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JHU ARCHAEOLOGY TEAM IN LUXOR, EGYPT
THE TEMPLE COMPLEX AT KARNAK
JHU - BROOKLYN MUSEUM COLLABORATION
JHU CONCESSION AND ITS WORK PLANS
THE MUT PRECINCT
AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH SHOWING EXCAVATION SITES
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JHU ARCHAEOLOGY TEAM IN LUXOR, EGYPT

In January 2006 Professor Betsy Bryan and her team of students from Johns Hopkins will return for a another season at an archaeological site in Luxor, Egypt. This will be the 11th season in Egypt for Professor Bryan. She is the chair of the Near Eastern Studies Department and Professor of Egyptian Art and Archaeology. Her area of study is the Egyptian New Kingdom (18th to 20th dynasties) spanning the time from 1567 to 1085 B.C.E. The geographic area that is encompassed by the modern day city of Luxor is rich in finds from the New Kingdom, which was the "golden age" of Egyptian temple building. Ancient sites in the area include the city of Thebes, the temple complexes at Karnak, Deir el-Bahari, Deir el-Medina and the burial sites in the Valley of Kings and the Valley of the Queens with tombs from the 18th and 19th dynasties. Thebes was the capital of ancient Egypt, and the center of the most important cult, that of the god Amun.

 

THE TEMPLE COMPLEX AT KARNAK

JHU is continuing work this year at the Temple of the Goddess Mut (pronounced "moot") at Karnak in the southern Egyptian city of Luxor. Mut was the wife of the great national god of ancient Egypt, Amun, whose central temple at Karnak is the largest existing religious complex in the world. Mut had her own temple in the southern precinct of Karnak, and the main temple was linked to it by two different paved alleys flanked by rows of ram headed sphinxes. The god Amun's statue was brought to the Mut temple when rituals occurred commemorating the birth of a son to Amun and Mut. That son, Khonsu, a moon god, has his own temple at Karnak as well.
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JHU - BROOKLYN MUSEUM COLLABORATION

Since 1977 the Brooklyn Museum, under the direction of Mr. Richard A. Fazzini, has been excavating in the Temple of Mut. The Brooklyn team continues to work in the area of the front courts and first pylon of the Mut Temple, as well as in the northeast and northwest sectors of the precinct.

JHU CONCESSION AND ITS WORK PLANS

This will the sixth season of work behind the Sacred Lake of the precinct. Thus far the excavation has identified production areas of the Eighteenth Dynasty (ca. 1479-1300 B.C.), including industrial and food processing installations. Granaries and bakeries of the Eighteenth Dynasty and slghtly earlier have been identified, but the overall extent of these temple support regions remain unclear. The work will continue to expose horizontally, east to west, the areas behind the lake, linking up areas already opened. In addition we hope to continue to track the line of the original enclosure wall of the precinct, dating to the early Eighteenth Dynasty, and to locate its southeast corner and north-south orientation on the east side.

A second target area for our work is inside the temple itself. We thank the American Research Center in Egypt for its support through a conservation grant of our efforts to preserve the New Kingdom remains of the Mut Temple. In the Second Court of the temple, throughout 2005-2006 the interior walls of the court are being rebuilt and conserved by a team of conservators and stone masons. In addition, the decorated and inscribed New Kingdom sandstone and limestone blocks found reused in the temple's platform are being cleaned and conserved and will be stored for study and later display. The Temple is a large precinct but we hope slowy to define its New Kingdom form, bringing together the support areas behind the temple with the original religious building in order to better understand the precinct as a living environment, ca 1470 B.C.

THE MUT PRECINCT

The aerial view below (taken in the 1980s) looks northward on the Mut precinct, which is enclosed by mud brick walls. The area of interest is outlined in yellow. A sacred lake surrounds the Mut temple on three sides, and the site's other two temples, the temple of Ramses III (to the left of the lake) and the temple of Hatshepsut (above and to the right of the temple of Mut) are clearly visible. The Nile is seen in the top left corner of the image; the main temple complex of Amun at the top. Mut's temple at Karnak was first constructed in the Early New Kingdom and was probably rebuilt by Amenhotep III between 1400 and 1360 B.C.E. The temple complex at Karnak was added to, dismantled, restored and enlarged over the centuries by Tutankhamun, Ramses II and III, Nectanebo, Alexander the Great and various Romans.

 

Aerial View of Karnak with Mut Precinct in Foreground Showing Excavation Locations

Photo Credit: Alain Bellod C.F.E.E.T.K .
 

Excavation by Professor Bryan and her team has focused on the large area outlined in red and in the locations indicated by the blue arrows. The large area, roughly 150 by 250 meters is located outside of the original precinct walls. Based on remote sensing done in the 1980s, Professor Bryan's team has done both a surface survey and focused excavation to locate structures here. This area may have been either residential or an area of domestic dependency buildings (such as bakeries and animal stalls) supporting the temple complex. The blue arrows indicate locations of excavation by the JHU team starting in 2001. The green patches indicate the locations of trenches excavated in the area south of the sacred lake. The orange rectangle marks the site of the west side enclosure wall excavation. Arrow number 1 is the site of the Thutmose III Gateway. Arrow number 2 marks the area on the west side of the first court of the Mut Temple and is the site of a Late Period Gateway. Arrow number 3 marks the Second Court of the Mut Temple. Arrow number 4 marks the Ramesses III temple site. It should be noted that this photograph was taken during the 1980s and that reeds and grasses have grown up considerably around the Sacred Lake since that time.

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For additional information contact: macie.hall@jhu.edu