Archaeological discoveries

Egypt:the hill of the dead reveals its secrets

Used for almost 1000 years, the Aswan necropolis in southern Egypt is a gold mine for archaeologists. Because this cemetery at the gates of Africa was the last resting place of cosmopolitan populations, Egyptians, Nubians, Persians, Greek soldiers and even Judean mercenaries. Report from our special correspondent.

Egyptologist Patrizia Piacentini (right), at the bedside of one of the mummies discovered in the Aswan necropolis.

This article is taken from the monthly magazine of Sciences et Avenir - La Recherche n°900, dated February 2022.

Burning sand as far as the eye can see, a thermometer stuck at 42°C, whole Egyptian families paddling fully clothed in the thousand-year-old waters of the long nourishing river. On the banks of the Nile at the height of Aswan, in the very south of Egypt, nothing suggests the presence of the immense necropolis concealed by the dunes. However, it is at the foot of the "hill of the dead" of the ancient Greek Syene, that the boat docks, facing Elephantine Island. An imposing relief overlooked, on one side, by the thick walls of the monastery of Saint-Simeon (Deir Amba Samaan), one of the most important monuments of Egyptian Christian architecture of the century, and on the other, by the famous mausoleum where the Aga Khan III, Mohamed Chah (1877-1957), the leader of the Ismailis, a current of Shiite Islam, has been buried since 1959. Under the mountain of sand, rock tombs have been dug for centuries in the marly cliff (tafla ).

"This immense necropolis, one of the largest in Egypt, covers more than 100,000 m2, but we are focusing on an area of ​​25,000 m2, the part where more than 300 tombs have been located ", details the Italian archaeologist Patrizia Piacentini. Professor of Egyptology at the University of Milan (Italy), since 2018 she has co-directed the Egyptian-Italian mission east of Aswan (Eimawa) devoted to the study of this hill of the dead, and its occupation. "This cemetery has been in use for almost 1000 years! “, specifies the specialist who is barely completing her third season of excavations. A cemetery “at the gates of Africa”, the last resting place of the cosmopolitan populations who lived in this border region of Egypt, between the 7th century BC. C. and the 3rd century AD.

This article is taken from the monthly magazine of Sciences et Avenir - La Recherche n°900, dated February 2022.

Burning sand as far as the eye can see, a thermometer stuck at 42°C, whole Egyptian families paddling fully clothed in the thousand-year-old waters of the long nourishing river. On the banks of the Nile at the height of Aswan, in the very south of Egypt, nothing suggests the presence of the immense necropolis concealed by the dunes. However, it is at the foot of the "hill of the dead" of the ancient Greek Syene, that the boat docks, facing Elephantine Island. An imposing relief overlooked, on one side, by the thick walls of the monastery of Saint-Simeon (Deir Amba Samaan), one of the most important monuments of Egyptian Christian architecture of the century, and on the other, by the famous mausoleum where the Aga Khan III, Mohamed Chah (1877-1957), the leader of the Ismailis, a current of Shiite Islam, has been buried since 1959. Under the mountain of sand, rock tombs have been dug for centuries in the marly cliff (tafla ).

"This immense necropolis, one of the largest in Egypt, covers more than 100,000 m 2 , but we focus on an area of ​​25,000 m 2 , the part where more than 300 graves have been located ", details the Italian archaeologist Patrizia Piacentini. Professor of Egyptology at the University of Milan (Italy), since 2018 she has co-directed the Egyptian-Italian mission east of Aswan (Eimawa) devoted to the study of this hill of the dead, and its occupation. "This cemetery has been in use for almost 1000 years! “, specifies the specialist who is barely completing her third season of excavations. A cemetery “at the gates of Africa”, the last resting place of the cosmopolitan populations who lived in this border region of Egypt, between the 7th century BC. C. and the 3rd century AD.

Aswan, a city in a strategic position

Since the Highest Pharaonic Antiquity, Aswan has been considered a strategic place because of its immediate position downstream from the first cataract, "the great dyke" of the Nile. Natural border of Egypt, seat of military garrisons, Aswan was a center of privileged exchanges with subtropical Africa. The Egyptians left with caravans to seek luxury goods such as ivory, panther skins, but also gold, incense and spices. The ancient name of Aswan was Swenet, which gave Souan , "trade" in Coptic. Syene will be her Greek name. Aswan was also, for almost 3000 years, a great site of granite extraction, hence the presence of imposing quarries still visible today.

A border area at the crossroads of many roads

In the 7th century BC, the Egypt of the great pharaohs as it is commonly represented, that of Akhenaten, Tutankhamun or even Ramses II, had already disappeared for a long time, and major episodes of unrest had shook the country. However, after the fragmentation of Egyptian power in the century before our era and the reigns of the Nubian sovereigns - the black pharaohs of the country of Kush - as much as under the pressure of the Libyans or the Assyrians, Egypt seems to once again find a form of political unity during the reign of Psammetichus I (664-610 BC).

