Elephantine

Elephantine

Examination of an ancient Egyptian settlement of the late 4th millennium BC up to the early medieval period. The head department of the German Archaeological Institute in Berlin is supervising the project.

Location

Elephantine: Überblick

The ancient city is located on an island in the Nile opposite the modern town of Aswan, at the political southern border of Egypt during the dynastic/pharaonic period.

History

According to the traces of settlement dating to the Predynastic Period (as of 3300 BC) and to the oldest sanctuary on the island, the temple of Satet from c. 3200 BC onwards, the area of settlement -measuring 100 x 300 m in the early 3rd millennium BC- was fortified by a city wall. Up to the Graeco-Roman period the religious centres of the city, among them the temple of Khnum dating back to the early 2nd millennium BC, were continuously renewed and extended. Already during the 1st millennium BC the concentration of the settlement gradually shifted to the settlement of Syene on the mainland and the town began to take on the character of a temple town. The settlement-mound was deserted during the 13th/14th century BC in favour of a settlement near the shore of the island. 

Objectives

The main goal of the excavation in Elephantine is to gain a comprehensive picture of an ancient Egyptian town as a whole. This encompasses living- and commercial quarters, shrines and administrative buildings, fortifications and tombs throughout the duration of their historic development. The economic basis, e.g. living conditions and cult customs, should be examined just like the general organisation of the community, with its changes under ecological and political influences. 

History of Research

Since the first French and German archaeological investigations at the beginning of the 20th century, and the Egyptian excavations in the 1930s and 1940s, during which the shrine of Heqaib with its considerable collection of private statues from the Middle Kingdom was unearthed, there have been 30 campaigns of the German Archaeological Institute in co-operation with the Swiss Institute for architectural and archaeological research in Egypt. 

Previous Activities

At the beginning, the excavations concentrated on the temple of Satet and of Khnum. Since the 1980s large parts of the settlement of the 3rd millennium BC - 1st millennium AD, as also the island necropolis of the Old and Middle Kingdom, have been investigated. Parallel to the analysis of the excavation, the groups of finds have been examined in numerous Master- and PhD theses. 

Current Work

The current excavations focus on the palace and the area bordering the city to the south-east which date to the 3rd and 2nd millennium BC, the Late-Roman settlement near the temple of Khnum and the temple terraces and bank reinforcements near the harbour of the town. 

Methods

	Satet-Temple of the 18th Dynasty (ca. 1400 BC)

The settlement was built on in part very uneven ground and primarily with mud bricks. Thanks to the location, which protects it from floods, it is remarkably well preserved. The method of working has to be minute and stratigraphically very fine. One of the goals of the project is to make the area accessible and comprehensible for the public. Thus, there have been numerous reconstruction projects in the past years. Special mention should go to the reconstruction of the temple of Satet from the 18th Dynasty on a concrete platform, under which the temple of the Old Kingdom was rebuilt too. 

Results

	Plan of the town during the Middle Kingdom (ca. 2119-1794 BC)

The examinations have led to a, for Egyptian archaeology, unique view of the development of individual buildings and the structure of the town on the whole. The temple of Satet shows the development of a city shrine from its beginnings as a mud brick hut in a rock alcove, throughout c. 30 developmental stages to the new Ptolemaic temple of the 2nd century BC.
The development of the town is representative for a row of time periods. It shows a small island settlement that evolved to the fortified trade and border site of the 3rd-2nd millennium BC and later to a city, in which during Graeco-Roman time the temples dedicated to gods, their economic structures and houses for the priests dominated.

Translation by Justine Gesell

Cooperation

Since 1969 the project has been carried out in collaboration with the Swiss Institute for Architectural and Archaeological Research in Egypt. Joint projects are also being carried out with the Academy of Sciences Warsaw and the SMPK Berlin. Due to research grants, PhD theses and Master theses there are connections to the Universities of Basle, Göttingen, Hamburg, Heidelberg, Hanover, Leipzig, Münster and Würzburg.

IEMAR
Institute of Architectural Sciences
Digital Architecture and Planning (259.1)
University of Vienna
Contact:
Dr. Peter Ferschin, Andreas Jonas und Iman Kulitz 

Contact

Dr. phil. Dietrich Raue

Ägyptologie
Telefon: +20-(0)2-2735-1460, - 2735-2321
Telefax: +20-(0)2-2737-0770
Email: raue@kairo.dainst.org
Further Email Addresses: raue@soficom.com.eg

Further Contact Partners

Cornelius von Pilgrim (Director of the Swiss Institute)
Schweizer Institut für Ägyptische Bauforschung und Altertumskunde
11/13, Sh. El-Mahaad El-Swissry
Cairo-Zamalek

Bibliography

W. Kaiser, Elephantine - Die antike Stadt (Führungsheft, 1998)
G. Dreyer, Der Tempel der Satet. Die Funde der Frühzeit und des Alten Reiches, Elephantine VIII, Mainz 1986
H. Jaritz, Die Terrassen vor den Tempeln des Chnum und der Satet, Elephantine III, Mainz 1980
M. Ziermann, Befestigungsanlagen und Stadtentwicklung in der Frühzeit und im frühen Alten Reich, Elephantine XVI, Mainz 1993
C. v. Pilgrim, Untersuchung in der Stadt des Mittleren Reiches und der Zweiten Zwischenzeit, Elephantine XVIII, Mainz 1996

Elephantine - English Reports