The New Kingdom settlement of Amara West (Nubia, Sudan): mineralogical and chemical investigation of the ceramics (original) (raw)
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Studia Europaea Gnesnensia, 2017
This article reports on the use of laboratory analysis to examine whether pottery recovered from excavations at Abu Erteila includes wares made at the same workshops as pottery found at other Meroitic sites in the region. It also examines whether wares deemed typical of the Abu Erteila ceramic assemblage were made of the same raw materials as pottery at neighbouring sites or clay used at other workshops. Particular attention was paid to assessing whether samples with fabrics which macroscopically resemble the Musawwarat fabrics were indeed made at workshops in Musawwarat or whether this macroscopic similarity is deceptive.
Archaeometry 57, 4 (2015) 597–616, 2015
This study presents the results of integrated mineralogical, petrographic and chemical analyses of different ceramic assemblages and local sediments from Sai Island, northern Sudan, dating to between the seventh and the third millennium BC, and highlights a significant variability in the raw materials and technology of these productions. Although archaeometric analyses of ceramics are widely employed in many parts of the world, a lamentable scientific gap exists for African pottery, which this paper aims to bridge with new and compelling results.
Samples of Meroitic to Christian pottery from Jebel El-Ghaddar, near Old Dongola, and of pottery from the Nile's right bank between Karima and the 4th Cataract in Sudan, from Neolithic to Christian periods, were studied to get information on the areas of production and the technological changes during these periods. Chemical analysis, refiring series, thin section and technological studies of 51 samples in all yielded various groups of different raw materials and technology which can be correlated with regions, periods and archaeological pottery groups. The use of different plant material in the two regions as a temper for the domestic ware of the post-Meroitic period and the correlation of chemical groups with the sites where the pottery was found indicate local production. Traditions of pottery making can be seen between the Neolithic and Kerma periods in the Karima region. Another tradition is the use of Nile alluvium together with vegetable temper for pottery from the Kerma Culture horizon to the post-Meroitic period. Another raw material was used for utility ware from Meroitic to Christian periods, probably in local specialised workshops, with a tendency to a decline of technology during the post-Meroitic period.
Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2017
In Upper Nubia (currently northern Sudan), the art of making pottery has a very ancient and durable tradition, dating back to the early Holocene and preceding the introduction of a food-producing economy. Ethnographic case studies have demonstrated that this tradition has been preserved in many areas of the country. This paper presents a comparative study of ancient and modern traditional ceramics from four prehistoric sites at Sai Island, in the river Nile, and a present-day workshop located in the nearby village of Abri. The aim of the study was to investigate any diachronic changes in the selection of clayey raw material and the technological processes of the manufacturing sequence. The study combined macroscopic and analytical approaches and examined a large set of ceramic and local clay samples by means of petrographic (OM), mineralogical (X-ray powder diffraction; XRPD) and chemical (X-ray fluorescence; XRF) analyses. The resulting data underline a remarkable continuity in raw material sourcing and composition, as well as in many technological processes, from the ceramic assemblages dating from Abkan cultural horizon (c. 5500 BCE) until to the present-day production in Abri. This continuity emerged after a preceding discontinuity, indicated by a different selection of clay raw material and tempers in the oldest production dating to the Khartoum Variant horizon (c. 7600-4800 BCE). 'choices', selecting from a range of possible raw materials, tools, energy sources, and techniques. Thus each technological choice is co-dependent on other technological choices which go together to form a particular chaîne opératoire" (Sillar and Tite, 2000, 3, 5). Furthermore, according to Gosselain (2012, 246), the chaîne opératoire represents a "powerful analytical tool which imposes systematization in data collection, as well as the acknowledgement of a variety of elements that are invariably brought together in the conduct of technical activities". This study examined the technological aspects of prehistoric ceramics from Sai Island in Upper Nubia, currently northern Sudan, dating from the Early-Middle Holocene (Khartoum Variant; c.
Mycenaean pottery from Amara West (Nubia, Sudan)
Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, 2017
Amara West, built around 1300 BC, was an administrative centre for the pharaonic colony of Upper Nubia. In addition to producing hand-and wheel-made pottery, respectively in Nubian and Egyptian style, Amara West also imported a wide range of ceramics from Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean. A scientific of 18 Mycenaean style ceramics was undertaken to study provenance and aspects of production technology. Neutron activation analyses (NAA) results show that the pots were imported from several workshops in in Greece and Cyprus. Thin section petrography and scanning electron microscopy, used with energy dispersive spectroscopy (SEM-EDX), show that different recipes were used to make the fabrics and paints of Mycenaean ceramics, reflecting both technological choices and the range of raw materials used in the different workshops. The petrographic and SEM-EDX results support the NAA provenance attributions.
2018 IEEE International Workshop on Metrology for Archaeology and Cultural Heritage (MetroArchaeo 2018) Proceedings, 2018
This paper presents and compares the results of compositional, technological and functional analyses of the ceramic assemblages from three Sudanese locations (Sai Island, Esh-Shaheinab and Jebel Sabaloka) of the ‘Mesolithic’ or Pre-Pastoral period (9th-6th millennium BC), which is locally called ‘Khartoum Variant’ in northern Sudan (Sai Island) and ‘Early Khartoum’ in central Sudan (Esh-Shaheinab and Jebel Sabaloka). These assemblages exhibit common technological features and similar exploitation of local raw materials and use of tempers. From a compositional point of view, they show a large spread, forming several small chemical clusters. Our results indicate that these very early potters had already quite a good knowledge of the local environment and were on their way to learn how to choose and manipulate locally available raw materials and tempers for pottery making since the mid-9th millennium BC.
Early to Mid–Holocene Pottery from Two Sites in the Bayuda Desert, Sudan
In: J. Kabaciński, M. Chłodnicki, M. Kobusiewicz, M. Winiarska-Kabacińska (Eds.) Desert and the Nile. Prehistory of the Nile Basin and the Sahara. Poznań Archaeological Museum. Poznań, 2018
This article discusses the pottery material from two early to middle Holocene sites from the western part of the Bayuda desert: BP133 and BP424. The sites are situated at a distance of ca. 60 km from each other in very different geological contexts. The site situated closer to the Nile – BP133, is located in the area of volcanic culminations (Basement Complex), while site BP424 is located within sedimentary deposits (Cretaceous Nubian Sandstone Formation). In both sites a small area was excavated.
2018
This paper presents the results of an interdisciplinary archeometric study on Early Mesolithic pottery from the prehistoric site of Kabbashi Haitah, located 35 km north of Khartoum (central Sudan), along the Nile Valley. A large set of potsherds, selected after a preliminary macroscopic analysis of 1075 fragments representing the various vessels (mainly plain and globular in shape, with various rim diameter), macrofabrics and decoration types (either with or without incised or stamped decorations, i.e. incisedwavy line and rocker stamp) was analysed to define the type of the raw materials used and their manufacturing technology. The mineralogical and petrographic features, determined by optical microscopy and X-ray powder diffraction, indicate that the pottery was produced using an illitic clay tempered with quartz and/or K-feldspar derived from granite/syenite grinding, and fired in the temperature range between 750 and 900°C.