Abstract
The settlement of Elephantine in southern Egypt is one of the few places where a local jewellery production made from different materials can be documented. In particular, semiproducts and production waste suggest the manufacture of bracelets and beads from stone and faience from the late Old Kingdom onwards. The production waste also allows for the reconstruction of the way hippopotamus ivory was cut into bracelets. A jewellery workshop can be identified as one of the functions of a large building dating to the Thirteenth Dynasty. Here, raw materials from the surrounding desert regions, i.e., amethyst and ostrich eggshells, were processed into beads, pendants, and scarabs. Various stages of a production line show how the ostrich eggshells were made into beads. The raw material and an unfinished scarab indicate the manufacture of amethyst objects. Semiproducts in the neighbouring houses show that in that area, pendants were also cut from mother of pearl.
Introduction
In Egyptian settlements, in temples as well as cemeteries of the pharaonic period, beads and amulets are often – next to pottery – the most common artefacts. They are usually made of faience, ostrich eggshell or semiprecious stones. Other materials, like metal or bone, are quite rare. Yet despite this mass of beads, there are only a few known workshops.
Workshops for the manufacture of jewellery may be traced by the occurrence of various finds and features. The finding of raw material used for jewellery could provide a hint, but it might also mean that the material was just stored at a place for trading. Tools are another group of finds that might point to jewellery manufacture. Unfortunately, most tools involved in bead production, like drills, are quite universal and may have been used for many other purposes. Specific working places, fireplaces or kilns for bead manufacture are, in their turn, difficult to identify. The presence of production waste might be another indication of a production place. Quite good indicators are provided by semiproducts, and in the best-case scenario, semiproducts from different stages of the production line, or defective products. 1 Finally, even the products themselves can give indications – not of the workshop’s precise location but at least of the place or area where they were produced. Some items might have been made of a material used only locally or they might have a shape specific only to a place or area. In the best cases, some of these indicators are found together at a single spot suggesting unambiguously that it was the location of a workshop. An example of this is an ensemble of flint drills and unfinished carnelian, rock crystal, obsidian, and ostrich eggshell beads known from Hierakonpolis. 2 Other finds in this group are chips and flakes of amethyst, carnelian, crystal, obsidian, ostrich eggshell, and copper nails. Whether the few semiproducts made of ostrich egg came from the same workshop as the unfinished stone beads or whether they were processed in another workshop in the vicinity is not certain. Quibell has dated the find to the Old Kingdom.
Egyptian Faience Beads and Amulets
On Elephantine, excavations by the German Archaeo–logical Institute carried out since 1969 in cooperation with the Swiss Institute for Architectural and Archaeological Research have over the years revealed evidence for jewellery manufacture in many materials based on a variety of indicators. The main evidence pointing to the existence of a faience bead workshop is the discovery of defective products of beads. They have either no eye or were stuck together during the glazing process and were therefore not useable (fig. 1a–b). A larger number, with twelve defective products, was found in various features of the central settlement of the Old Kingdom, 3 but they were not related to any kilns which might have been used for faience production. 4 It cannot, therefore, be ruled out that the beads were produced elsewhere, and were instead traded to Elephantine. In a bag of hundreds of beads, these few defective products would not have been noticeable.
Beads, pendants, semiproducts and defective products made of faience, carnelian, and ostrich eggshell. (a) find no. 32110G/b-2, central settlement, late Fourth to mid-Fifth Dynasty, faience; (b) find no. 32112Z/c-1, central settlement, Sixth Dynasty, faience; (c) find no. 5978, temple of Satet, early Twelfth Dynasty, faience; (d) find no. 5979, temple of Satet, early to mid-Twelfth Dynasty, faience; (e) find no. 31107M/k-2, central settlement, Sixth Dynasty, carnelian; (f) find no. 24554O/d-2, house 64, Second Intermediate Period (SIP), ostrich eggshell; (g) find no. 26109R/a-6, eastern street, FIP, ostrich eggshell; (h) find no. 17613L/b-3, house 98, Eighteenth Dynasty, ostrich eggshell; (i) find no. 44501N/e-9, northwest town, First Intermediate Period (FIP) to early Eleventh Dynasty, ostrich eggshell; (j) find no. 44501L/a-3, house 170, end of Sixth Dynasty, ostrich eggshell; (k) find no. 22970b, Satet-South, Ramesside, ostrich eggshell; (l) find no. 32115M/a-3, central settlement, Sixth Dynasty, ostrich eggshell; (m) find no. 38901C/c-5, Satet-West, late Fifth Dynasty, ostrich eggshell; (n) find no. 21303a, eastern town, room CIII, First Intermediate Period?, ostrich eggshell; (o) find no. 47501M/b-19, house 169, room 04, mid- to late Thirteenth Dynasty, ostrich eggshell; (p) find no. 47501M/b-19, house 169, room 04, mid- to late Thirteenth Dynasty, ostrich eggshell; (q) find no. 45501D/z-8, northwest town, end of Sixth Dynasty, ostrich eggshell; (r) find no. 47501H/t-8, house 169, room 04, mid- to late Thirteenth Dynasty, ostrich eggshell; (s) find no. 46501O/n-2-10, house 169, room 08, mid- to late Thirteenth Dynasty, ostrich eggshell; (t) find no. 22412g, CTV, room I, mid-Sixth Dynasty, ostrich eggshell (drawing: P. Kopp, DAIK).
At other sites, some locations for the production of faience amulets are known due to the occurrence of fired clay moulds, while furnaces are known at other locations. 5 In the settlement of Elephantine, moulds are only represented by a single find. This rectangular mould was made of fired clay and, unfortunately, lacks exact dating. 6 It is for a figure of Sekhmet with a sceptre seated on a throne and may date either to the late New Kingdom or even later.
