Invisible Connections: An Archaeometallurgical Analysis of the Bronze Age Metalwork from the Egyptian Museum of the University of Leipzig (Archaeopress Egyptology)

The Egyptian Museum of the University of Leipzig has the largest university collection of ancient Egyptian artefacts in Germany. It includes important objects from the excavations of the most prolific excavator among the museum’s curators, Georg Steindorff, at the sites of Abusir, Aniba, and Giza, complemented by objects from Abydos, Thebes, and Kerma. The catalogue represents the results of an interdisciplinary project by Egyptologist and archaeologist Martin Odler, archaeometalurgist Jiří Kmošek and other participating researchers. A selection of 86 artefacts was analysed using a range of archaeometallurgical methods (X-ray fluorescence; metallography; neutron activation analysis; lead isotope analysis), providing a diachronic sample of Bronze Age Egyptian copper alloy metalwork from Dynasty 1 to Dynasty 19. Besides currently popular focus on the ore provenance, the selection of the applied methods aimed also at the description of practical physical properties of the objects. The question of differences between full-size functional artefacts and models is addressed, as is the problem of 'imports' and their ethnic interpretation. The analyses brought many unexpected results to light, the most surprising being a bowl (ÄMUL 2162) made of arsenical copper high in nickel, which has parallels in Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Anatolia, and was featured in an article in the Journal of Archaeological Science in 2018. The corpus presented here involves the largest analysed metalwork assemblage from the Nubian C-Group and the Egyptian New Kingdom, and it addresses the issue of the use of local Nubian ore sources versus the sources of copper from Cyprus and elsewhere. Martin Odler completed his PhD thesis 'The social context of copper in ancient Egypt down to the end of Middle Kingdom' in 2020. In 2016, he published the monograph 'Old Kingdom Copper Tools and Model Tools', the first of its kind in Egyptology, with Archaeopress. In Abusir (Egypt), he led, together with Marie Peterková Hlouchová, an excavation of a new type of Egyptian tomb (AS 103) and of the latest known tomb of a transitional type from early Dynasty 4 (AS 104). Jiří Kmošek is an archaeometallurgist, a PhD candidate at the Institute for Natural Sciences and Technology in the Arts, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. He has analysed not only ancient Egyptian material but also Bronze Age metalwork from the Czech Republic. Cover 1 Title Page 3 Copyright page 4 Contents Page 7 Acknowledgements 11 Foreword 12 1. Introduction 13 2. History of the Collection 16 3. Egyptological Framework of the Study 21 4. Methodology of the Analytical Study 24 5. Dynasty-1 Abusir 28 5.1. Tomb 8A-5 28 5.1.1. ÄMUL 2133: razor 28 5.2. Tomb 10 B-2/3 28 5.2.1. ÄMUL 2160: bowl 29 5.3. Grave 9 B-2 31 5.3.1. ӒMUL 2162: bowl 31 5.4. Grave 12 B-1 35 5.4.1. ÄMUL 2177: mirror 35 5.5. Discussion 37 5.6. Conclusion 38 6. Dynasty-2 Abydos 39 6.1. Tomb of King Khasekhemwy 39 6.1.1. ÄMUL 2211: adze 40 6.1.2. ÄMUL 2212: axe 41 6.1.3. ÄMUL 2213: harpoon 42 6.1.4. ÄMUL 2216: chisel 42 6.1.5. Needles: ÄMUL 2217, ÄMUL 2218, ÄMUL 2219, ÄMUL 2220, ÄMUL 2222 43 6.2. Conclusion 45 7. Old Kingdom Giza 46 7.1. Tomb D 6 (MO, VD) 46 7.1.1. ÄMUL 