It was then that the use of the Aswan necropolis began. For almost a century and a half, and before the seizure of the Persian Achaemenid Empire on the "land of the Two Lands" (525-404 BC), Egypt of the XXVIth Dynasty experienced a period of renewal and of prosperity. The inhabitants of Upper and Lower Egypt are opening up even more to the world, and we are witnessing the growing settlement of foreign populations. Especially from Greek merchants and mercenaries. Whether in the delta, in the north, or in the far south and the Aswan region. There, not far from the first cataract of the Nile, Elephantine Island and its outskirts have always been a border zone, at the crossroads of many roads protected by a multitude of fortresses and military garrisons. "The study of the cemetery of Aswan is exceptional for this. It is a place where populations were buried which, depending on the era, could be of Nubian, Libyan, Persian and many other origins, which does not exist anywhere else in Egypt ", continues the archaeologist.

Covered in dust and emerging from the darkness of a 3rd - 2nd century BC burial called "tomb 26", Stefano Nava, from the University of Milan (Italy), tries to complete his readings at the daylight:"In this hypogeum accessible by a staircase leading to a depth of 5 meters, we found, in two cavities, about forty individuals from the Ptolemaic period (4th - 3rd centuries BC), and in a sarcophagus carved into the rock, four mummies from the Roman period. " Often moving discoveries. Especially when children's bodies are found. "There were parents, fathers, mothers, and their children. Up to 12 babies. All mummified, adds Patrizia Piacentini. To the point that we wonder if they all died at the same time, if they were not victims of an epidemic... " The Covid-19 pandemic is not without playing on the hypotheses of anthropologists!

In Tomb 26 from the necropolis, polychrome cardboard wrapping the feet of a mummy, was unearthed. Credit:EIMAWA / UNIVERSITY OF MILAN

These possible family links, Maria Pia Abbracchio, from the University of Milan, will be keen to verify them in the context of future paleogenetic analyses. But in this year 2021, she came with a portable X-ray device, her x-rays focusing mainly on the health status of the mummies and the possible presence, under their bandages, of funerary objects:engraved plaque, metal statuette precious, scarab in turquoise... In Aswan, the deceased were buried under the protection of a trilogy of local deities known as the first cataract - Khnum, the ram-headed god, Satet (or Satis), and Anouket - sometimes also Hâpy (name of the god of the Nile, in Aswan).

A necropolis equivalent to Père-Lachaise to be excavated

The study of the necropolis has only just begun and the data are for the moment preliminary. "We are excavating the equivalent of Père-Lachaise, and it is impossible to study all the tombs. For this reason, we have to sample. Our selection focuses on the burials whose architectural appearance seems to present differences ", explains Patrizia Piacentini. This monumental cemetery was from the outset the last resting place of the notables of the Aswan region. Hence the regular looting over the centuries, which has even continued recently, after the 2011 revolution. and subsequent instability in the country. "Comparing satellite images, we found traces of illegal activity up to 2015 ", specifies the archaeologist. Sometimes, on the ground, evidence of these exactions are encountered:traces of jackhammers remain visible, for example, at the entrance to certain tombs.

"Fortunately, thieves often leave what they are not interested in. Looking for gold and jewelry, they tend to leave wooden statuettes, or offering tables ", declares Alessandro Cavagna, of the University of Milan. This is how, while trying to extract a mummy from its vault, the thieves did not see a necklace bearing a copper plate falling into the sand. where was engraved the Greek name of the deceased, "Nikostratos"."Although extensively looted, this necropolis is unique and we have great hope that future excavations may yield “, assures Patrizia Piacentini. Due to the presence of border garrisons, like the ancient fortress of Elephantine, “tomb 26” turned out to be, for example, that of a military leader! On the planks of a sycamore wooden bed was written in Ptolemaic hieroglyphs the name of General Pamerih, an Egyptian commanding the troops of Aswan. ". Signaling thereby the exercise of a profession practiced from father to son.

Further on, other remains yielded the remains of an individual with an amputated leg. A wounded fighter? In this Egyptian South, Greek soldiers and mercenaries played a major role. But they weren't the only ones. The discovery at the end of the 19th century and at the very beginning of the famous Elephantine papyri (read the box below) revealed in particular the presence of a community of Judean mercenaries and their families during the Persian domination of the Egypt (525-404 BC).

A presence that seems to attest, in the cemetery of Aswan, the recent discovery of a tomb from the Persian period (6th century BC), where in addition to Egyptian decorations dedicated to Osiris and the trilogy of divinities local communities, there is an inscription in Aramaic on one wall, the lingua franca of the Jewish community of Elephantine. Currently under construction, access to it is unfortunately not authorized. "Tomb 32 looks like it from the outside, we chose to study it hoping that it could also contain other Aramaic writings, says the Italian archaeologist. But the burial turned out to be from the Ptolemaic period (4-3 centuries BC), a later period. We nevertheless found many mummies there as well as fragmentary texts written in hieroglyphs. "Under the reign of the Ptolemies - the Macedonian rulers of Egypt, of whom Cleopatra VII was the last representative -, the administration wrote in Greek as well as in demotic, the Egyptian cursive script, while continuing to use hieroglyphics .