The number of figural amulets increases sharply from the late Old Kingdom onwards on Elephantine, as in the cemeteries of Egypt. 7 Among these amulets, there are two shapes, both depicting a hippopotamus, that are thus far exclusively known from Elephantine and the Qubbet el-Hawa. Therefore, they were most probably also produced in this area. Twelve of these faience hippopotamus-shaped amulets were found in the temple of Satet (fig. 1c–d). 8 Seven flat amulets show a hippopotamus from the side, of which only one is shown with legs, while the others show the animals without legs and thus as if standing in water. Five other pieces depict the silhouette of a hippopotamus from above, with a massive body and the typical angular head. Both the representations from above and those from the side can have a lateral perforation in the animal’s body. They are dated to the Eleventh–Twelfth Dynasties by the ceramic inventory, but one of the layers also contained ceramics from the Old Kingdom, which means that five of these amulets could also be older. 9 The only comparable amulet from another location is from grave 88 on the Qubbet el-Hawa, dating to the reign of Pepi II. 10 The occurrence of this shape only on Elephantine and a related cemetery might indicate that they were a local production.
Carnelian Beads
The carnelian beads are made of a naturally occurring material. Their production process is therefore different from that of beads of the artificial material that is faience. A workpiece is reduced by different techniques until the desired result is reached. It is much harder to identify a workshop for these kinds of beads because their manufacture does not require specialized items, such as moulds. The workshops can mainly be traced by semiproducts or production waste. On Elephantine, the manufacture of carnelian beads can be located in the central area of the Old Kingdom settlement. In this area, two cores dating to the Sixth Dynasty were found (fig. 1e). 11 The natural surface of the pebbles is partially removed to prepare them for the smoothing, drilling, and final polishing of a bead. 12 A few hundred carnelian flakes dating to the late Old Kingdom and the Middle Kingdom were found in the north-western town, but there was no other evidence of carnelian jewellery manufacture there.
Hippopotamus Tooth Bracelets
The production of hippopotamus ivory bracelets on Elephantine is indicated by three Sixth Dynasty objects that have a shape reminiscent of a gear wheel (fig. 2c). 13 They are slightly irregular, 2.8 to 3.8 cm in diameter and 0.6 to 3.3 cm in height, with regular semi-circular cuts on the outer edge. The material of these objects is hippopotamus ivory, and they demonstrate how bracelets of this material were produced on Elephantine. The raw material – cut fragments of teeth as well as complete teeth – was found at several locations on the island, mainly dating to the Old Kingdom. 14 Finds of hippopotamus bones show that the teeth were not imported but that these animals lived probably in the area of the First Cataract during the Old Kingdom. 15
Fragments of hippopotamus tooth bracelets and production waste. (a) find no. 21927d, Satet-East, Second Dynasty; (b) find no. 5968, Satet-South, Sixth Dynasty; (c) find no. 16428g, central settlement, late Fifth to early Sixth Dynasty (drawing: P. Kopp, DAIK).
In the first step of the bracelet manufacture, a slice of ivory was laterally cut across the width from a hippopotamus tooth (fig. 3, stage I). In the next step (II), a ring of holes was drilled at a distance of about 0.8 cm from the edge of the slice. The neighbouring drill holes are close to each other, but they do not overlap. Their diameter is 0.4 mm, and they are more or less cylindrical. It may be supposed that they were drilled from one side with a flint drill. Then the bridges remaining between the drill holes were cut (III). The result was a ring (IIIa) and, as waste, a gear-wheel-shaped piece of ivory as described above (IIIb and fig. 2c). In the following stage (IV), the edges on the inner side of the ring were removed. Long grooves on the inner side of some rings show that this was probably done by cutting and not by grinding. During the last stage, the bracelet got its final shape and smooth surface by grinding (V).
Schematic presentation of the stages in hippopotamus ivory bracelet manufacture (drawing: P. Kopp, DAIK).
In Egypt, bracelets of hippopotamus ivory are rarely found after the Naqada Period. The few examples are from Matmar, Meidum and Mostagedda. 16 The small number shows that they were not part of the regular Egyptian jewellery repertoire. They are, however, relatively common in the Nubian ‘C-Group’ cemeteries. 17 These bracelets are therefore clearly a Nubian element in the finds.
From the settlement of Elephantine, this Nubian component is evidenced not only by the manufacture of such bracelets but also by nineteen complete or fragmented bracelets discovered thus far. 18 They date from Dynasty 0 to the Twelfth Dynasty. Other examples come from the Elephantine cemetery, where a tomb of a Nubian soldier wearing such bracelets was uncovered. 19
The Workshop in House 169
Another organic raw material used for jewellery is ostrich eggshell. A production line of ostrich eggshell beads was found at Sheikh Mohamed in the vicinity of Aswan. 20 The pieces were not found in a workshop in a settlement but in a tomb of the so-called Pan-Grave culture. Next to eggshell pieces used as blanks, different stages of the production of ostrich eggshells were found. In Hierakonpolis, numerous flint drills were discovered, along with three unfinished eggshell beads and unfinished stone beads. These finds date to the Old Kingdom and indicate a site of one or more bead workshops. 21 Another workshop was mentioned to have existed in Tell el-Amarna at the Workmen’s Village, Site XI, but the evidence for this interpretation was not specified. 22
About 500 ostrich eggshell beads and pendants of the Naqada Period to the New Kingdom are known from the settlement on Elephantine. 23 Another 645 beads were found in the temple of Satet, dating from the First Intermediate Period to the New Kingdom. 24 Like at other places in Egypt and Nubia, these are mainly disc-shaped beads with a –diameter of 0.2 to 0.9 cm (figs 1f–g). 25 Their average size is 0.5 cm. Only a single bead is larger than a centimetre, measuring in at 1.55 cm in diameter (fig. 1h). In most cases, they have a biconical drilling in the centre; single conical drillings are rare but may occur from the Naqada Period to the New Kingdom. 26 Other shapes are oval spacers, 27 oval to drop-shaped pendants, 28 and rectangular pendants (figs 1i–n).