2169: bowl 47 7.1.2. ÄMUL 2170: model chisel 51 7.2. Tomb D 15A (MO, VD) 51 7.2.1. ÄMUL 2130: razor 51 7.3. Tomb D 37 (MO, VD) 51 7.3.1. ÄMUL 2118: model chisel 52 7.4. Tomb D 44 (MO, VD) 52 7.4.1. ÄMUL 2120: model chisel 52 7.5. Tomb D 203 (MO, VD) 52 7.5.1. ÄMUL 2131: razor 53 7.6. Tomb D 208 (MO, VD) 54 7.6.1. ÄMUL 2129: cosmetic spatula 54 7.7. Unknown 54 7.7.1. ÄMUL 2600: chisel 54 7.8. Social status of the tomb owners and their vessels 55 7.8.1. Social status of the tomb owners (VD) 55 7.8.2. Stone vessels from the tombs (LJ) 55 7.8.3. Ceramic finds (KA) 56 7.9. Conclusion 57 8. First Intermediate Period and Middle Kingdom Artefacts 58 8.1. Qau el-Kebir 58 8.1.1. ÄMUL 5513: razor 58 8.1.2. ÄMUL 5515: razor 59 8.2. Luxor 59 8.2.1. ÄMUL 3952: axe 60 8.2.2. ÄMUL 5074: dagger 61 8.3. Assiut 63 8.3.1. ÄMUL 2174: mirror 64 8.4. Unknown provenance 65 8.4.1. ÄMUL 5241: mirror 65 8.4.2. ÄMUL 5059: mirror with wooden handle, textile 65 8.4.3. ÄMUL 8215: tweezers 66 8.4.4. ÄMUL n. n.: rivet or nail 66 8.5. Conclusion 66 9. C-Group Aniba 67 9.1. Tumulus C 11 72 9.1.1. ÄMUL 2182: tweezers 72 9.2. Grave N 11 72 9.2.1. ÄMUL 4701: mirror 73 9.2.2. ÄMUL 2152: dagger 73 9.3. Tumulus N 21 75 9.3.1. ÄMUL 4697: axe 75 9.4. Tumulus N 83 78 9.4.1. ÄMUL 4647: tweezers 78 9.5. Tumulus N 222 80 9.5.1. ÄMUL 4700: mirror 81 9.6. Grave N 352 82 9.6.1. ÄMUL 4698: axe 82 9.7. Tumulus N 429 84 9.7.1. ÄMUL 4703: mirror and handle 85 9.8. Grave N 479 86 9.8.1. ÄMUL 4639: kohl-stick/awl 86 9.10. Conclusion 87 9.9. Unknown 87 9.9.1. ÄMUL 2173: mirror 87 10. Kerma Culture 88 10.1. Tumulus Kerma IV, Grave K 442 88 10.1.1. ÄMUL 3791: dagger, Kerma type 88 11. Second Intermediate Period and New Kingdom Aniba 91 11.1. Tomb S 13 92 11.1.1. ÄMUL 6213: casting mould 97 11.2. Tomb S 53 98 11.2.1. ÄMUL 2153: dagger, middle part 100 11.2.2. ÄMUL 2142: hook 102 11.2.3. ÄMUL 2187: tweezers 103 11.3. Tomb S 111 103 11.3.1. ÄMUL 2226: hair curler 103 11.4. Tomb S 80 104 11.4.1. ÄMUL 2185: tweezers 105 11.5. Tomb S 90 105 11.5.1. ÄMUL 2186: tweezers 106 11.6. Tomb S 105 = Tomb SA 22 106 11.6.1. ÄMUL 2188: tweezers 106 11.7. Tomb S 60 106 11.7.1. ÄMUL 2141: adze 107 11.8. Tomb S 37 108 11.8.1. ÄMUL 2146: hook 108 11.9. Tomb S 91 109 11.9.1. ÄMUL 2179: razor with handle 110 11.9.2. ÄMUL 2176: mirror 110 11.10. Tomb S 48 111 11.10.1. ÄMUL 2171: mirror 111 11.11. Tomb S 62 112 11.11.1. ÄMUL 2145: bolt 112 11.11.2. ÄMUL 4417: bowl 113 11.11.3. ÄMUL 2210: flask 114 11.11.4. ÄMUL 2208: staff finial 117 11.12. Tomb S 84 117 11.12.1. ÄMUL 2167: bowl 118 11.12.2. ÄMUL 2180: razor with handle 118 11.13. Tomb S 66 119 11.13.1. ÄMUL 2172: mirror 121 11.13.2. ÄMUL 2143: two nails 122 11.13.3. ÄMUL 2144: bolt 123 11.14. Tomb S 8 123 11.14.1. ÄMUL 8213: bolt 123 11.15. Tomb S 11 123 11.15.1. ÄMUL 2191 and 2192: two bolts 123 11.16. Tomb S 23 124 11.16.1. ÄMUL 8439: mirror 125 11.16.2. ÄMUL 2138: dgA razor 126 11.17. Tomb S 109 127 11.17.1. ÄMUL 2139: dgA razor 127 11.17.2. ÄMUL 2189: kohl-stick 127 11.18. Conclusion 127 12. Other New Kingdom Provenanced Artefacts 129 12.1. Abusir 129 12.1.1. ÄMUL 2178: mirror 129 12.1.2. ÄMUL 2127: belt clasp 131 12.1.3. ÄMUL 2224: handle 131 12.2. Giza 131 12.2.1. ÄMUL 2599: chisel 131 12.3. Thebes, Deir el-Bahari 131 12.3.1. ÄMUL 5075: saw 131 12.4. Conclusion 132 13. Unprovenanced Artefacts 133 13.1. Unknown sites 133 13.1.1. ÄMUL 4834: mirror 133 13.1.2. ÄMUL 849: dgA razor 