Posted on 07/01/2008 10:46:57 AM PDT by decimon
A University of Chicago expedition at Tell Edfu in southern Egypt has unearthed a large administration building and silos that provide fresh clues about the emergence of urban life.
The discovery provides new information about a little understood aspect of ancient Egypt—the development of cities in a culture that is largely famous for its monumental architecture.
The archaeological work at Tell Edfu was initiated with the permission of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, headed by Zahi Hawass, under the direction of Nadine Moeller, Assistant Professor at the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago. Work late last year revealed details of seven silos, the largest grain bins found in ancient Egypt as well as an older columned hall that was an administration center.
Long fascinated with temples and monuments such as pyramids, scholars have traditionally spent little time exploring the residential communities of ancient Egypt. Due to intense farming and heavy settlement over the years, much of the record of urban civilization has been lost. So little archaeological evidence remains that some scholars believe Egypt did not have a highly developed urban culture, giving Mesopotamia the distinction of teaching people how to live in cities.
"The traditional view of ancient Egypt has been biased by the fact that most excavation work so far has focused on temples and tombs. The mounds which comprise the remains of Egyptian cities were either ignored, buried under modern towns, or else destroyed by modern agricultural activities. Edfu is one of the very few remaining city mounds that are accessible for scientific study," said Gil Stein, Director of the Oriental Institute.
"The work at Edfu is important and innovative in that it finally allows us to examine ancient Egypt as an urban society, whose cities and towns housed bureaucrats, craft specialists, priests, and farmers. Nadine Moeller's discovery of silos and local administrative buildings shows us how these cities actually functioned as places where the agricultural wealth of the Nile valley was mobilized for the state. Grain as currency provided the sinews of power for the pharoahs," he added.
"Ancient Egyptian administration is mainly known from texts, but the full understanding of the institutions involved and their role within towns and cities has been so far difficult to grasp because of the lack of archaeological evidence with which textual data needs to be combined," Moeller said.
At Tell Edfu, archaeologists have uncovered what amounts to a downtown area. The community, halfway between the modern cities of Aswan and Luxor, was a provincial capital an important regional center. Tell Edfu is also rare, in that almost 3,000 years of Egyptian history are preserved in the stratigraphy of a single mound.
The administrative building and silos were at the heart of the ancient community. Because grain was a form of currency, the silos functioned as a bank and a food source. The silos' size indicates the community was apparently a prosperous urban center.
The grain bins are in a large silo courtyard of the 17th Dynasty (1630-1520 B.C.) and consist of at least seven round, mud-brick silos. With a diameter between 5.5 and 6.5 meters, they are the largest examples discovered within a town center.
The team unearthed an earlier building phase for the hall that predated the silos. In that phase, a mud-brick building with 16 wooden columns stood at the site. The pottery and seal impressions found in the hall date it to the early 13th Dynasty (1773-1650 B.C.). The building layout indicates that it may have been part of the governor's palace, which was typical of provincial towns.
There is no exact parallel for such a columned hall being part of the administrative buildings. Scribes did accounting, opened and sealed containers, and received letters in the column hall. The ostraca, or inscribed pottery shards, list commodities written on them.
The administrative center was used when Egypt's political unity was lost and a small kingdom developed at Thebes (modern Luxor) and controlled most of Upper Egypt.
"During this period, we can see an increase in connections between the provincial elite, such as the family of the governor, to the royal family at Thebes, who were keen on strengthening bonds through marriage, or by awarding important offices to these people," Moeller said.
"It is exactly at this period when Edfu seems to have been very prosperous, which can now be confirmed further by archaeological discoveries such as this silo-court, a symbol for the wealth of the town," she said.
Tell Edfu ping
Tell Edfuggetaboudit?
Is this really a town's name or a lover's kissoff?
Edfu is like tofu but made from camel toes.
What interested me most about this is the time period. The millennia report in the article...seems to add credence to Genesis chapter 41. The story of Joseph’s prediction of the famine and teh instruction to store up grain.
Were there missles in the silos or had they been fired?
Were there missles in the silos or had they been fired?
They were ICBS's (Inter-Continental Ballistic Shems*)... /grin
(*obscure Zecharia Sitchin reference)
They were Edfu fighting
Their missiles fast as lightning
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Thanks decimon. |
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Today, Egypt has no Edfu
Thanks for finding and posting. I can’t explain on here but — this was an extremely encouriging article for me to find today, and the timing of this coming out is truly Divine.
Thanks,
AC
What?! No Stargate? Ring transporters? Goa’uld staff weapons? Death Glider? TV has lied to me!!
Glad it helped. There are some nice pictures at the link that are too large for the thread.
Silos-—Joseph, son of Israel, was my first thought as well.
I went to the link and saw them, thanks.
'There was a king of ours, whose name was Timaus. Under him it came to pass, I know not how, that God was AVERSE to us, and there came, after a surprising manner, men of ignoble birth OUT OF THE EASTERN PARTS, and had boldness enough to make an expedition into our country, and WITH EASE subdued it by force, yet WITHOUT HAZARDING A BATTLE WITH THEM. So when they had gotten those that governed us under their power, they afterwards burnt down our cities, and demolished the temples of the gods, and used all the inhabitants after a most barbarous manner: nay, some they slew, and led their children and their wives into slavery.
At length they made one of themselves king, whose name was SALATlS....and as he found in the Saite Nomos [Seth-roite] a city very proper for his purpose, and which lay upon the Bubastic channel [of the Nile], but with regard to a certain theologic notion was called AVARIS [RAMESSES], this he REBUILT, and made very strong by the walls he built about it, and by a most numerous garrison of two hundred and forty thousand armed men whom he put into it to keep it....
THIS WHOLE NATION WAS STYLED HYCSOS, that is, SHEPHERD-KINGS....BUT SOME SAY THAT THESE PEOPLE [THE HYKSOS] WERE ARABIANS...." These people, whom we have before named kings, and called shepherds also, and their descendants," as he [Manetho] says, "kept possession of Egypt 511 YEARS." -- Josephus, Against Apion, bk. 1, sec. 14.f.
:’)
snickering
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