Most of these shapes were made locally on Elephantine. Some stages of the ostrich eggshell bead production were found in house 169 in the north-western town. 29 House 169 was one of the largest Middle Kingdom houses on Elephantine and had three main building phases dating from the late Twelfth to the Thirteenth Dynasty. In the middle phase (H169b), dating to the mid-Thirteenth Dynasty, 30 the house had a hybrid function as a residential house and also as a jewellery workshop. 31
The entrance to house 169 was from an alley in the southeast (fig. 4). A corridor (R02) featuring several stone steps led from the entrance to the first court (R04), which was the working area of the house, with several fireplaces and storage installations. In the northern corner of court R04 was a small room filled with ashes. In a later phase of the house, mainly fragments of bread moulds were found in this corner room, so it can be suggested that the room was used for baking bread. 32 A room of this kind was found in many houses of the Middle Kingdom; its function was to provide bread supply for the inhabitants of the house. 33
House 169 and the neighbouring houses 166, 73, 68, and 84 in the Thirteenth Dynasty (P. Kopp, DAIK, with additions after: von Pilgrim, Elephantine XVIII, figs 22, 25, 55).
In the northwest, there was a second court (R08), reached by passing a room located in the western corner of the house (R09). On the opposite side of the court was a mud-brick staircase, similar in construction to the better-preserved staircase in house 70. 34 In front of the staircase there was one of the room’s two column bases. A second base was situated next to an installation (instl. 600) on the opposite side of court R08. The column bases together with the staircase indicate that at least the north-western half of the room had a second storey or an accessible roof and probably so did the room in the western corner of the house (R09). It could not be determined what was stored in the two installations of the room. In comparison to the other court, the floors here were rather clean and lacked kilns or any kind of production residues. 35
In the house, several pieces were found which show that it was a production place for stone and ostrich eggshell beads (figs 1o–r and 5). Interestingly, this is the same combination as in the already-mentioned Old Kingdom workshop(s) in Hierakonpolis, where ostrich eggshell blanks were found next to unfinished stone beads. 36 In addition, four drills were also found in house 169. One of these microdrills came from the same feature as an unfinished eggshell bead. 37 As this was a screed and not a kind of deposit, a connection between these finds cannot be proven.
Various stages of ostrich eggshell bead manufacture from house 169 (photo: P. Kopp, DAIK).
The raw material from the ostrich egg bead production was found together with two other stages of the manufacture. They were unearthed in courts R04 and R08 as well as in rooms R07 and R09. With these finds, it is possible to reconstruct the method of making ostrich eggshell beads and the tools used in the process. Ideas about the production process can be derived from ethnographic comparisons, 38 finds from other sites, and the experimental remanufacturing of beads. With the latter, it is also possible to get an idea about the production waste which could thus far not be recognized during the excavation.
The manufacturing process seems to have had seven stages from an egg to the finished beads (fig. 6). 39 In the first stage, the egg or bigger pieces of an eggshell were broken down into blanks with a stone. These have an average size of 1.4 cm2, ranging from 0.34 to 3.01 cm2. The pieces normally have three to six corners. This first break was apparently still quite uncontrolled, as all the pieces were of different shapes and sizes. Presumably, the ostrich egg was first smashed and then the fragments were further broken until they were the right size. There is only minimal production waste from the breaking down, which are the few pieces that were too small to be made into beads as well as some chips smaller than 1 mm.
In the second stage, the irregular blanks were trimmed to discs of about 1 cm in diameter by chipping away the corners. This might have been done with the tip of a horn or bone, similar to the pressure flaker used in flint knapping, 40 or with a stone hammer and an anvil. The latter method was possibly faster and required less energy. On the other hand, it required more experience, which we can assume the ancient bead makers had. The hammer had to be a fairly flat pebble because it was necessary to fix the working piece with the finger without being struck by the hammer. The anvil might have been any stone with a flat surface.
The order of stages III to VI cannot be deduced from the set of finds from Elephantine, but deduction is possible by adding information from Sheikh Mohamed, where two more stages were found. 41 The first trimming was followed by a second one, which reduced the diameter of the piece to approximately 0.7 cm (III). Trimming with a pressure flaker seems more likely here because the workpiece is already too small at this stage to use a hammerstone. Furthermore, using a pressure flaker would make the workpiece less prone to accidental breakage because this tool allows better control and precision. The trimming of ostrich eggshell beads with horn is documented e.g., from Botswana 42 and it produces waste in the form of powder with thin, small flakes (fig. 6, production waste of stage III).
Stages of the ostrich eggshell bead manufacture (P. Kopp, DAIK; finds from Sheikh Mohamed <http://www.antiquities.gov.eg/DefaultAr/pages/NewsDetails.aspx?newsid=666#> accessed 07.08.20l9).
Next, a small notch was carved into the centre of the blank on the outer surface (IV). This notch kept the drill in position on the smooth surface. The initial drilling started from the convex outer side (V). 43 Then the piece was turned, and the drilling was finished from the other side (VI). The result was a biconical drill hole more or less in the centre of the piece. The drill bit used was probably a flint drill head fixed to a long thin shaft and twirled between the palms of hands. The position of the drill head on the small workpiece and the pressure of the drill were easier to control with a small hand drill than with a bow drill. The production waste from drilling was a fine powder.
