas. This includes a large ceramic pithos that was found almost completely intact. In this case, conservation made several site visits to consult about techniques for supporting and lifting the object. After padding the interior of the vessel, we added supportive wrapping over a thick layer of dirt that was left as protective casing. This process helps minimize damage from physical forces and also keeps fragments in place if they happen to detach.

As I get ready to wrap up my time here at Gordion, I was lucky to have the opportunity to see the site from a new perspective. Along with several colleagues, I was able to take a hot air balloon ride over Yassıhöyük and some of Gordion’s many burial mounds.We enjoyed magnificent aerial views of our workspace!

Aerial view of the citadel mound with active excavations.

Hello from Gordion!

Julia Commander is a third-year graduate student in the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation. She is currently completing a curriculum internship at the Penn Museum.

As part of my internship year, I’m spending a month at the Gordion Excavations in the small town of Yassıhöyük, Turkey. This site, the capital city of ancient Phrygia, has been excavated by the University of Pennsylvania since the 1950’s. As a student interested in archaeological conservation, gaining experience with material in the field is an exciting learning process.

The Gordion dig house.

The conservation lab within the dig house compound.

Our home base is a small lab in the dig compound, where we work on processing whatever the excavators find. This year, we have a large amount of iron and copper alloy material. The metals are corroded and fragile, but many retain interesting details and clues about their use. Some of my favorite small finds so far are these two pairs of copper alloy tweezers, including a miniature version! Cleaning involves mechanical removal of dirt and corrosion products, followed by the application of a corrosion inhibitor for the copper alloy.

Two pairs of tweezers recovered as small finds and modern tweezers for scale. The miniature pair (left) has already been treated by reducing dirt and corrosion products.

We also consistently have a lot of ceramic material. Most of the ceramics are washed, sorted, and stored as bulk pottery, although particularly significant or interesting fragments come to the lab. This category includes painted tiles, inscribed or elaborately decorated fragments, and vessels that can be reconstructed. In the lab, we set up containers for desalination treatments, where ceramics are soaked in filtered water to slowly reduce salt content. These salts came from the burial environment, and they can cause damage over time if they remain in high concentrations. The process factors in ceramic weight, water volume, and time to tailor a treatment plan for each object.

Desalination set-up. Each container holds a ceramic object or fragment, and the soaking process reduces salts in the material.

In addition to keeping up with the current excavations, the conservation team works on projects with researchers and the local Gordion Museum. For researchers, accurately recording artifacts often involves detailed measuring and drawing. Conservators contribute to the process by joining fragments and reconstructing objects so that they can be documented. We also have ongoing preservation projects at the museum to make sure that objects are stored properly and stable over time. One example is the use of silica gel, which can help control humidity in storage housings.

Working on site moves at a quick pace, but there’s still time for exploring. One of my favorite near by sites is Midas City, known for its monumental rock carvings. Visiting different sites and museums, such as the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, helps contextualize my work and adds to the experience. There’s still more to come from this busy season!

The Midas Monument at Midas City.

Summer 2016 Conservation in South Abydos

I just returned from spending almost 3 weeks in Egypt on the Penn excavations in South Abydos. This was my second time on the project (I went for the first time last December/January). I specifically returned to continue work on the wall paintings in the burial chamber of pharaoh Senebkay and to provide additional conservation support for the project during my time there, which included object treatment, documentation, and block-lifting an extremely fragile wooden coffin fragment.

A view of the site in South Abydos, with Senebkay's burial chamber covered with a temporary shelter in the foreground

A view of the site in South Abydos, with Senebkay’s burial chamber covered with a temporary shelter in the foreground

I joined Dr. Josef Wegner (Joe) and his team at the end of their time in the field, so by the time I arrived, the season was well underway and everyone was doing their best to keep from melting in the exceedingly high temperatures and intense sun of the Upper Egyptian desert climate (think, getting up before sunrise to start working and during the hottest part of the day, sitting in front of a fan in a dark room).

