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Nadine Moeller
he ongoing excavations at the ancient Egyptian settlement site located at Tell Edfu in the south of Egypt
have provided new evidence for town administration during the transitional phase between the end of the
Middle Kingdom and the early Second Intermediate Period
(ca. 17701650 b.c.e.). The ancient town of Edfu functioned
as the capital of the second Upper Egyptian province during
that time and played an important role within its region. The
excavations have focused primarily on exposing the administrative quarter of this town that has been located along the
eastern side of the tell (fig. 1). The two principal structures
excavated thus far make up a large administrative building
complex, with at least two substantial columned halls dating
to the late Middle Kingdom, that was abandoned some time
during the early Second Intermediate Period, when political
power broke down and a group of foreign rulers called the
Hyksos installed themselves in the eastern Delta region. After
the abandonment of the administrative building, a large silo
court was built on top of the older structures. These silos
were used for grain storage and held the grain reserve of the
ancient settlement, thus being part of a major administrative
institution (fig. 2).
W 324 =
370 =371
Silo
368
Silo
388
Ho 830
Ho 828
?
?
Ho 851
Ho 724
Ho 725
Silo
316
Silo
323
threshold ?
bench
W 361
W 360
elongated roo
m
W 398
W 358
Co 355
Co 357
Co 455
Co 367
Ho 709
door ?
Ho 710
Ho 770
W 799
Ho 667
Silo
655
Ho 670
Ho 711
W 441
southern
columned
hall
Silo
654
Co 452
bench
Ho 721
Silo
653
W 451
W 533
Old K
indom
enclosu
re wall
Silo
303
Silo
405
W 501
5m
GM - TEP 2011
and the columns would have been larger than those of the
southern columned hall. here is a strong possibility that the
northern hall was the central feature of this building complex.
Only the southern and western limits of the whole building have been clearly identiied during the excavation (see ig.
3, walls W 458 and W 398); the eastern and northern limits
remain buried under several meters of later settlement layers.
he currently exposed area of this building complex encompasses about 325 m2. he excellent preservation of the stratigraphy has allowed for a detailed analysis and identiication of the
various phases of construction, occupation, abandonment, and
postabandonment. he associated ceramic evidence links the
main period of use of this complex to the late Middle Kingdom
(end of Twelth to mid-hirteenth Dynasty), while there is evidence that the northern columned hall remained in use until
the early Second Intermediate Period (late hirteenth Dynasty).
A large corpus of more than 1,400 clay sealings has been
excavated in relation to this late Middle Kingdom administrative complex; they were found in several layers associated
with its use and gradual abandonment. he two largest accumulations of sealings come from the inal occupation layer of
the southern columned hall and a dense deposit related to the
abandonment of the northern columned hall. he following
discussion will investigate two examples of recurrent sealing
motifs, which open the debate on whether the owners of these
seals were local oicials at Edfu and or whether there are other
possible indications as to their identities.1
Figure 6. Sealing with motif of symmetrically arranged ankh and nefer signs.
1cm
Chart 1. The percentages of the encountered backtypes for the sealings with the ankh and nefer motif.
Figure 8. Back of box sealing showing the flat surface with wood grain
and string imprints.
(for good examples of jar sealings, see von Pilgrim 2001, pl.
18D). In several cases the folds of fabric are visible, which
makes them likely candidates for having been attached to bags.
Josef Wegner adopted the term fabric sealings, which include
any examples with fabric impressions on the back (Wegner
2007, 300302, ig. 135 no. 3). A few examples also show papyrus impressions (ig. 11). By far the largest percentage (71%)
consists of peg sealings (chart 1), of which the majority shows
square pegs (39 out of 62 identiied examples).