In the final stage (VII), the diameter was reduced to the final size of the bead and the edge was smoothed by grinding. To produce beads of the same size and reduce the grinding time, the beads were probably not sanded one by one but instead, multiple beads on a string were grinded at once. In Botswana, women use palm-sized, flat stones with several straight grooves for this process. 44 Sandstones of a similar size and shape that might have been used for this purpose have been found at various places on Elephantine (fig. 7). 45
Grinding stone with groove (find no. 37901M/u-17, sandstone, photo: P. Kopp, DAIK).
The raw material for the ostrich eggshell beads – ostrich eggs or their fragments – might have been collected in the southern desert areas of Egypt, where ostriches were also hunted by both Egyptians and Nubians. 46 Another source could have been tributes from the south. Wall decorations in temples and tombs show tribute bearers with ostrich eggs. 47 On the other hand it seems quite unlikely that these tributes reached Elephantine and the carefully carried and therefore precious eggs were then smashed up for beads.
To get an idea as to how many beads were produced from a single ostrich egg, it is necessary to know how many blanks were made from it. For this calculation, the average size of an egg’s surface has to be known. That can be derived from the dimensions of the eggs. While no ostrich egg is fully preserved from Elephantine, a number of eggs are known from other places in Egypt and Nubia. These eggs, from Naqada, 48 Faras, 49 Maadi, 50 Aniba 51 and of unknown provenance, 52 date mainly to the Naqada Period (table 1). Only two examples in the UCL Petrie Museum collection dating to the Second Intermediate Period have a date close to that of the workshop in house 169. 53 Since the sizes of the ostrich eggs seem not to vary substantially over time, the sizes of the predynastic eggs may also be used to estimate the number of beads produced from one egg.
Dimensions of ancient ostrich eggs.
The average surface area of the eggs, calculated from the height and diameter, 54 was 535.9 cm2. Because the average size of the pieces broken out of the eggs for the bead production was 1.4 cm2, about 380 beads could be made from one egg.
Assuming that one bead had an average of 0.142 cm in length, 55 these 380 beads made from one ostrich egg would form a necklace of 54 cm. Ostrich eggshell beads were used for forming necklaces but, particularly in Nubia, were also worn in shorter versions as bracelets or around ankles. 56 There were both necklaces that consisted entirely of ostrich eggshell beads and those that combined ostrich eggshell beads with beads of various materials, especially faience.
Another group of finds that shows a clear concentration within house 169 and are not known from any other Elephantine house of this period are amethyst fragments. The amethyst fragments and small flakes represent most probably both the raw material for and the waste from the production of amethyst beads and scarabs. 57 A density map of the distribution of amethyst fragments in the area clearly shows a high concentration of this material in house 169 in the phase dating to the mid-Thirteenth Dynasty (fig. 8). While in house 73 only one piece of amethyst was found, with a further nine fragments in house 166b, house 169b yielded 527 amethyst pieces, most of them in court R04. This concentration cannot be explained simply due to the better preservation of house 169. The house must have featured a workshop that processed amethyst. This material was used in ancient Egypt mainly for the manufacture of scarabs and jewellery. An unfinished scarab, also found in house 169, supports this hypothesis (fig. 9a). 58 The scarab was fragmentary and had an unfinished drill hole, therefore it must have broken during manufacturing.
Amethyst fragments in houses 166b and 169b (mid-Thirteenth Dynasty; illustration: P. Kopp).
In house 169, an accumulation of amethyst beads is also noticeable. A total of 34 beads made of this material have been found in the settlement thus far, and a further eleven are from the temple of Satet. 59 Of these 34 beads from the settlement, nine came from house 169. Three of them were uncovered in room R02, four in courtyard R04, and one each in rooms R08 and R09. One of them was broken similar to the previously mentioned scarab (fig. 9a), but it is not known whether this happened during the manufacture or later. 60
Scarab and beads made of amethyst. (a) find no. 47501N/r-16, house 169, room R08, mid- to late Thirteenth Dynasty; (b) find no. 5952b, temple of Satet, Twelfth Dynasty; (c) find no. 5952b, temple of Satet, Twelfth Dynasty; (d) find no. 47501M/k-20, house 169, room R04, mid- to late Thirteenth Dynasty; (e) find no. 18503F/d-9, house 85, room N, late Twelfth to early Thirteenth Dynasty (drawing: P. Kopp, DAIK).
There are two possible sources of amethyst in the wider vicinity of Aswan: the closer one is Wadi el-Hudi, about 35 km to the southeast, and the other is Gebel el-Asr, 240 km southwest of Elephantine and approximately 65 kilometres northwest of Abu Simbel (fig. 10). 61
Location of the amethyst mines in Wadi el-Hudi and at Gebel el-Asr (Google Earth image, modified by P. Kopp, DAIK).