Decorated cardboard usekh necklaces and gilded decorations, the favorite adornment of the gods. Credits:EIMAWA / UNIVERSITY OF MILAN

The Elephantine papyri, a unique testimony

It is to a 19th century journalist and Egyptologist, Charles Edwin Wilbour (1833-1896), that we owe the discovery of most of these papyri on Elephantine Island. Hundreds of documents in hieratic and demotic Egyptian, Greek, Latin or Coptic, but also and especially in Aramaic, the lingua franca of the Persian Empire. Still under study, most of them are kept in the Brooklyn Museum, in New York (United States), as well as in Berlin (Germany).

"This collection of manuscripts can be divided into four groups, the oldest of which date back to the end of the Old Kingdom, from the time of Pepi II ", explains the Egyptologist and philologist Pascal Vernus, director of studies emeritus of the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (EPHE), in Paris. And you can find everything there:administrative letters, legal documents, accounts, etc. A second group is composed of papyri from the Ramesside period, i.e. documents written in hieratic script around 1140 BC (New Kingdom)."A third series seems to come from a library of the Temple of Elephantine ", continues the expert:with treatises on magic, gynecology - in Egyptian antiquity, medicine and magic go together -, ophiology (study of snakes), and others related to sacerdotal sciences.

"But the group of documents that experienced the greatest notoriety among scholars concerns the Aramaic papyri ", continues the specialist. Documents (legal archives, contracts, divorces, etc.) which testify to the installation in the fortress of Elephantine, probably from the 7th century to the 4th century BC, of ​​a community of soldiers from Judea in the service of the Persians who had conquered Egypt (524-404 BC)

Manuscripts cover, over a thousand years, a wide variety of fields:law, accounting, gynecology, magic... Credit:AKG IMAGES

Embalmer's workshop, pottery, libation vases, amphoras for oil and wine offerings, Bâ birds, representing the souls of the dead, oushebtis (the funerary statuettes of Anubis), lamps… In the necropolis, discoveries are incessant. The same applies to fragments of funerary masks and polychrome cardboard, the "mummy covers" in vogue in the Ptolemaic periods. Mixing papyrus or linen rags with plaster, these breastplates and headdresses which replaced the heavy stone coffins were painted in dazzling colors - blue, red or white -, sometimes gold. Alas, they were broken by looters to gain access to the mummies and precious objects they concealed, like a wooden cover adorned with a delicate feline figure.

This delicate feline figure comes from a wooden sarcophagus ornament. Credits:EIMAWA / UNIVERSITY OF MILAN

The burial place of the very first Christians of Egypt

Collected daily, the exhumed objects are then transported to the reserves of the inspectorate of the Ministry of Antiquities to be studied there. Located in the heart of the city, they adjoin the huge Coptic cathedral of the Archangel Michael, which is guarded 24 hours a day by Egyptian policemen in bright white uniforms. "This necropolis is an exceptional place, a place where many populations have crossed paths. Undoubtedly a cemetery where the very first Christians of Egypt were also buried, from the 4th-5th century AD. tombs that future expeditions may enable us to discover. Thanks to the Elephantine papyri, we knew the inhabitants of this city in life:we now hope to discover them in their eternal home. In Aswan, we are making the dead so that they tell us the story of the living! ", concludes the Italian Egyptologist.

A mysterious Jewish colony on the banks of the Nile

The community of Judean soldiers stationed on Elephantine Island during Persian rule has fascinated scholars as early as the late 19th century, not least because this community does not appear to have been uniquely monotheistic.

Indeed, according to the information provided by the Elephantine papyri, if these inhabitants venerate YHWH, Yahweh, they also honor other Semitic deities alongside, like the ancient Canaanite gods Ashim-Bethel and Anat-Bethel - presented like the consort of Yahweh. "Here is a community that claims Judaism and which obviously does not follow all its precepts ", comments Pascal Vernus, director of studies emeritus at the École Pratique des Hautes Etudes (EPHE), in Paris. Another singularity confirmed by the writings found on ceramic shards (ostraca ), marriages between Jews and Egyptians were very common in Elephantine - proof there too that one of the fundamental prescriptions of the Jewish religion, the prohibition of mixed marriages, was not respected. The Jewish community of Elephantine had its own temple.

Built near an Egyptian sanctuary dedicated to the god-ram Khnum, the great lord of Elephantine, this one would have been destroyed following a revolt fomented in 410 before J. - C. by the Egyptian clergy of Khnum . A neighborhood affair that would have gone wrong, according to historian Pierre Briant, from the Collège de France.