LATEST DISCOVERIES AT GEBEL EL-SILSILA

Maria Nilsson and John Ward take a break from their regular series of Gebel el- Silsila through the ages to share with us some of the archaeological discoveries from their most recent field season.

- Maria Nilsson and John Ward

The Silsila team has just completed a very successful thirteenth season in Egypt so we thought readers of AE Magazine would like to be the first to hear about the latest finds at this amazing site. You will find a summary from the excavations of Tutankhamun’s workers village, and Amenhotep III’s stone workshop, and a snippet from the ongoing rock art survey of the northern areas of Nag el-Hammam and Shatt el-Rigal. There is also a little treat for those who are interested in later antiquity as well, with a summary of the excavations of a Roman burial site!

Tutankhamun’s Workers’ Village

An ancient settlement was known already by a few early visiting scholars, and we marked out the location in 2013 during a larger survey of the area. The village is situated on the West Bank, just north of the modern tarmac road that connects the Nile valley with the Western Desert (Sahara), and which divides Gebel el-Silsila proper from its northern sister-site Nag el-Hammam. The settlement (shown opposite, bottom) sits upon a small hill along the first plateau, overlooking the Nile to the east and with the quarries and associated spoil heaps to its south. A well-preserved ancient road meanders through the deserted landscape to its western side, and connects the village with an ancient quay to its northeast. The nearby small temple, previously thought to belong to Horemheb, was more likely contemporaneous with the village. Sadly this was destroyed in the 1980’s when quarrymen used explosives to extract stone nearby, but the team has made a few surface finds, including a ceramic ostracon containing an architectural drawing in a style comparable with the Amarna houses, indicating an earlier date than previously thought.