Wadi el-Hudi in the Eastern Desert was the primary location for amethyst mining from the Eleventh Dynasty until the end of the Middle Kingdom. 62 Here, the amethyst occurs in cavities in granite. The mines were rediscovered by the geologist Labib Nassim in 1923, but archaeological investigations did not take place until 1939, when the Egyptian Topological Survey visited the site and found three stelae dating to the reign of Senwosret I. 63 Incorporated into the walls of the adjacent settlement were numerous rock carvings and inscriptions, five of which dated to the reign of Mentuhotep IV. 64 During his reign in the late Eleventh Dynasty, the mining settlement was officially founded. The inscriptions document fifteen expeditions to Wadi el-Hudi in the Middle Kingdom, under Mentuhotep IV to Amenemhat IV. 65 A peak was recorded under Senwosret I, when six expeditions reached these mines in just fourteen years. Certainly, there may have been a number of other expeditions that can no longer be traced today. The connection to Elephantine is attested by the mentioning of the goddess Satet and ‘200 men from Elephantine’ on stelae at this mine as well as by the material of the stelae themselves – granite from Aswan. 66 The texts prove that the king was both the client and the recipient of the amethyst obtained. 67 It is unlikely that gemstones and therefore also amethysts were obtainable through government channels alone because they were widespread in the Twelfth-Dynasty non-elite burials at Abydos 68 as well as in the settlement of Elephantine. In the Thirteenth Dynasty, at the time when the amethyst was mined for further processing in house 169, up to three expeditions under Sobekhotep (IV) Khaneferre were recorded. Here, the domain administration and possibly the treasury were the sending authority. It is difficult to determine the precise characteristics of the amethyst from Wadi el-Hudi because the deposit is nowadays completely depleted. Judging from Middle Kingdom jewellery, it had a dark violet hue. 69
The mines in the Stela Ridge area of the Gebel el-Asr gneiss quarry yielded Middle Kingdom pottery and stelae recording expeditions for ‘precious material’ under various kings. 70 Alongside the Wadi el-Hudi mines, they were possibly the principal Egyptian amethyst mines during the Twelfth Dynasty. 71 The inscribed objects from this area bear the names of Twelfth Dynasty kings from Amenemhet I to Amenemhet III. A set of Marl C storage vessels discovered in a group of dry-stone huts at the quartz ridge dates the main workers’ settlement site in the area to the mid-Twelfth Dynasty. 72 There is no evidence that the quarry was still used in the late Middle Kingdom and the Second Intermediate Period. 73 The inscriptions of the Stela Ridge mention carnelian but not amethyst, although in 1933 a large number of amethyst fragments were found there. 74 In contrast to the dark-coloured amethyst of the Wadi el-Hudi, the material from Gebel el-Asr was probably much paler, similar in appearance to rose quartz. 75
The material found in layers of the mid-Thirteenth Dynasty in house 169 on Elephantine includes both kinds of amethyst. It seems, therefore, that the amethyst used in this period on Elephantine as raw material for jewellery production came from both mines.
Due to the material used, the production of stone beads is significantly more laborious than that of ostrich eggshell beads. The amethyst beads can have a clearly biconical drill hole such as, for instance, in a ring bead from the Temple of Satet (fig. 9b). The drill head used here must therefore have had a V-shaped tip like the one for ostrich eggshell beads, with a diameter of at least 2.4 mm. This process of drilling stone beads is most probably shown in the tomb of Aba in Deir el-Gebrawi (fig. 11).
Tomb of Aba, Deir el-Gebrawi, depicting the drilling (right) and polishing (left) of carnelian (by P. Kopp, DAIK, after N. de Garis Davies, The Rock Tombs of Deir el Gebrâwi, I (ASE 11; London, 1902), pls XIII, XIV).
Other amethyst beads are spherical with a cylindrical drill hole, which indicates a thin drill bit (fig. 9d). The diameter of the hole is about 1 mm, but it can be even smaller. Such a hole could certainly not have been produced with an elongated flint drill bit because such a drill would break off at the slightest tilt. The tilting of the drill head cannot be completely avoided when using a hand driven bow drill. As a result, the drill head keeps moving out of its perpendicular position to the workpiece and a drill made of a brittle material such as flint would break off when the hole has reached a certain depth. This becomes even more evident in case of the elongated beads and scarabs (figs 9a, c and e). It can therefore be assumed that the drill head here was made of a slightly flexible material that was nevertheless sufficiently hard.
As D. A. Stocks showed experimentally with replicas of drills from Kerma, copper or bronze drill heads are quite suitable for drilling through hard stone, 76 with the possible use of sand as abrasive. This also explains why no fitting flint drills were found in the bead workshop in house 169. In all probability, bronze or copper drills that were used to drill through the amethyst beads became smaller and smaller due to abrasion. If they were just wire-shaped inserts, there was probably little left of them after a certain period of use. The remaining piece could then be melted down and used again as raw material or thrown away. If the discarded piece then corroded heavily over the millennia, it cannot be recognized nowadays as a drill, but only an elongated piece of copper oxide.
In house 169, but also in the demolition layer of house 166, several rectangular slabs made of fine sandstone with grooves deepened into their surface were found (fig. 12). They have a size of around 70 cm x 30 cm and are about 8 cm thick. A representation in the grave of Aba in Deir el-Gebrawi (fig. 11) shows an object of very similar dimensions lying on the ground, on which two workers are polishing carnelian. 77 This scene is directly adjacent to that of two workmen drilling carnelian, probably carnelian beads, so maybe it shows the sanding or polishing of beads on a sandstone slab like the one found in house 169. Here, however, it would have been used to work amethyst. Like carnelian, amethyst is a variety of quartz and therefore has similar working properties. 78
Working plate, find no. 47501O/f-11 (photo: P. Kopp, DAIK).
