New Data on Egyptian Construction Methods in the Khufu I Vessel (c.2566 BC) from the Paul Lipke Collection

A review of the Lipke collection raises new questions concerning Egyptian boatbuilding methods for the Khufu I vessel, including the shaping of planking, the purpose, fitting, and spacing of cross‐grain mortise‐and‐tenon joints and the crafting and securing of hook‐scarfs in girders. New data supports the author's contention that the construction of this vessel was abruptly terminated, but contradicts his suggestion that the central girder had no hook‐scarf—it does, but it is unique. Furthermore, detailed plans show how the hood‐ends, sleeves, and papyriform decorations were crafted and joined. A planking‐plan with scale does not always agree with published data. © 2010 The Author     

A Different Configuration for the Quarter‐Rudders on the Khufu I Vessel (c.2566 BC), and Egyptian Methods of Mounting Quarter‐Rudders and Oars in the 4th and 5th Dynasties

A review of the Khufu I vessel (c.2566 BC) and contemporary Egyptian iconography (c.2613–2345 BC) suggest this vessel was originally fitted with six pairs of quarter‐rudders, instead of one pair. Furthermore, quarter‐rudders may have been mounted on knob‐shaped thole‐pins, instead of crossbeams. The iconography also suggests that each quarter‐rudder was fitted with a loom‐line and specialized grommet, and rowers may have used a similar system to mount their oars. Finally, a recently published depiction of Sahure sailing a boat may show an anchor secured on the stern deck. © 2011 The Author     

Slaves to Sailors: the archaeology of traditional Caribbean shore whaling c.1850–2000. A case study from Barbados and Bequia (St Vincent Grenadines)

The archaeology of the post‐Emancipation Caribbean remains relatively understudied. The collapse of the industrial‐scale sugar plantation systems of the islands in the early 19th century saw a radical re‐organization of socio‐economic life. A new corpus of consumers was created, eking out a living on the margins of island society, but never quite liberated. This period sees the emergence of an Afro‐Caribbean maritime culture focused upon shipbuilding, fishing, turtling and whaling, the latter a particular feature of the eastern Caribbean (Windward Islands). The archaeology of whaling communities, is relatively well understood from the perspective of North America, Australasia and Europe, but less so in the Caribbean. Using two case studies based upon recent excavation and survey work, this paper sheds light on a distinctive maritime cultural response in the post‐emancipation Eastern Caribbean world.     

A Royal Boat Burial and Watercraft Tableau of Egypt's 12th Dynasty (c.1850 BCE) at South Abydos

Excavations at Abydos, Egypt, during 2014–2016 have revealed the remains of a boat burial dating to the reign of Senwosret III (c.1850 BCE). The boat burial occurred inside a specially prepared, subterranean vaulted building. Surviving elements of planking appear to derive from a nearly 20 m‐long boat that was buried intact but later dismantled for reuse of the wood. The vessel may belong to a group of royal funerary boats associated with the nearby tomb of Senwosret III. Incised on to the interior walls of the boat building is an extensive tableau including 120 surviving drawings of pharaonic watercraft. A unique deposit of pottery vessels was found associated with the ceremonial burial of this royal boat.     

A Further Proposal for the Hull Lines of the Madrague de Giens Ship (c.70 BC)

A review of studies carried out since 1978 on the Madrague de Giens ship remains have enabled a reassessment of the vessel's shell‐first construction process. Hypotheses concerning moulding criteria are developed, with the profile (sheer plan), main cross section (body plan), and active sections and reference planks used to mould the hulll proposed and evaluated. These are compared to the Marsala (3rd century BC), and Yass?ada 2 (4th century AD) ships, which have similar wine‐glass‐shaped bottoms. Some aspects of these moulding criteria appear common to those used in the Mediterranean during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.     

An overview of bitumen trade in the Near East from the Neolithic (c.8000 BC) to the early Islamic period

The aim of the paper is to summarise the present state of knowledge concerning bitumen trade in the Near East from the Palaeolithic (70,000 BP) to the Early Islamic period. During the Palaeolithic and Early Neolithic period, bitumen utilisation was mostly concentrated in settlements close to oil seeps. From the Ubaid 3 period, bitumen from the Mosul area became more important and was traded as far as the southern Persian Gulf. The Uruk period is a turning point for Mesopotamian history as settlements evolved into city‐states. These cities had a great need for raw materials, and this marks the beginning of large‐scale exploitation of Hit bitumen. This bitumen was traded at settlements along the Euphrates, where a large trade network was established. Hit bitumen entered the Persian Gulf at the turn of the second millennium (Dilmun period). Bitumen from Iraq (Mosul and Hit) became predominantly used in most settlements along the southern coast of the Gulf. During this period Iranian bitumen was also exported and this supply tended to increase, especially during the Partho‐Sasanian period. Dead Sea bitumen had its own exchange network, which was concentrated across present‐day Israel and Egypt where it was extensively used for mummification.     