There are times of the day when all you want to do is find a cool place to rest.

There are times of the day when all you want to do is find a cool place to rest.

Most of my days in Abydos were spent primarily in the field, working on the painted surfaces and limestone blocks in the burial chamber of pharaoh Senebkay. The work involved continuation of cleaning the limestone blocks, paint consolidation, stabilization of flaking limestone, and inpainting select missing areas of the painted decoration.

In the process of cleaning the painted surface in Senebkay's burial chamber

In the process of cleaning the painted surface in Senebkay’s burial chamber

I was fortunate this season to be joined by conservator Danny Doyle, who had worked on Senebkay’s burial chamber exactly a year ago, and who was also returning to Abydos for a second time. We had additional conservation support from the Egyptian conservation inspectors.

Danny working in the tomb (left) and myself, Yehia, one of the Egyptian conservation inspectors, and Danny in the tomb

Danny working in the tomb (left) and myself, Yehia (one of the Egyptian conservation inspectors), and Danny in the tomb

This season we also made the decision to open up the tomb chamber adjacent to the burial chamber to block lift a very fragile wooden coffin fragment. This fragment was left in place in previous seasons due to its fragile condition. Danny and I stabilized it, block lifted it, and we brought it back to the dig house to further clean, stabilize, and document.

A view of me working on the coffin fragment taken from the burial chamber (left), Danny working on the fragment in situ (center) and back in the lab (right)

A view from the burial chamber of me working on the coffin fragment (left), Danny working on the fragment in situ (center) and back in the lab (right)

In addition to the work in the field there was other work to do in the lab, including cleaning, consolidating, and mending fragments from a limestone stela, also from Senebkay’s tomb.

An overall view of the stela (left) and mending a detached fragment (right)

An overall view of the stela (left) and a mended fragment being supported while drying (right)

Following the conservation treatment, I assisted Joe in RTI imaging of the stela, capturing overall shots, and then details of specific areas of interest. For those unfamiliar with RTI (reflectance transformation imaging), it is a computational photographic method where you capture a bunch of images of an object from a fixed position while you move the light source around the object, illuminating it from different angles. An interactive RTI viewer tool allows you to use these images to enhance the surface features of an object which often reveals details not observed under regular lighting conditions. Dr. Jennifer Wegner worked on the translation of the text on this stela this season, and capturing these RTI images will allow this work to continue back at the Penn Museum. (More on RTI and how we use it here.)

Here is our amazing RTI setup - as you can see, Joe was happy that everything appears to be working properly (at this moment anyway).

Here is our amazing RTI setup – as you can see, Joe was happy that everything appears to be working properly (at this moment anyway). This image also gives you a sense of scale – this limestone stela is HUGE.

I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to return to Abydos, to continue to learn about this complex site, and to contribute to the long-term preservation of the finds. Besides the work, and our efforts to stay as cool as possible, we also played a lot of bocce in the evenings, and even celebrated a couple birthdays!

A competitive game of bocce in progress (left) and a party-pooped kitten (right)

A competitive game of bocce in progress (left) and a party-pooped kitten (right) (kitten photo by Jen Wegner)

Finally, I have to say that while being in Egypt was really exciting, there was plenty of exciting work happening right here in the museum the entire time I was gone. Since I left, nearly both of the large-scale Buddhist murals in the Chinese Rotunda have been taken down (thanks to the hard work, sweat, and hopefully no tears from an amazing team of conservators and riggers), the Egyptian storage move project is clipping along at an incredible rate, and there has otherwise been a whirlwind of activity in the department.

There isn't much left of those murals in the Rotunda. The left one is completely gone and the right one will be gone by next week.

There isn’t much left of the Buddhist murals in the Rotunda. The left one is completely gone and the one on the right will be gone by next week.

Kudos to all of my colleagues for keeping this all up while also holding down the fort in the Artifact Lab in my absence!

