Akhenaten and the Amarna style

Uploaded by SCARABsolutions on May 29, 2009
http://youtu.be/coZecCaWI7I

In episode 21, we scratch the surface of one of the most interesting periods from Ancient Egypt, the reign of Pharaoh Akhenaten. We explore the radical social transformations during his reign and its uniquely characteristic artistic revolution known as the Amarna style. 

See past episodes, image galleries, credits, transcripts, and additional resources at http://ancientartpodcast.org. 

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Glass Faience and Pottery Making at Amarna (Egypt)

AWT Conference 2011 Review: Glass Faience and Pottery Making at Amarna (Paul Nicholson)
Published on Egyptological, Magazine Reviews, Edition 3, 7th December 2011
Review by Kate Phizackerley.

[O45.1: An Ancient Industrial Estate]

Image: Egyptian Glass and Faience (Metropolitan Museum, New York)

Introduction

As described in the overview of the 2011 AWT Conference which I co-authored with Andrea Byrnes (see bottom of this review), Dr Paul Nicholson spoke about his excavation of the Amarna site designated O45.1, which was, for a time, used for the production of pottery, faience and glass. Previously the site had been a cemetery and by the end of the Amarna period had changed usage again to become what Nicholson described as a “casemate” site, although he didn’t say what this meant. [Andrea heard “casement” instead, although this is no clearer.] Nicholson mentioned these earlier and later usages in passing but spoke in detail only about the industrial phase.

O45.1

The site O45.1 lies in the main city alongside the main thoroughfare, about 200m SW of the Small Aten Temple, placing it a similar distance SSW of the Great Palace. Questioned about the closeness of a potentially noisy and smelly facility so close to the palace, Nicholson said it was probably a deliberate wish to keep a strategic resource under close oversight and Barry Kemp interjected to add that the prevailing wind would blow smoke and odours away from the palace.

Excavations by Nicholson revealed a number of small kilns and two larger furnaces. The area had been excavated previously by Flinders Petrie so Nicholson drew upon Petrie’s notes to supplement his findings. Nicholson showed some of the moulds found on the site, but Petrie had found very large numbers which he reburied in a cache which, in spite of a search, has not yet been relocated. No large workshop buildings were discovered but Nicholson reminded the room that the Egyptian climate is suited to working outside, so workshops may not have been required.

Pottery

Unsurprisingly, Nicholson talked first about the kilns that he identified as used for firing pottery, although he reported difficulty in precisely differentiating between kilns that had been used for firing pottery and those that had been used for the manufacture of faience. The kilns have clay floors overlying mud brick and walls consisting of a single layer of mud bricks, which he believed had come from an earlier demolished kiln. It is likely that kilns had a limited useful lifespan before replacement was necessary.

The evidence for pottery making is provided by finds of unfired pottery and some clay waste marked with scratchings from having been shaped on a wheel. Nicholson described how there has been some academic debate whether an Egyptian wheel was fast enough to throw pots (rather than being merely a turntable), but he reported...

(click here to read the full article)

Excavating in the Valley of the Kings (update)

Excavating in the Valley of the Kings: The Missing Amarna Royalty, and just where are they? - Ancient World Tours (AWT) Conference 2011

Speaker: Stephen Cross
By Kate Phizackerley. Published on Egyptological, Magazine Edition 2, September 9th 2011.

Introduction

As described in the overview of the 2011 AWT Conference which I co-authored with Andrea Byrnes (see bottom of this review), the closing keynote lecture was delivered by Stephen Cross. His lecture created a buzz in the room and that has continued since Andrea Byrnes and I first posted about it on our respective blogs. We have both received a lot of correspondence: some people want to know more; some are nakedly sceptical. In this account of his lecture, I shall present the theory as described by Cross: this is intended as reportage not as as detailed critique, although obviously a certain level of commentary is included.

Cross has been interested for many years in the question of why the tomb of Tutankhamun, KV62, had remained undiscovered for centuries in the Valley of the Kings near modern-day Luxor until the discovery of the tomb by Howard Carter in 1922. That led him to ask why the tombs of KV55 and KV63 were also sealed until modern times. He thought that concealment by a natural phenomenon may offer an explanation. His first theory was that the tombs had been buried by faulting, but investigations revealed that the faults in the Valley of the Kings are not geologically active. His second theory was that the tombs had been buried by silt carried by flash floods and deposited in the central area at the confluence of three streams. He published an article on the topic in the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology (Cross, Stephen W. (1993). “The Hydrology of the Valley of the Kings”. JEA 94: 303–310). In this lecture he was able to provide updates about excavation and Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) work that has since taken place.

Cross believes there is a capacity for another unknown tomb, or tombs, in the central area of the Valley of the Kings with an entrance cut immediately below, and sealed by, this flood deposit at an elevation of about 170m above mean sea level. At the end of the 2008/9 season, Dr Hawass arranged for the Glen Dash Foundation for Archaeological Research to conduct a radar survey of the central area and Cross reported to conference that this revealed...

(Click here to read full article)

Related articles:
AWT Conference 2011 (Amarna) – Overview

(good synopsis of Amarna period history and topics discussed in AWT conference)

AWT Conference 2011 Review: House and Home at el-Amarna by Kate Spence

(Dr Kate Spence of the University of Cambridge introduced the audience to an area of the city of Amarna which formed an equivalent of modern urban suburbs. Challenging the view that this residential area had been built to a formula set down by the Pharaoh and his advisers, she set out to show how this part of the site had evolved and developed, with interesting variations on a basic concept of how space should be organized.)