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VOL. 9 NO. 2 GRAM FALL 2008 ANCIENT EGYPT RESEARCH ASSOCIATES Groundbreaking Archaeology Archaeological Science: Deciphering Ancient Code 2 Small Finds, Big Results 4 Ann Lurie Egypt's Oldest Olive on Board RainerEgypt's Gerisch, Oldest charcoal Olivespecial- ist,Rainer has identified Gerisch, charcoal olive wood analyst, in his 6 sampleshas identified from the olive 4th woodDynasty at Heit el-Gurobthe 4th Dynasty settlement, Lost the City earliest of Two Royal Towns: olivethe inPyramids Egypt to settlement, date. the Old Digs, New earliest olive in2 Egypt to date. Finds 3 8 Giza: Overviews and Ground Truths 14 http://www.aeraweb.org Egypt's Oldest Olive were used to transport oils. Some ar- Archaeological Science: Deciphering Ancient Code chaeologists believe they carried olive oil ERA researchers have discovered new early date? The because they have been found in olive oil ost of what we analyze is not Below: Looking something like a tiny guard's hut, or a secret entrance into the Great Pyramid, this A evidence suggesting that olive wood most likely factory sites in the Levant, where peo- diminutive entryway to the AERA Field Laboratory gives access to six rooms on two levels where Mentirely natural stuff. It is products was present in ancient Egypt 500 to 700 possibility ple have pressed olives since the 4th scientists study material culture from the Lost City of the Pyramids. Nestled among the tombs of or material left over after people have the nobles in the Western Cemetery, the lab is home to the AERA Archaeological Science and years before previously believed, a find is that it was imported, and there Millennium BCE. AERA ceramicist processed, worked, or digested it in Material Culture program. View to the east. The circles show the lab interior. that may provide new insights into the is much evidence to support this Anna Wodzińska has identified 14 some way. Archaeologists call it “mate- life of the pyramid builders. idea. Egyptians carried on a lively combed ware sherds at the Lost City site. rial culture." People select natural mate- “software” passively. In various ways pottery, animal bone, plant remains, The discovery, made by AERA char- trade with the Levant going back to the If the imported jars carried olive oil, this rial (clay, stone, mud, plants, animals, material culture, from the monumental chipped and ground stone tools, char- coal analyst Rainer Gerisch, suggests 1st Dynasty (roughly 2900–2730 BCE). might explain the presence of the wood. earth, wood, etc.), modify it, and distrib- to the elementary structures of every- coal, clay sealings, faience, pigments, that olive wood was at least present, if The main imports were woods, as well as Prunings from the orchard might have ute it according to the shared ideas that day life, actively affected the evolution mudbricks, and objects of everyday life) not grown, in Egypt as early as the time oils, resins, and wine. Egyptians sought come along with the jars as some sort of make up culture—the ideas behind their of ancient Egyptian society. The task of methodically analyze the enormous of Pharaoh Menkaure (about 2551–2523 wood for buildings, ships, and funer- packing material or shipping crates. social organization, needs, per- building on such a colossal scale quantities of material that we have BCE), builder of the third Giza pyramid. ary equipment since their native trees It is also possible that Egyptian work- ceptions, beliefs, and pat- required that the Egyptians amassed, in order to unlock the code: Until now, the earliest known traces of offered very little good timber. The Pal- ers brought in the olive twigs with wood terns of behavior. Culture organize and adapt their the ideas, and values of the people olive were fruit pits found in 12th Dy- ermo Stone mentions 40 ships arriving shipments. When crews were dispatched influences the shape human and natural who created and inhabited the Lost nasty deposits at Memphis. Even then, with wood during the reign of Sneferu to the Levant to fell trees and transport potters give vessels, resources, their social City of the Pyramids. The lab team there are almost no other archaeologi- (2543–2510 BCE). It is possible that olive the logs back, they may also have taken the ornamentation order and bureau- works under the aegis of the AERA cal finds of olive until the 18th Dynasty was among the wood imports during the firewood to use on their return voyage they add, the people cracy. They also had to Archaeological Science and Material (about 1569–1081 BCE). From this period Old Kingdom. or to fill out extra space on their ship. who use the pots, the adapt their most basic Culture program, directed by Dr. Mary and thereafter olive leaves begin to ap- But two important facts