 

 

Report from the field: Conservation in the burial chamber of king Woseribre-Senebkay

I’m back from Abydos! I thought I’d follow up on my last blogpost about my time in the field with some more specific information about the conservation work I was carrying out in the burial chamber of king Woseribre-Senebkay.

King Senebkay’s tomb was discovered and excavated in the 2013-2014 winter field season. The tomb dates to the later Second Intermediate period, to the Hyksos era, ca. 1650-1600 BCE, is in close proximity to the tombs of Senwosret III and Sobekhotep IV, and is part of a larger cluster of Second Intermediate period tombs. It consists of 4 chambers, the final being a limestone burial chamber with painted decoration. Based on observations and interpretation by Drs. Wegner and Cahail, the tomb was built fairly quickly and the painted decoration does not appear complete.

View of the exposed burial chamber with temporary wooden structure on day 1 of the conservation project

View of the exposed burial chamber with temporary wooden structure on day 1 of the conservation project

Another important feature of the burial chamber is that the limestone blocks were reused and much of the previous decoration is still visible. The blocks were disassembled from a group of mortuary chapels of high-ranking officials of the mid-late 13th Dynasty.

The previous decoration on the resused blocks is visible in many areas (indicated with red arrows in the image on the left) and in some areas there is still paint remaining (circled on the right)

The previous decoration on the reused blocks is visible in many areas (indicated with red arrows on the image on the left, surrounding the paintings that date to Senebkay’s burial) and in some areas there is still paint remaining in the previous decoration (circled on the right)

I won’t go into any more detail about the significance of Senebkay’s tomb and these features – this has been written about extensively elsewhere and I’ll provide links for more information below.

I was asked to join the team this season to work on the painted decoration in the burial chamber. During the previous season, the burial chamber needed to be stabilized (new mortar joins between blocks and replacement of missing blocks). In order to protect the paintings, another conservator was able to carry out some consolidation of the paintings and then covered the painted areas with cyclododecane and aluminum foil. At the end of the season, the tomb was backfilled.

Protective foil over the paintings on the east wall of the burial chamber, day 1

Protective foil over the paintings on the east wall of the burial chamber after the backfill was removed, day 1 of the conservation project

My goal for this season was to continue paint consolidation, to reattach detached stone fragments, to inpaint the new mortar fills in select areas, and to prepare the tomb for backfilling. A permanent structure will be constructed around the tomb later this year, but in order to protect the tomb until this can happen, it needed to be filled back in with sand and completely covered.

When I arrived on site, the first thing that I did was to remove the aluminum foil from the paintings and to examine them carefully. Due to timing/logistics it was not possible to uncover them before I arrived, so what I found under the foil was that there was still a lot of cyclododecane left on the surface of the paintings.

A detail of one of the goddesses - the hazy white substance over the surface is the cyclododecane, applied during the previous field season

A detail of one of the goddesses – the hazy white substance over the surface is the cyclododecane, applied during the previous field season

I’ve never mentioned cyclododecane (CDD) on this blog before. CDD is a cyclic hydrocarbon (C12H24), a solid wax that slowly sublimes at room temperature and it is used as a temporary consolidant, to protect fragile and sensitive surfaces during treatment, and it has become a very useful material for archaeological conservators to help with lifting fragile materials in the field. Check out this link for a video to learn more about it and how it is used.

While I tried several techniques to speed up the sublimation of the CDD in the end I wasn’t able to remove it everywhere because the painted surface below was so fragile and susceptible to abrasion. So, like anyone who has worked on an excavation must do, I made it work! With the help of my Egyptian conservator colleague, I focused on consolidating all of the exposed painted decoration, on cleaning select areas, and on the repair and inpainting work I mentioned previously. I’m going to show some of this work in photos below.

