Everyday life in the ancient city of Elephantine, southern Egypt - Microanalytical exploration of archaeosediments

埃及南部古城埃勒芬丁的日常生活 - 古生物沉积物的微分析探索

• 批准号: 421874393
• 负责人: Dr. Dagmar Fritzsch
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Institut für Physische Geographie (IPG)
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2018-12-31 至 2020-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/421874393?language=en
• 关键词: Everyday; life; ancient; city; Elephantine

The ancient pharaonic settlement Elephantine is located on the same-named Nile island in southern Egypt. The ideal strategic position on the island provided an optimal view of all activities in the area. Elephantine established itself in the fourth millennium BC as a centre with commercial and administrative functions. In addition, it is one of the few studied settlements that developed without an overall plan given by the government. It hardly shows urban struc-tures such as clearly defined districts or a systematically planned road system. It is assumed that development and design were under local administrative control and oriented mainly to the interests and needs of the inhabitants. The cities’ prominent temples in particular have been subject to detailed archaeological research, but a significant part of cultural history - everyday life - has so far been little investigated. This research gap shall now be closed with an innovative approach for Egypt. Combining the classical excavation methods with archaeometric tech-niques, the well-preserved cultural layers provide an excellent archive on micro-level. The combined use of micromorphology (thin section analysis of archaeological sediments) and phy-tolith analysis (biogenic silica) provides insights into extensive information concerning the eve-ryday life of the ancient people and their animals. Using the example of a residential district and an important access route, the knowledge about the different activities in different areas (craft, harvest processing, food preparation, cleaning, etc.) and the regional and supra-regional interaction of people from this past culture will be characterised. This is possible because mi-cromorphological features associated with different activities are preserved in the sediments. With the phytolith analysis, plants are not only identifiable, but morphological and colour changes also refer to temperature effects, which may indicate different combustion processes. These investigations are complemented by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Raman spectroscopy. The overall objectives are to obtain detailed synchronous and diachronic information of every-day life from public space, as well as to reconstruct the use of streets on the genesis of street sediments.In order to be able to look at the development of the site from different perspectives, the project is linked closely to the archaeological research of the current interdisciplinary excavation "Real-ities of Life" on Elephantine Island.

古代法老的定居点Elephantine位于埃及南部同名的尼罗河岛上。岛上理想的战略位置为该地区的所有活动提供了最佳视角。Elephantine在公元前4000年建立了自己的商业和行政职能的中心。此外，它是少数几个在没有政府给出总体规划的情况下开发的研究定居点之一。它几乎没有显示城市结构，如明确界定的地区或系统规划的道路系统。假定开发和设计在地方行政控制之下，主要以居民的利益和需要为导向。这些城市的著名寺庙尤其受到了详细的考古研究，但文化历史的重要组成部分-日常生活-迄今为止很少被调查。现在，埃及应采取创新办法，弥补这一研究差距。结合经典的发掘方法和考古测量技术，保存完好的文化层提供了一个很好的微观层次的档案。微形态学（考古沉积物的薄片分析）和植硅体分析（生物硅）的结合使用提供了有关古代人及其动物的日常生活的广泛信息的见解。以一个居民区和一条重要的通道为例，介绍了不同地区的不同活动（手工艺、收获加工、食品准备、清洁等）的知识。以及来自过去文化的人们的区域和超区域互动将被描述。这是可能的，因为与不同活动有关的微形态特征在沉积物中被保存下来。通过植硅石分析，不仅可以识别植物，而且形态和颜色变化也涉及温度效应，这可能表明不同的燃烧过程。这些调查补充了扫描电子显微镜（SEM）和拉曼光谱。总体目标是从公共空间获取日常生活的同步和历时的详细信息，并根据街道沉积物的成因重建街道的使用情况。为了能够从不同的角度看待遗址的发展，该项目与目前在大象岛进行的跨学科挖掘“生活的真实性”的考古研究密切相关。