Mother of Pearl Pendants
Another material used for jewellery production on Elephantine was mother of pearl. This is documented not in house 169 but in other houses in the north-western town. Mother of pearl was made into drop-shaped pendants, which were first cut out of shells and then pierced once or twice at the tip. 79 Five of the six known pendants of this type were found in the northern part of the city, four of them in house 85 alone (fig. 13a–f). In the neighbouring houses 166, 73, and 84, there were three blanks dating to the Twelfth–Thirteenth Dynasties that had not yet been drilled through (fig. 13g–i). It must be assumed that mother-of-pearl pendants were also made in this part of the town. Mutela nilotica, Aspataria sp., Chambardia rubens, Unionidae could be identified as the shell species, respectively, used for this kind of pendant. 80 These species are medium sized freshwater mussels and could be found in the vicinity of Elephantine. 81
A production of jewellery of various materials can thus be proven on Elephantine from the late Old Kingdom onwards. A definitive building for this activity could not yet be identified for the Old Kingdom, neither could the group of people that actually made the jewellery. In the Thirteenth Dynasty, a building can be located in which raw materials (amethyst and ostrich eggshell from the surrounding desert areas) were processed into pieces of jewellery. This apparently took place as a supplementary activity to the household production in house 169. The high degree of state organisation of amethyst mining cannot be proven for the processing of the stones because the few written documents from the excavation do not provide any information on this. For house 169 it can only be stated that the size of the building and the opportunity to obtain the raw amethyst indicates that the owner was a person of higher rank. Unfortunately, the person who actually carried out the laborious task of making the stone beads remains unknown, as does the distribution of the finished pieces. Although it is not possible to say how they were traded, these stone beads were apparently widely available. Amethyst beads were found on Elephantine at least in a small number in all excavated areas of the Twelfth Dynasty and the Second Intermediate Period. They were found in small houses of the central settlement, the larger houses in the northwest town as well as in the temple of Satet. 82
Pendants and semiproducts, mother of pearl. (a) find no. 43501C/k-5, house 166, room 02, late Twelfth to early Thirteenth Dynasty; (b) 18504K/b-6, house 85, room N, late Twelfth to early Thirteenth Dynasty; (c) find no. 18504D/c-4, house 85, room O, late Twelfth to early Thirteenth Dynasty; (d) find no. 24552X/c-2, Aspatharia, house 115, SIP; (e) find no. 18503V/c-7, house 85, room N, late Twelfth to early Thirteenth Dynasty; (f) find no. 18507D/a-5, house 85, room N, late Twelfth to early Thirteenth Dynasty; (g) find no. 43501D/v-10, house 73, early Twelfth Dynasty; (h) find no. 46501M/s-53, Unionidae, house 166, room 02, early Thirteenth Dynasty; (i) find no. 19501Z/a-7, H84a, instl. 0231, Thirteenth Dynasty (drawing: P. Kopp, DAIK).
Footnotes
Funding
The author did not receive funding for this project.
1.
Semiproducts are unfinished objects, while defective products are items that failed during production.
2.
3.
P. Kopp, ‘Small finds of the Old Kingdom’, in D. Raue, et al., Report on the 33th Season of Excavation and Restoration on the Island of Elephantine, 11–13 <
> accessed 31.05.2007; D. Raue and C. Jeuthe, ‘Untersuchungen im Stadtgebiet südlich des Chnumtempels’, in G. Dreyer, et al., ‘Stadt und Tempel von Elephantine. 31./32. Grabungsbericht’, MDAIK 61 (2005), 20–5.
4.
Based on the associated ceramics, the beads are mostly dated to the Sixth Dynasty. A relation to house 151 mentioned by T. Hikade, Elephantine XXXV: The Lithic Industries on Elephantine Island during the 3rd Millennium BC (AV 121; Wiesbaden, 2014), 88, does not exist.
5.
P. T. Nicholson and E. Peltenburg, ‘Egyptian faience’, in P. T. Nicholson and I. Shaw (eds), Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology (5th printing; Cambridge, 2009), 179–84; M. Lehner, Giza Plateau Mapping Project 2006–2007 Season, 58–9 <> accessed 03.08.2020; G. Miniaci, ‘Faience craftmanship in the Middle Kingdom: A market paradox. Inexpensive materials for prestige goods’, in G. Miniaci, J. C. Moreno Garcia, S. Quirke, and A. Stauder (eds), The Arts of Making in Ancient Egypt (Leiden, 2018), 145–7.
6.
Find no. 26202W/a-1.
7.
U. Dubiel, Amulette, Siegel und Perlen: Studien zu Typologie und Tragsitte im Alten und Mittleren Reich (OBO 229; Fribourg, 2008), 76; P. Kopp, Elephantine, IX: Der Tempel der Satet. Die Funde des späten Alten bis Neuen Reichs (AV 41; Wiesbaden, 2020), 79–85.
8.
Kopp, Elephantine IX, 82, pl. 23.481–7.
9.
These amulets are from an Old Kingdom floor which was disturbed in the Twelfth Dynasty (feature no. 5978). Kopp, Elephantine IX 36.
10.
E. Edel, ‘A Kamares vase from Qubbet El-Hawa, near Aswan’, in B. J. Kemp and R. S. Merrillees, Minoan Pottery in the Second Millennium Egypt (SDAIK 7; Mainz, 1980), fig. 56.48 u.
11.
Finds nos 31107M/k-2 and 31108S/a-2.
12.
D. A. Stocks, Experiments in Egyptian Archaeology (London, 2003), 207.
13.
Finds nos 16428g, 33109Y/i-1, and 37901O/a-3. P. Kopp, ‘Kleinfunde’, in P. Kopp, Elephantine, XXIV: Funde und Befunde aus der Umgebung des Satettempels (AV 104; Wiesbaden, 2018), 73 and pl. 10f.
14.
Seven fragments with cutting marks dating to the late Old Kingdom were found in the central settlement and Satet-North: finds nos 16928h, 16928j, 16429a, 28102K/b-4, 33108U/c, 32111A/c-1, and 33111H/g-3. D. Raue, ‘Untersuchungen in der Stadt des 3. Jahrtausends v. Chr.’, in G. Dreyer, et al., ‘Stadt und Tempel von Elephantine. 33./34./35. Grabungsbericht’, MDAIK 64 (2008), 74 and pl. 18b.
15.
J. Boessneck and A. von den Driesch, Studien an subfossilen Tierknochen aus Ägypten (MÄS 40; München, 1982), 22, 91; A. von den Driesch and J. Peters, ‘Die Tierreste’, in P. Kopp, Elephantine XXIV, 146, 149, table 8.
16.
G. Brunton, Matmar (London, 1948), 32, pls 35.24, 35.26; W. M. F. Petrie, E. Mackay, and G. Wainwright, Meydum and Memphis, III (BSAE 16; London, 1910), 6, pl. 21.5; G. Brunton, Mostagedda and the Tasian Culture (London, 1937), 110, pl. LXIII.2821.
