Structures
consist of two large mudbrick buildings surrounded by vast open courtyards and
workshops. Excavation of an ancient Egyptian site has found evidence of beer
and bread-making in a newly discovered building complex.
The
city of Tell Edfu, located around 400 miles south of Cairo in the Nile Valley,
has been explored by archaeologists for the past 16 years. At the end of 2017,
researchers from the University of Chicago found a complex of buildings that
marked the earliest point of the town’s occupation. They dated from around 2400
BCE – the so-called “Old Kingdom” period of ancient Egypt, when the great
pyramids were built.
The
structures consist of two large mudbrick buildings surrounded by vast open
courtyards and workshops. “It’s a wonderful find because we have so little
information about this era of settlement in the southern provinces,” said
Professor Nadine Moeller, an Egyptian archaeology specialist who co-led the
excavation. “We don’t know any such
similar complexes for the Old Kingdom.”
The
excavation uncovered storage containers and other artifacts in the workshops
that suggested the towns inhabitants had been brewing beer and making bread on
the site. There was also evidence for copper smelting in the complex, which the
archaeologists think was built to provide accommodation for important officials
sent to oversee the mining of precious minerals from the eastern deserts.
Underneath
the floors of the buildings the archaeologists discovered stamps marked with
the name, in hieroglyphs, of an official who led a group of prospectors to mine
for the pharaoh Djedkare-Isesi – the penultimate rule of Egypt’s Fifth Dynasty.
“It’s just about this time that the Egyptian royalty, until then focused on the
northern area directly around the capital Memphis, began to expand its reach
after a period of contraction during the fourth and much of the fifth
dynasties,” said Professor Moeller.
The
use of Edfu as a departure point for expeditions to the east was further
confirmed by the presence of shells from the Red Sea and rare imported ceramics
from the ancient civilization of Nubia, in what is now Sudan. “This is a first
sign that the ancient city of Edfu was evolving into an important departure
point for large expeditions leaving for the Eastern desert regions, and
possibly the Red Sea shore, located about 125 miles to the east,” Professor
Moeller added.
The researchers also said the building may have
had religious or cult ties, given their proximity to the temple of the falcon
god Horus. “It’s such a unique site.
We’ve had a hard time finding architectural parallels, because no other
settlement in Upper Egypt has such extensive remains from this time period,”
said Professor Moeller. “We’ve learned so much at Tell Edfu, and there’s still
more to come.”