Senebkay's cartouche before removal of hornet's nest remnants (left, indicated with red arrow) and after cleaning (right)

Senebkay’s cartouche before removal of hornet’s nest remnants (left, indicated with red arrow) and after cleaning (right)

A detail of a column in the burial chamber before (left) and after repair of a detached fragment (right)

A detail of a column in the burial chamber before (left) and after repair of a detached painted stone fragment (right)

One of the goddesses (Isis or Nephthys) before (left) and after (right) inpainting and replacement of detached fragment (red arrow)

One of the goddesses (Isis or Nephthys) before (left) and after (right) inpainting and replacement of detached fragment (red arrow)

Two days before we were set to leave, I consolidated the most vulnerable painted decoration with CDD, and then we carefully draped cotton fabric over all of the painted areas.

Heating the cyclododecane over a small portable stove on site

Heating the cyclododecane over a small portable stove on site

Cotton fabric draped over the tomb walls (left) and a shot during backfilling (right)

Cotton fabric draped over the tomb walls (left) and a shot during backfilling (right)

On our last day in the field, the chamber was backfilled with the sand that was removed from it previously, which will protect the tomb until the next season.

In addition to my work on site, I had the opportunity to work on some of the small finds from previous and ongoing excavations while in the dighouse in the afternoons, and the team generously made it possible for me to do some sightseeing during my time there as well, which rounded out the experience nicely.

A view walking into the Temple of Seti I (left) and a shot of Dr. Jen Wegner inside one of the chapels in the temple (right)

A view walking into the Temple of Seti I (left) and a shot of Dr. Jen Wegner inside one of the chapels in the temple (right)

After 3 years of working on the Egyptian collections at the Penn Museum, I was so grateful to have had this opportunity to go to Egypt – this experience not only allowed me to expand my conservation skills and understanding of our significant collection, but it gave me a much deeper appreciation for the exciting work that is ongoing in Abydos. I hope there will be an opportunity to return!

For more information about the excavations in Abydos, check out these articles:

Wegner, Josef. 2014. “Discovering Pharaohs Sobekhotep & Senebkay” Expedition Magazine 56.1 (April 2014). Penn Museum. http://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/?p=20698>

Wegner, Josef and Kevin Cahail. 2015. “Royal Funerary Equipment of a King Sobekhotep at South Abydos: Evidence for the Tombs of Sobekhotep IV and Neferhotep I?” Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, Vol. 51, pp. 123-164.

Wegner, Josef. 2015. “A Royal Necropolis at South Abydos: New Light on Egypt’s Second Intermediate Period” Near Eastern Archaeology, Vol. 78, No. 2 (June 2015), pp.68-78. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5615/neareastarch.78.2.0068

Cahail, Kevin. 2015. “A Family of Thirteenth Dynasty High Officials: New Evidence from South Abydos.” Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, Vol. 51, pp. 93-122.

Report from the field: week 1 in Abydos

I have been working for the last 2 weeks in Egypt as the field conservator for the Penn excavations in South Abydos (led by Dr. Josef Wegner). I am here primarily to work on the painted decoration in the burial chamber of King Senebkay. It has been a fantastic experience so far, but our remote location, busy work schedule, and intermittent wifi connection has made it challenging to provide real-time updates. There has been so much going on, so instead of writing one long post, I’m going to break it up a bit and start out by posting some photos from my first week in the field. I’ll follow up with more pictures and information soon, but for the moment, enjoy the photos!

Sunrise on site

Sunrise on site

First tea of the morning (quickly followed by more and more tea)

First tea of the morning (quickly followed by more and more tea)

View of the site, with King Senebkay's burial chamber in the foreground

View of the site, with King Senebkay’s burial chamber in the foreground covered with a temporary shelter

Egyptian conservation inspector working in King Senebkay's burial chamber

Egyptian conservation inspector working in King Senebkay’s burial chamber

My conservation supplies for the day

Some of my conservation supplies for the day

Site bathroom (brought out just for me, the only woman out there at the moment)

Site bathroom (so fancy! brought out just for me, the only woman working on site)

Dr. Kevin Cahail standing inside a recently-excavated building

Dr. Kevin Cahail standing inside a recently-excavated building

A view from inside the dighouse

A view from inside the dighouse

Kevin working in the pottery yard

Kevin working in the pottery yard at the dighouse

More soon, I promise.