17.
Säve-Söderbergh, Middle Nubian Sites (SJE 4; Partille, 1989), 116–18 and pl. 51; G. Steindorff, Aniba, I (Glückstadt, 1935), 59–61, pl. 32.3; B. Williams, Excavations between Abu Simbel and the Sudan Frontier, V: C-Group, Pan Grave, and Kerma Remains at Adindan Cemeteries T, K, U, and J (OINE 5; Chicago, 1983), 83, pl. 110.
18.
P. Kopp, Elephantine, XXXII: Die Siedlung der Naqadazeit (AV 118; Mainz, 2006), 78; Kopp, Elephantine IX, 89.
19.
S. J. Seidlmayer, ‘Nubier im ägyptischen Kontext im Alten Reich’, in S. Leder and B. Streck (eds), Akkulturation und Selbstbehauptung: Beiträge des Kolloquiums am 14.12.2001 (Orientwissenschaftliche Hefte 4, Mitteilungen des SFB „Differenz und Integration“ 2; Halle, 2002), 106.
21.
UC14877, see above.
22.
B. J. Kemp, ‘Preliminary report on the el-cAmarna expedition: 1979’, JEA 66 (1980), 8.
23.
Kopp, Elephantine XXIV, 82; Kopp, Elephantine XXXII, 76, and unpublished pieces.
24.
Kopp, Elephantine IX, table 2.
25.
E.g. W. M. F. Petrie and G. Brunton, Sedment, I (BSAE 34; London 1924), pl. XLVI (UC18846); W. M. F. Petrie, G. Brunton, and M. A. Murray, Lahun, II: The Pyramid (BSAE 33; London, 1920), pl. LXII.92 (UC6844); R. Engelbach, Harageh (BSAE 28; London, 1923), pls LVIII.85T, LVIV.5Q; Säve-Söderbergh, Middle Nubian Sites, 76–8; T. Säve-Söderbergh and L. Troy, New Kingdom Pharaonic Sites (SJE 5:2; Partille, 1991), 80–1; Steindorff, Aniba I, 48; Williams, C-Group, Pan Grave, and Kerma Remains at Adindan, 91. Many publications use the unspecified term ‘shell’ for the material of beads, see e.g. G. Brunton, Qau and Badari, I (BSAE 44; London, 1927), pls XVII.86L14, 86N4; G. Brunton, Qau and Badari, III (BSAE 50; London, 1930), pls IV.85R6, 85N13, pls XXXII.70, 72, 77, 78, 83, 84; Brunton, Matmar, pl.XXXIX.86P12. Most of these will also be made of ostrich eggshell, see e.g., H. C. Beck, ‘Report on Qau and Badari beads’, in G. Brunton, Qau and Badari, II (BSAE 45; London, 1928), 23.
26.
E.g., 32113G/a-2, 32115K/a-1, and 24553X/g-3.
27.
Compare Brunton, Mostagedda, pls LVIII.95C7, C12, C15; Brunton, Qau and Badari II, pl.CIV.95C6.
28.
Compare Engelbach, Harageh, pl. L.32C.
29.
J. Sigl and P. Kopp, ‘Working from home – Middle Kingdom daily life on Elephantine Island, Egypt’, in A. K. Hodgkinson and C. L. Tvetmarken (eds), Approaches to the Analysis of Production Activity at Archaeological Sites (Oxford, 2020), 8–24.
30.
The pottery found in this building phase is of the Elephantine pottery stage F4, while in the oldest phase of the house pottery of stage F3 was still found. See P. Kopp, ‘Die Keramikformationen der 1. Zwischenzeit und des Mittleren Reiches auf Elephantine’, BCE 29 (2019) 243–304.
31.
Hybrid use of houses was not uncommon and is also known from Abydos in the same period. N. Picardo, ‘Hybrid households: Institutional affiliations and household identity in the town of Wah-sut (South Abydos)’, in M. Müller (ed.), Household Studies in Complex Societies: (Micro) Archaeological and Textual Approaches (OIS 10; Chicago, 2015), 243–70.
32.
33.
Like room R05 in neighbouring house 166. See also C. von Pilgrim, Elephantine, XVIII: Untersuchungen zur Stadt des Mittleren Reiches und der Zweiten Zwischenzeit (AV 91; Mainz, 1996), 209–11.
34.
von Pilgrim, Elephantine XVIII, 136, fig. 48 and pl. 23c.
35.
Only on the oldest floor, next to wall M1981, were three briefly used fireplaces.
36.
UC14877. Quibell and Green, Hierakonpolis II, 11–12.
37.
Find no. 47501M/b-7-22. Pers. comm. C. Jeuthe, 04.08.2019.
38.
E.g., R. K. Hitchcock, ‘Ostrich eggshell jewelry manufacturing and use of ostrich products among San and Bakgalagadi in the Kalahari’, Botswana Notes and Records 44 (2012), 93–105; G. B. Silberbauer, Hunter and Habitat in the Central Kalahari Desert (Cambridge, 1981), 227.
39.
Finds of blanks from prehistoric sites suggest a different way of production for that period than on Elephantine. E.g., A. W. Kandel and N. J. Conard, ‘Production sequences of ostrich eggshell beads and settlement dynamics in the Geelbek dunes of the Western Cape, South Africa’, JAS 32 (2005), 1711–21.; J. D. J. Orton, ‘Later Stone Age ostrich eggshell bead manufacture in the Northern Cape, South Africa’, JAS 35 (2008), 1765–75; E. Cristiani, ‘Ostrich eggshell products from Hidden Valley Village, Farafra Oasis: Contributions from technological analysis’, in B. E. Barich, G. Lucarini, M. A. Hamdan, and F. A. Hassan (eds), From Lake to Sand: The Archaeology of Farafra Oasis, Western Desert, Egypt (Florence, 2014), 301–6.