The Roman quarries at Antinoopolis (Egypt): development and techniques

The aim of this research was the survey and the study of the many quarries located in the first spurs of the Gebel el-’Adila, close to Antinoopolis (Middle Egypt). These quarries are an excellent opportunity for observation and research concerning the “landscape archives” and preserve traces of man’s activity, representing a real cultural heritage. The paper gives a short geological setting of the area and reports our recent study (2006 onward) on traces, typologies, methods and development of the quarrying activity in the area, focussing on the Roman period. The working traces allowed us to define the working tools used for quarrying, the organisation of the works and of the quarry exploitation, as in the area many remains of the quarry organisation network are extant or recognisable, such as: service posts, sledge-ways, docks.     

The Depositional Contexts of the Ships from Thonis‐Heracleion,Egypt

Over 70 ancient vessels have been discovered by the Institut Européen d'Archéologie Sous‐Marine in the port‐city of Thonis‐Heracleion, Egypt. These were deposited both individually and in groups from the 8th to the 2nd century BC. This paper investigates the contexts of these vessels to suggest that a variety of explanations—shipwrecking, ritual deposition, abandonment, and structural reuse—account for their deposition. It also seeks to place these events within the changing landscape of Thonis‐Heracleion to understand the agency behind many of the decisions about what to do with old ships and boats at the end of their use‐life.     

The Tagus Middle Basin (Iberian Peninsula) from the Neolithic to the Iron Age (V-I Millennium Cal. BC): The Long Way to Social Complexity

This study is the result of surveys and excavations carried out in a selected area of the middle basin of the Tagus river (Southern Meseta, Iberian Peninsula). The analysis of palaeoecological data, material assemblages, settlement patterns, domestic structures, funerary evidence and socio-economic context in the regional archaeological record from the Neolithic (5000 BC) to the beginning of the Iron Age (500 BC) allows us to identify several long-term historic processes; particularly, two habitational, demographic and socio-economic cycles, which contradict the traditional idea that the prehistory of inner Iberia presents almost no apparent change during these four millennia.     

Ceramic Traditions and Cultural Identities: West‐Central France during the Late Neolithic II Period (c.3400–2900 cal. BC)

Pottery is generally used as the main basis for characterizing Neolithic cultural identities: archaeologists tend to define groups and cultures in time and space on the basis of typological classification. This paper proposes a different approach to the study of pottery that takes into account the various steps of the chaîne opératoire of manufacture, particularly the methods used to form and finish the pots, in order to characterize the cultural landscape of the Late Neolithic II period in west‐central France (3400?2900 BC). This cultural landscape has hitherto been poorly defined and subject to endless debate since the 1950s, largely because the pottery is fairly homogeneous in shape and is mostly undecorated. The technological study presented here, based on the examination of 23 ceramic assemblages and focusing on a variety of stages in the chaîne opératoire, has allowed the definition of three technical traditions. The main characteristics and diagnostic features of these traditions are outlined below, together with their interrelationships.     

Site Management: An Application to Wadilmeluk (the Valley of the Kings)

‘Value has always been the reason underlying heritage conservation. It is self‐evident that no society makes an effort to conserve what it does not value.’ ¹ 1. de la Torre and Mason, Assessing the Values of Cultural Heritage, 3–4. However, assessing the value of a cultural heritage asset as a representative sample of our tangible and intangible heritage for present and future generations is a difficult concept to deal with. It is, therefore, the aim of the researchers to help the conservation decision process by attempting to make an assessment of the values attributed to the cultural heritage assets of one of the most notable heritage sites in Egypt: the Valley of the Kings in Luxor.     

Graphical Reconstruction and Comparison of Royal Boat Iconography from the Causeway of the Egyptian King Sahure (c.2487–2475 BC)

Recently published reliefs from the causeway of Sahure and a review of contemporary iconography and archaeological data shed new light on a variety of features of Old Kingdom royal sailing boats and equipment, such as quarter rudders, rigging, signalling devices, decorations and crew. Furthermore, another relief depicts men paddling in a sequential or what appears to be a wave pattern. Only one other such relief exists. A comparison of both reveals that they are different boat types. One is a specialized racing boat and the other appears to be a larger boat possibly designed to be rowed.     