Egypt-bound

Yes, that’s right, I’m going to Egypt and I’m leaving tonight.

My bag is mostly packed; in there somewhere are a bunch of conservation supplies.

My bag is mostly packed; in there somewhere are a bunch of conservation supplies.

I have the great fortune to be joining the Penn excavations in South Abydos for a couple weeks to carry out conservation work on some of the recent finds. The team is led by Dr. Josef Wegner, Egyptian Section Associate Curator at the Penn Museum. This will be my first visit to Egypt, but not my first time working on an excavation (nor will it be my first time working in a desert in the winter!). I’m really excited for this opportunity and I’m looking forward to seeing in person the sites and finds that I’ve heard so much about over the last 3 years since beginning my job In the Artifact Lab. I’m not sure what kind of updates I’ll be able to provide from the field, but I’ll certainly be posting about my experience once I return in mid-January. Since I’m not there yet, I don’t have any photos to share, but if you want to see some images of the site and read about a graduate student’s recent experience there, check out this blog post on the museum blog for a taste of what I’ll be doing/seeing.

A final report from Abydos

Back in June, we provided an update from the Penn excavations at the mortuary complex of Pharaoh Senwosret III in Abydos. The team has since returned from the field, and graduate student Kevin Cahail generously passed along some photos showing what the project looked like as they were wrapping up in the field. Just as a reminder, the project has concentrated on three principal areas: (1) the subterranean tomb of pharaoh Senwosret III; (2) the mortuary temple and associated structures dedicated to the cult of Senwosret III; and (3) the urban remains of the Middle Kingdom town at South Abydos. You can read a bit more about the project in our first post.

After excavations are complete, the team documents the site by setting up a huge wooden ladder in the middle of the desert, climbing up it, standing at the top, and taking photos. Kevin mentioned that its a great view, but that he did have to put quite a bit of trust into his Egyptian compatriots to hold the ladder steady.

01 Site Photo MethodAnd this is what the view looks like – here is a shot of part of the Cemetery S excavations of 2013:

02 Cemetery SThe mound in the background is mastaba S10 of the Late Middle Kingdom. Three tombs are visible from left to right, CS.8, CS.4, and CS.5. These three tombs date to the New Kingdom.

Following their excavations in the town site of Wah-sut, grad students Paul Verhelst and Shelby Justl are seen here drawing brick plans of the exposed architecture:

03 Paul and Shelby  drawingIn the background the workers begin the process of backfilling the excavated areas.

This shot shows the excavations in the Temple Cemetery, Tomb TC.19:

04 TC19 excavationThis one-room vaulted tomb with a rectangular entrance shaft had been looted in the months before the team arrived in 2013. Despite this, they did recover a fragment from a yellow-type coffin showing the lower portion of some standing gods:

05 TC19 Coffin fragand a wooden coffin hand applique with painted rings:

06 TC19 Coffin handThe last tomb they excavated was TC.20, a tomb which the team discovered belonged to a Scribe by the name of Horemheb.

07 TC20 OverviewTo the left is an overview of the tomb showing a heavy-walled entrance shaft, an antechamber, and in the foreground, the burial chamber.

A third vaulted chamber to the right below the sand remains unexcavated.  The team plans to tackle this next season.

 

 

 

 

 

 

To give you a sense of the size of this tomb, here is a photo of Joe Wegner taking a photo of Kevin from inside TC.20.  Kevin is standing in the entrance shaft, and Joe is in the burial chamber:

08 Joe in TC20And here is a final group photo of the excavation team standing on the recently completed cover building over the tomb of Senwosret III:

09 Final Group PhotoIt was a busy field season and the team intends to return this winter, conditions permitting. We will continue to provide updates on this blog as their project progresses!