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

古老的法老定居点象岛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野。公元前4000年，象岛作为一个商业和行政中心建立起来。此外，它是少数几个在没有政府总体规划的情况下开发的定居点之一。它几乎没有显示城市结构，如明确划分的区域或系统规划的道路系统。人们认为，开发和设计是在当地行政控制之下的，主要以居民的利益和需求为导向。这些城市中著名的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——迄今为止还很少得到调查。这一研究差距现在将以埃及的创新办法加以弥补。将经典挖掘方法与考古技术相结合，保存完好的文化层为微观层面提供了极好的档案。显微形态学（考古沉积物的薄片分析）和体-石分析（生物成因二氧化硅）的结合使用提供了有关古代人类和他们的动物的日常生活的广泛信息。以一个住宅区和一条重要的通道为例，介绍不同地区不同活动的知识（工艺、收获加工、食物准备、清洁等），以及过去文化中人们的区域和超区域互动。这是可能的，因为与不同活动相关的微形态特征被保存在沉积物中。通过植物岩分析，植物不仅可以被识别，而且形态和颜色的变化也涉及温度效应，这可能表明不同的燃烧过程。这些研究是由扫描电子显微镜（SEM）和拉曼光谱补充。总体目标是从公共空间获得日常生活的详细同步和历时信息，并根据街道沉积物的成因重建街道的使用。为了能够从不同的角度看待场地的发展，该项目与当前在象岛进行的跨学科挖掘“生活的现实”的考古研究密切相关。

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.