Dowels as a Means of Edge-to-Edge Joinery in the 9th-century AD Vessel from Bozburun, Turkey

After the excavation of the 9th-century AD merchantman from Bozburun, Turkey, from 1995 to 1998, examination of the preserved hull material revealed a method of using dowels embedded in the plank edge to join hull planking together. This method has not previously been recorded in the early medieval Mediterranean. The article discusses the characteristics of the joints in the hull planking of the Bozburun vessel, and considers its role in the transition from the shell-first to frame-first methods of assembly.
© 2005 The Nautical Archaeology Society     

The painting of the Etruscan “Tomba della Quadriga Infernale” (4th century BC), in Sarteano (Siena, Italy): technical features

This work presents the results of an investigation of the painting technique used in the Etruscan tomb “Tomba della Quadriga Infernale”. This tomb was discovered in Sarteano (Siena, Italy) in October 2003 and dated back to the second half of the 4th century BC. Red, dark red, pink, yellow, white, black, and grey colours were used in the tomb in order to create paintings, which now represent a very precious record of the Etruscan art of wall painting in a hypogeal environment. The technical features of the painting were revealed by stratigraphy using optical and electronic microscopy. The components and preparatory layers of the painted areas were characterized using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), energy dispersive X-ray microanalysis (SEM-EDS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS). XRD, SEM-EDS, and optical microscopic techniques were also used for mineralogical analysis of the rock substrate. The SEM-EDS and FTIR analyses showed that red and yellow ochre, calcite, and vegetable charcoal were used to paint the walls of the tomb: the pigments, either alone or mixed together, were utilized to produce pure colours (red, yellow, white, and black) and intermediate tonalities (pink, dark red, and grey). SEM-EDS, FTIR, and XRD highlighted that the painting was made on a preparatory layer of calcite, applied onto a levelling material made up of calcite, clay minerals, quartz, and iron oxides. GC/MS analyses revealed that egg was used as an organic binder to disperse the pigments.     

Trephination as a possible treatment for scurvy in a middle bronze age (ca. 2200 BC) skeleton

Although trephination of sub-adults in antiquity is rare, scurvy both infantile and adult, is even more rare in the archaeological record. Pathological changes appearing in the maxilla, mandible and orbits of a child of 8–9 years of age are highly suggestive of infantile scurvy. Advanced forms of this metabolic disturbance lead to severe subperiosteal haemorrhaging, at times turning the skin of the face and skull black. This condition may have led to the trephination along the sagittal suture as a form of blood letting in hopes of draining the subperiosteal haemorrhage in the cranium. Although cause and effect are often confusing in antiquity, the surgical intervention presented here led to the ultimate death of the child.     

Lines of Landscape Organization: Skovbjerg Moraine (Denmark) in the First Millennium BC

This paper presents a comparative landscape perspective on the Late Bronze Age landscape boundaries in southern Britain, obtained from Skovbjerg Moraine, Denmark. Using Delaunay triangulation as well as classic distribution analyses, it demonstrates that some forms of landscape division articulated already established use‐patterns, while others intercepted the central lines of movement and conflicted with previous ways of organizing the landscape. This pattern is interpreted as a new form of large‐scale landholding in which livestock played a dominant role and boundaries were used to confiscate land in the zones bordering suitable pastures. This situation shows obvious parallels with southern Britain centuries earlier. The paper discusses how the study of these physical boundaries provides new insights into the organization of pre‐Roman landscapes, not only demonstrating a continuing engagement with landscape lines, but also pointing to new concurrent and potentially competing social and economic strategies.     

The Wadi al‐Hijr (Sultanate of Oman) in the third millennium BC

In 2010–11 a pedestrian survey of the western end of Wadi al‐Hijr in northern Oman identified 1507 archaeological features in a 124 km² area. Data were collected on each feature's architectural characteristics, associated artefact assemblages, topographic and environmental locations, condition of remains, and relations to other archaeological features. The majority of datable features belong to the third millennium BC and divide unequally between the Hafit and Umm an‐Nar periods. While the majority of these third‐millennium BC features were tombs, other feature types were identified, including towers, settlements, quarries, dams, enclosures, and possible platforms. Third‐millennium BC features were organised into clusters and ranged considerably in size, from a few features to several hundred. All of the clusters established during the Hafit period were maintained in the Umm an‐Nar period, suggesting a continuity throughout the third millennium. Some preliminary hypotheses regarding settlement patterns are suggested.