40.
J. C. Whittaker, Flintknapping: Making and Understanding Stone Tools (Austin, 1994), 128–31.
42.
Orton, JAS 35, 1769.
43.
The blanks at Sheikh Mohamed have the initial drilling always on the outer side. Pers. comm. M. Gatto, 07.08.2019.
45.
Kopp, Elephantine XXIV, cat. nos 55, 96 and pl. 9d.
46.
J. Phillips, ‘Ostrich eggshell’, in Nicholson and Shaw (eds), Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology, 332.
47.
Compare P. E. Newberry, Beni Hassan: Archaeological Survey of Egypt Memoir, I (London, 1893), pl. 4; S. Hallmann, Die Tributszenen des Neuen Reiches (Wiesbaden, 2006), 13, 38, 39, 164, 177, 185, 212–14, 219, 222.
48.
50.
I. Rizkana and J. Seeher, Maadi, III: The Non-Lithic Small Finds and the Structural Remains of the Predynastic Settlement (AV 80; Mainz am Rhein, 1989), 19, 29 and pl. 5.3
51.
Pers. comm. D. Raue, 10.06.2020.
53.
UC59774 and UC59775. Pers. comm. A. Garnett, Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, 05.05.2021.
55.
Average from 226 beads with a minimum of 0.05 cm and a maximum of 0.26 cm.
56.
E.g., Williams, C-Group, Pan Grave, and Kerma Remains at Adindan, 94, table 42, pl. 117; C. M. Firth, The Archaeological Survey of Nubia, Report for 1908–1909 (Cairo, 1912), 55; C. M. Firth, The Archaeological Survey of Nubia, Report for 1909–1910 (Cairo, 1915), 139; Brunton, Qau and Badari III, pls V–VIII.
57.
58.
Find no. 47501N/r-16.
59.
Kopp, Elephantine IX, 78, table 3.
60.
Find no. 47502A/a-7.
61.
62.
Aston, et al., in Nicholson and Shaw (eds), Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology, 51.
63.
A. Rowe, ‘Three new stelae from the south-eastern desert’, ASAE 39 (1939), 187–94.
64.
Aston, et al., in Nicholson and Shaw (eds), Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology, 51.
65.
K.-J. Seyfried, Beiträge zu den Expeditionen des Mittleren Reiches in die Ost-Wüste (HÄB 15; Hildesheim, 1981), 1–3.
66.
A. I. Sadek, The Amethyst Mining Inscriptions of Wadi el-Hudi, I (Warminster, 1980), 16–18, 46, 52, 84–5; E. Bloxam, ‘Miners and mistresses’, Journal of Social Archaeology 6:2 (2006), 293.
67.
Seyfried, Beiträge zu den Expeditionen, 122–31.
68.
Bloxam, Journal of Social Archaeology 6:2, 295.
69.
Aston, et al., in Nicholson and Shaw (eds), Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology, 51.
70.
R. Engelbach, ‘The quarries of the western Nubian desert’, ASAE 33 (1933), 69; Aston, et al., in Nicholson and Shaw (eds), Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology, 51, I. Shaw, ‘Life on the edge: Gemstones, politics and stress in the deserts of Egypt and Nubia’, in R. Friedman (ed.), Egypt and Nubia: Gifts of the Desert (London, 2002), 247–8.
71.
R. Engelbach, ‘The quarries of the western Nubian desert and the ancient road to Tushka’, ASAE 38 (1938), 370; I. Shaw, ‘The evidence for amethyst mining in Nubia and Egypt’ in L. Krzyzaniak, K. Kroeper, and M. Kobusiewicz (eds), Recent Research into the Stone Age of Northern Africa (Studies in African Archaeology 7; Poznań, 2000), 219–25.
72.
I. Shaw and E. Bloxam, ‘Survey and excavation at the ancient pharaonic gneiss quarrying site of Gebel el-Asr, Lower Nubia’, Sudan and Nubia 3 (1999), 17 and colour pl. VIII.
73.
Bloxam, Journal of Social Archaeology 6:2, 297.
74.
O. H. Little, ‘Preliminary report on some geological specimens from the ‘Chephren diorite’ quarries, Western Desert’, ASAE 33 (1933), 80. Expeditions in the twenty-first century did not find any amethyst at this location, which could be due to the modern destruction of the site or because the mine was totally depleted.
75.
Shaw, in Krzyzaniak, et al. (eds), Recent Research into the Stone Age, 219.
76.
Stocks, Experiments in Egyptian Archaeology, 205–7.
77.
N. de Garis Davies, The Rock Tombs of Deir el Gebrâwi, I (ASE 11; London, 1902), 20 and pls. XIII and XIV.
78.
W. Schumann, Der neue BLV Steine und Mineralienführer (6th edn; Munich, 2002), 36, 174, 180.
79.
Compare the drop-shaped pendants in R. Mond and O. H. Myers, Cemeteries of Armant (London, 1937), pl. XLII.89T2; Säve-Söderbergh, Middle Nubian Sites, 110, fig. 40.
80.
The shell species were determined by A. von den Driesch and J. Sigl.
81.
D. L. Graf and K. S. Cummings, ‘A “big data” approach to global freshwater mussel diversity (Bivalvia: Unionoida), with an updated checklist of genera and species’, Journal of Molluscan Studies 87:1 (2021), 27–8 <> accessed 04.01.2022; G. Falkner, ‘Molluskenfunde der Ausgrabungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts Kairo im Satettempel auf Elephantine‘, in J. Boessneck and A. von den Driesch, Studien an subfossilen Tierknochen aus Ägypten (MÄS 40; München, 1982) 159–162.
82.
Kopp, Elephantine IX, 78, table 3.