133 13.1.3. ÄMUL 2225: hair curler 135 13.1.4. ÄMUL 2154: chisel 135 13.1.5. ÄMUL n. n.: chisel blade 136 13.1.6. ÄMUL 9154: rivet or nail 136 13.1.7. ÄMUL 2155: arrowhead 136 13.1.8. ÄMUL 8457: tweezers fragment 137 14. Archaeometallurgical Summary (JK) 138 14.1. Major and minor elemental composition 138 14.2. Microstructural characterization and production technologies 138 14.3. Hardness of artefacts 139 14.4. Minor and trace elemental composition and artefacts provenance 143 14.4.1. Early Dynastic Abusir and Abydos and Old Kingdom Giza 143 14.4.2. First Intermediate Period and Middle Kingdom artefacts 145 14.4.3. C-Group Aniba 146 14.4.4. Kerman dagger 150 14.4.5. New Kingdom Aniba 150 14.4.6. Other New Kingdom provenanced artefacts 160 15. Archaeological and Historical Summary (MO) 162 15.1. Early Dynastic Abusir and Abydos: king and his subordinates 163 15.2. Old Kingdom Giza: king’s and other officials 164 15.3. First Intermediate Period, Middle Kingdom and C-Group: a view from Aniba and other sites 164 15.4. Glimpses of Second Intermediate Period 165 15.5. New Kingdom tin bronzes in Aniba and elsewhere 166 15.6. Question of Nubian sources of copper 168 16. Concluding remarks 170 17. Bibliography 171 18. Appendix 188 Bronze Age,Egypt,Nubia,archaeometallurgy,INAA,lead isotopes,C-Group,New Kingdom,Old Kingdom,Giza,Aniba,Abydos. The Egyptian Museum of the University of Leipzig has the largest university collection of ancient Egyptian artefacts in Germany. It includes important objects from the excavations of the most prolific excavator among the museum's curators, Georg Steindorff, at the sites of Abusir, Aniba, and Giza, complemented by objects from Abydos, Thebes, and Kerma. The catalogue represents the results of an interdisciplinary project by Egyptologist and archaeologist Martin Odler, archaeometalurgist Jirí Kmosek and other participating researchers. A selection of 86 artefacts was analysed using a range of archaeometallurgical methods (X-ray fluorescence; metallography; neutron activation analysis; lead isotope analysis), providing a diachronic sample of Bronze Age Egyptian copper alloy metalwork from Dynasty 1 to Dynasty 19. Besides currently popular focus on the ore provenance, the selection of the applied methods aimed also at the description of practical physical properties of the objects. The question of differences between full-size functional artefacts and models is addressed, as is the problem of 'imports' and their ethnic interpretation. The analyses brought many unexpected results to light, the most surprising being a bowl (ÄMUL 2162) made of arsenical copper high in nickel, which has parallels in Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Anatolia, and was featured in an article in the Journal of Archaeological Science in 2018. The corpus presented here involves the largest analysed metalwork assemblage from the Nubian C-Group and the Egyptian New Kingdom, and it addresses the issue of the use of local Nubian ore sources versus the sources of copper from Cyprus and elsewhere The Egyptian Museum Of The University Of Leipzig Has The Largest University Collection Of Ancient Egyptian Artefacts In Germany. This Volume Presents An Analysis Of 86 Of These Artefacts Using A Range Of Archaeometallurgical Methods In Order To Provide A Diachronic Sample Of Bronze Age Egyptian Copper Alloy Metalwork From Dynasty 1 To Dynasty 19.