Field Diary 2020.1 © Abydos Archaeology
Get ready for a whole new picture of ancient Egyptian beer making & so much more coming up this field season at Abydos—
Fig. 1. Pyrotechnic features that pre-date the early Old Kingdom tomb superstructures in Peet's “Cemetery D.” Each of the circular features is a vat used in beer production. Photo by Ayman Damarany for North Abydos Expedition © 2018
—And we're not talking about just any beer. We're talking about the Ur of beer gardens: an intriguing group of pyrotechnic features first glimpsed by British archaeologist T. E. Peet in 1912 at the far northern edge of the ancient necropolis of Abydos, in what has since turned out to be a large brewery dating all the way back to the late predynastic or Early Dynastic period when Egypt first teetered on the brink of statehood, c. 3100-2900 BCE (Fig. 1). Wait, hang on—what is a 5,000-year-old brewery doing here in the middle of the desert? Let's go back to the beginning of our investigations at this remote corner of the North Cemetery at Abydos in 2018 (Adams & Vischak 2018).
Fig. 2. British Egyptologist Thomas Eric “T.E.” Peet excavated a wide range of areas at Abydos for the Egypt Exploration Fund in the early 1900s, including the early Old Kingdom tombs that have been a focus of our excavations since 2018. Peet's career as a field archaeologist helped lay the foundation for all subsequent fieldwork at Abydos—and he set a pretty high standard with that jacket, too! Photo courtesy of the Griffith Institute © University of Oxford
More than a century had already passed since Peet last set foot in this northernmost margin of the site, when we decided to return here to excavate two seasons ago. We knew from Peet's excavations for the Egypt Exploration Fund that this was the location of the first non-royal burials in the Abydos necropolis during the early Old Kingdom (Figs. 2-4; Peet & Loat 1913). Today, Prof. Deborah Vischak's research at Princeton University focuses on community and society in ancient Egypt, which she has studied extensively through localized forms of material culture and funerary practices in the Old Kingdom (Vischak 2015). The ancient necropolis of Abydos—Egypt's most important religious center, and burial place of its earliest kings—is situated along a low desert terrace between two promontories jutting out from the cliffs that shelter the site in a sandy bay. The private tombs built at the far north end of this terrace in Dynasty 3/4 define a key cultural moment in Egyptian history—one that Deborah Vischak set out to investigate in detail. Who, exactly, were the people that built these tombs? What do the architecture and spatial arrangement of the tombs—clustered around a large mastaba—tell us about the community that lived here? If the whole of the desert terrace had been laid out exclusively for the use of kings early in the First Dynasty, then why did private individuals start moving in after King Khasekhemwy's reign? And why this spot, in particular?
Fig. 3. Early Old Kingdom burial in situ in Peet's “Cemetery D,” first excavated in 1912. The tombs shafts were dug about 1.5m deep, and most of the individuals were placed in a flexed position and covered with a large pottery vessel. Often they were interred with jewelry and pottery, such as beer jars, bread moulds, and polished red “Meydum” bowls, and occasionally finer objects like limestone statuettes. Photo courtesy of the Egypt Exploration Society
Fig. 4.Peet's Cemetery D during the 1912 excavations. After burial (see Fig. 3 at left), a superstructure was built over the opening of each shaft. These tomb superstructures make up the visible architectural features of the Old Kingdom cemetery. Photo courtesy of the Egypt Exploration Society
To answer these questions, in 2018 we re-exposed the whole area of Peet's earlier excavations in order to fully document the architectural details and chronological sequence in the early Old Kingdom cemetery (Fig. 5). Although Peet excavated the burials themselves and published many of them in summary form, comprehensive documentation of the cemetery as a whole will allow us to better interpret Peet's data from a multi-dimensional point of view, and to think about the social relationships that are expressed spatially and architecturally at the site. These excavations have also given us the important opportunity to revisit the late predynastic/Early Dynastic pyrotechnic features first exposed by Peet, in order to date them and to look carefully at their relationship to the Old Kingdom tombs that were built on top of them.
Fig. 5. Matthew Adams, Deborah Vischak, and Kay Barnett (kneeling) discuss the emergence of the pyrotechnic beer vat features that predate the early Old Kingdom tombs in the background. Photo by Ayman Damarany for North Abydos Expedition © 2018
Fig. 6. Excavated remains of a brewery in Peet's "Cemetery D." The beer vats are arranged in two parallel rows. The remains of the brewery continue under the Old Kingdom architecture. Photo by Ayman Damarany for North Abydos Expedition © 2018
Peet speculated in 1912 that the pyrotechnic structures he uncovered beneath the Old Kingdom cemetery were perhaps kilns for drying grain. But in Peet's day there was no clear understanding of the nature of Early Dynastic activity in north Abydos. Since then, our knowledge of early royal activity in what's now called the North Cemetery has been completely transformed by the past fifty years of the Expedition's work (O'Connor 2009; Adams & O’Connor 2010; see also here & here). Dr. Matthew Adams's research at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University has focused on both the urban archaeology of Abydos, in its social and economic aspects, as well as the archaeology of the early royal presence at the site (e.g., Adams 2007, 2019). And what the 2018 excavations made perfectly clear to Adams and Vischak was that Peet's kilns were in fact part of a large brewery, belonging stratigraphically to Egypt's Urzeit (Fig. 6).