Since a concentration of these was found near the doorway
between the southern columned hall and the adjacent room to
the west, it is most likely that a larger number of them had been
used for sealing this door on a regular basis. Some of them
might also have sealed wooden boxes. Diferences between
peg sealings that had been attached to wooden pegs used for
closing boxes and for closing doors (this closing mechanism
is attested for both) are still diicult to identify, even ater a
pl. 107 no. 7; pl. 102; nos. 7, 15, 19, 34, 40, 41). According to
the analysis by Ben-Tor, the Edfu example dates to the latter
series, which is mostly contemporary to the Fiteenth Dynasty.
he irst appearance of scarabs from Canaanite workshops in
Egypt seem to occur at the beginning of the Second Intermediate Period, when the settlement of foreign populations might
have facilitated trade relations between Egypt and southern
Palestine (Ben-Tor 2007, 11720).
Furthermore, scarabs of the early series (dated ca. 1700
1630 b.c.e.) are very rarely found in Egypt itself, in contrast to
the late series, for which more examples are known from many
Egyptian sites (Ben-Tor 2007, 186). Also interesting is the
fact that the Edfu sealings showing the man holding the lotus
lower were stamped by a scarab of good quality, with inely
incised lines showing much detail, which stands in contrast to
most of those depicted in the catalogue of Ben-Tors publication (2007, pls. 102103). A scarab with a similar motif was
also found in a tomb at Esna, a site that lies about 55 km north
of Edfu, dating to the Second Intermediate Period (Downes
1974, 61, 154, no. 2).
he motif of the standing igure with the lotus lower is one
of the most frequently encountered motifs on sealings from the
administrative building complex at Tell Edfu (123 in total). It
occurs mainly in the northern columned hall, and the largest
proportion was found in a layer linked to its abandonment (82
examples), where they occurred together with those naming
the Hyksos ruler Khayan (for details, see Moeller and Marouard 2012). Out of a total number of 333 sealings from this
context, almost 25 percent show the motif of the standing male
igure with the lotus.
Although a large percentage of the sealings was too small or
poorly preserved to identify their back-types with certainty (41
1cm
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank D. Ben-Tor and J. Johnson for their
comments and discussion of this topic. he drawings of the
sealings were made by G. Marouard, and the photographs were
taken by J. Schmied; without their work, this analysis would
not have been possible. I am also grateful for the extensive
work done by K. Bandy on the sealing catalogue and object
database as well as L. Miller for helping to register the sealings
in the ield. Last but not least I would like to thank the local
Edfu inspectorate, especially Mohamed Zenan (director) and
Ramadan Hassan Ahmed (director of the Elkab magazine) for
their help and collaboration. All illustrations are copyright Tell
Edfu Project.
Notes
1. Chronological issues that arise from the sealings are beyond the
scope of this article and are discussed elsewhere; see Moeller and
Marouard 2012.
2. This corpus of ostraca is currently being analyzed by K. Bandy
(NELC, University of Chicago) for her PhD dissertation.
References
Ben-Tor, D. 2007. Scarabs, Chronology, and Interconnections: Egypt and
Palestine in the Second Intermediate Period. Orbis Biblicus Orientalis 27. Fribourg: Academic Press.
Downes, D. 1974. The Excavations at Esna, 19051906. Warminster:
Aris & Phillips.
Mlinar, C. 2004. The Scarab Workshops of Tell el-Daba. Pp. 10740
in Scarabs of the Second Millennium BC from Egypt, Nubia, Crete
and the Levant: Chronological and Historical Implications, ed. M.
Bietak. Vienna: Verlag der sterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.
Moeller, N. 2007. Tell Edfu: Uncovering a Provincial Capital. Egyptian
Archaeology 31:1417.
. 2009. A New Royal Name Sealing from Tell Edfu. Zeitschrift fr
gyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde 136:15054.
. 2010. Tell Edfu: Preliminary Report on Seasons 20052009.
Journal of American Research Center in Egypt 46:81111.
Moeller, N., and G. Marouard. 2012. Discussion of Late Middle Kingdom and Early Second Intermediate Period History and Chronol-