undermine Gerisch found the olive with small pieces means by which they structures, like bread Anne Murray. pear in tombs, suggesting that olive cul- this hypothesis. First, it is unlikely that of charcoal from other Levantine trees— procure them, how they pots and bakeries, for The results of the lab team, combined tivation had begun in Egypt. But the first olive wood ended up in the timber trade. cedar, pine, and deciduous and evergreen use and reuse the vessels, an intensification of pro- with the data from the site, allow us to definitive evidence that Egyptians were Olive trees are extraordinarily long-lived oaks—suggesting that they may have and how they discard them. duction that in turn may have “read” the patterns of everyday life in the growing olives dates from the Graeco- and valued for their fruit. The tree does come from the Levant together. Material culture both pas- affected how people used Lost City, and to relate these patterns to Roman era (305 BCE–337 CE). not yield good timber as it is pruned But what about the possibility that sively reflects and actively those structures back in the record of Old Kingdom monumental Gerisch first identified several olive vigorously to keep it short and produc- Egyptians were growing olive trees? In influences the ideas their everyday lives. architecture, art, and texts long-studied wood charcoal fragments in 2001 in tive. Second, the specimens found at the New Kingdom Queen Hatshepsut and values that people In search of the by Egyptologists. charcoal samples from the Lost City of AERA’s site are mostly from twigs. Thus maintained a botanical garden of exotic share. (The gigantic code—the software— In this issue of AERAGRAM we pres- the Pyramids site. But there was not the wood was probably not imported plants. Perhaps Menkaure made an early pyramids are material we compulsively, scru- ent two of the stories to emerge from enough evidence to rule out the possi- for carving small objects either. Carving and undocumented effort to cultivate culture writ large!) pulously try to recover the Arch Sci Program: the earliest evi- bility that these were intrusive. Gerisch could have left scraps for firewood that olive trees in palace gardens. every scrap of material dence of olive wood in Egypt to date and continued to find olive charcoal from might have ended up as charcoal. The Pyramid Age is early for olive in Raw Data and Code culture, from the largest the mystery of the odd stones that hint- different areas of the Lost City. With Perhaps then, our olive wood was not Egypt, but few Old Kingdom town sites So in a sense material cul- objects down to the small- ed of a 4,500 year old crank-shaft drill. that and additional finds this year, we an import in its own right, but rather have been excavated extensively and ture is like certain computer est seeds. Our archaeologists • Mark Lehner can now conclude that the olive wood entered Egypt with other products, pos- sampled methodically for wood char- software (especially in object-ori- assign every lot of material an ID tag, is genuinely part of the Old Kingdom sibly olive oil. Beginning in the 1st Dy- coal. Gerisch’s work may inspire others ented programming) in that it contains the number of the deposit from which settlement remains, dating at least 500 nasty, combed ware pottery vessels from to carry out similar studies and perhaps both raw data—the clay, bone, stone, they excavated the material. The “feature years earlier than any other known spec- the Levant appeared in Egypt. Made of a discover more early olive remains. etc.—and code—the ideas. In our work number” stays with the material through imens in Egypt. So how did olive wood very hard ceramic decorated with stria- • Rainer Gerisch, Wilma Wetterstrom, we are not so much interested in things- its registration and analysis in the turn up at the Lost City site at such an tions impressed with a comb, the jars By the Numbers and Mary Anne Murray as-such. We want to know the "software" AERA Field Laboratory. Specialists analyze enormous quantities that created the "hardware" of the pyra- of material every season. These are some Under the Microscope: Identifying Wood Charcoal mids, tombs, and temples. This highly Unlocking the Code of the numbers: All woods have distinctive patterns of cells and other microscopic structures symbolic, monumental material culture Thirty-eight scholars and Royal Administrative Building 12,049 animal bone fragments (2007) that are used to distinguish one species from another. Rainer Gerisch examines not only reflects the ancient Egyptians’ scientists (specialists in 12,950 diagnostic sherds (2007) 1 micron 1 micron Olive these features in split surfaces of the charcoal fragment, working at magnifica- 12,837 chipped stone tools & waste tions of 40 to 500 x.