What new insights will this year's continued excavations in the Old Kingdom cemetery and Early Dynastic brewery hold? We're already on our way to a radical reinterpretation of Peet's thinking about this site (Fig. 7). Moving beyond the limits of Peet's excavation as we continue our investigations this season, how many more Old Kingdom tombs will there be? Will we find burials he missed? Will the brewery go on as well, and will it yield evidence that will let us pinpoint its date? How might it compare to what we know about ancient Egyptian beer production from other early sites like Hierakonpolis and Tell el-Farkha?
Fig. 7. Deborah Vischak and Waji Hamed 'Ali excavate an early Old Kingdom tomb in 2018. These tombs represent the earliest evidence we have for the organization of the local community at Abydos. Photo by Ayman Damarany for North Abydos Expedition © 2018
Leave it to our crack team of archaeologists starring Mohammed Abu el-Yazid, Kay Barnett, Ayman Damarany, Logan Dean, Joel Gamache, Christine McAllister, and Jo Young, along with Reis Ibrahim Mohammed 'Ali and the archaeological team from Quft, and our colleagues from the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities to find out! (Figs. 8-10).
Fig. 8. Ashraf Zeydan Mahmoud and Reis Ibrahim Mohammed 'Ali carefully exposing beer vats. Photo by Matthew Adams for North Abydos Expedition © 2018
And let's not forget the rest of North Abydos. Also coming up this season is a whole lot more architectural documentation and condition assessment at the “Portal” Temple of Ramses II, where senior conservator Hiroko Kariya and archaeologist Kay Barnett will be continuing the work of recording every detail of the present state of the temple (parts of which have been badly damaged in recent years and are in danger of collapse), as we prepare to stabilize and safeguard it for future generations; to leave a comprehensive archaeological record of the monument and its history from the Nineteenth Dynasty to today; and ultimately to integrate the “Portal” Temple, which played such a fundamental role in the ritual landscape at Abydos, as a major part of the modern visitor experience on site.
Fig. 9. Hiroko Kariya and Ayman Damarany at the “Portal” Temple of Ramses II, North Abydos. Photo by Matthew Adams for North Abydos Expedition © 2018
Fig. 10. Kay Barnett during the 2018 excavations in the early Old Kingdom cemetery, North Abydos. Photo by Ayman Damarany for North Abydos Expedition © 2018
As always, we continue our long-term exploration and conservation of the early royal monuments. Will the North Cemetery hold any other surprises this season? Stay tuned to our blog & social media to find out. You can also expect all the best dirt from our on-site collections and conservation labs—Art from the Osiris Temple! Demotic ostraca aplenty! Seal impressions! Zillions of sherds! Artifacts from every era! (We mentioned the beer, right?)—with the collections team and archaeological conservators Sarah Montonchaikul and Charlotte Parent.
So pull up a chair and hang on to your beer mugs—it's time to get this party started. #DigAbydos (Figs. 11-12).
—Matthew Douglas Adams, Deborah Vischak, Wendy Doyon, January 23, 2020
Fig. 11. A well preserved example of the early Old Kingdom tomb superstructures. The façades are characterized by a pair of niches and a miniature courtyard in front. The walls were originally filled with sand and gravel that covered the mouth of the burial shaft. The structure was capped with a convex roof of bricks. Photo by Ayman Damarany for North Abydos Expedition © 2018
Fig. 12. Looking back in time more than 4,500 years to a series of early Old Kingdom tombs that have been here on the landscape of Abydos since before the Great Pyramid or the Sphinx appeared at Giza. They were likely constructed during Egypt’s Third Dynasty. View of our excavations in 2018, re-exposing the tombs first excavated by Peet in 1912 (see Figs. 3-4 above), and opening a new chapter in the ongoing, multi-generational process of archaeology at Abydos. Photo by Ayman Damarany for North Abydos Expedition © 2018
References
Adams, Matthew Douglas. “Household Silos, Granary Models, and Domestic Economy in Ancient Egypt.” In Zahi Hawass and Janet Richards (eds), The Archaeology and Art of Ancient Egypt: Essays in Honor of David B. O'Connor, pp. 1-23. Cairo: Supreme Council of Antiquities, 2007.
---. “The Origins of Sacredness at Abydos.” In Ilona Regulski (ed.), Abydos: The Sacred Land at the Western Horizon. British Museum Publications on Egypt and Sudan, 8. Leuven: Peeters, 2019, in press.
Adams, Matthew Douglas and David O'Connor. “The Shunet el-Zebib at Abydos: Architectural Conservation at One of Egypt's Oldest Preserved Royal Monuments.” In Sue D'Auria (ed.), Offerings to the Discerning Eye: An Egyptological Medley in Honor of Jack A. Josephson, pp. 1-8. Leiden: Brill, 2010.
Adams, Matthew Douglas and Deborah Vischak. Report on the 2018 Field Season of the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University and Princeton University Expedition to Abydos. Submitted to the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities, 2018.
O'Connor, David. Abydos: Egypt’s First Pharaohs and the Cult of Osiris. London: Thames and Hudson, 2009.
Peet, T. E. and W. L. S. Loat. The Cemeteries of Abydos, Part III—1912-1913. London: Egypt Exploration Fund, 1913.
Vischak, Deborah. Community and Identity in Ancient Egypt: The Old Kingdom Cemetery at Qubbet el-Hawa. Cambridge University Press, 2015.