Everyday life in the ancient city of Elephantine, southern Egypt - Microanalytical exploration of archaeosediments

• Applicant: Dr. Dagmar Fritzsch
• Subject Area: Egyptology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies ; Physical Geography
• Term: from 2019 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 421874393

The ancient pharaonic settlement Elephantine is located on the same-named Nile island in southern Egypt. The ideal strategic position on the island provided an optimal view of all activities in the area. Elephantine established itself in the fourth millennium BC as a centre with commercial and administrative functions. In addition, it is one of the few studied settlements that developed without an overall plan given by the government. It hardly shows urban struc-tures such as clearly defined districts or a systematically planned road system. It is assumed that development and design were under local administrative control and oriented mainly to the interests and needs of the inhabitants. The cities’ prominent temples in particular have been subject to detailed archaeological research, but a significant part of cultural history - everyday life - has so far been little investigated. This research gap shall now be closed with an innovative approach for Egypt. Combining the classical excavation methods with archaeometric tech-niques, the well-preserved cultural layers provide an excellent archive on micro-level. The combined use of micromorphology (thin section analysis of archaeological sediments) and phy-tolith analysis (biogenic silica) provides insights into extensive information concerning the eve-ryday life of the ancient people and their animals. Using the example of a residential district and an important access route, the knowledge about the different activities in different areas (craft, harvest processing, food preparation, cleaning, etc.) and the regional and supra-regional interaction of people from this past culture will be characterised. This is possible because mi-cromorphological features associated with different activities are preserved in the sediments. With the phytolith analysis, plants are not only identifiable, but morphological and colour changes also refer to temperature effects, which may indicate different combustion processes. These investigations are complemented by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Raman spectroscopy. The overall objectives are to obtain detailed synchronous and diachronic information of every-day life from public space, as well as to reconstruct the use of streets on the genesis of street sediments.In order to be able to look at the development of the site from different perspectives, the project is linked closely to the archaeological research of the current interdisciplinary excavation "Real-ities of Life" on Elephantine Island.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants