archaeology – The Kelsey Blog

archaeology

BIG Object Spotlight #1: Interviews with Kelsey Curators and Staff

By Emily Allison, with Janet Richards, Scott Meier, and Eric Campbell

Museum gallery space with three vitrines containing textiles and ceramic artifacts. The walls are painted green and hold a photo of Byzantine and Islamic artifacts, a TV screen with a slideshow, and a mounted wooden door lintel. Text on the wall reads, “Coming Soon: Byzantine/Islamic Gallery.”
BIG Object Spotlight #1 can be viewed on the second floor of the Kelsey Museum until late October.

If you have spent any time around the Kelsey Museum in the past several years, you may have heard whispers of the acronym “BIG.” Standing for “Byzantine and Islamic Gallery,” BIG refers to the new, permanent gallery that Kelsey curators and staff are hard at work developing. Although the opening of this gallery is still a few years away, a series of “Object Spotlights”—available over the coming months—will allow visitors to receive a small sampling of the artifacts and themes that are yet to come. The first of these Object Spotlights was installed in late June and will be up through the end of October, around which point a new group of artifacts will be available to view.

To learn more about progress on BIG (and more specifically, the development of BIG Object Spotlight #1), I spoke with Janet Richards, Scott Meier, and Eric Campbell—each of whom played key roles in making the opening of the first Object Spotlight a success. 

Janet Richards, our first interviewee, was the lead curator for BIG Object Spotlight #1. She also serves as the Kelsey Museum’s curator for Dynastic Egypt and a professor of Egyptology in U-M’s Department of Middle East Studies.

Emily: To start, can you talk about the Byzantine and Islamic Gallery? Those who are intimately involved with the Kelsey Museum have been aware of the gallery’s ongoing development for quite some time, but how would you describe the gallery and its goals to an external audience?

Janet: In this new permanent Byzantine and Islamic Gallery (BIG), we’ll showcase the Kelsey’s Byzantine and Islamic collections of art and material culture, as well as artifacts relating to early Judaism. We’re lucky to have substantial support from the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts for this work. This gallery—initial planning for which has been overseen by a Kelsey curatorial team with input from Paroma Chatterjee, our History of Art colleague who served as a visiting curator in 2020–2021, and an advisory committee of experts in and beyond the University—will fill a critical gap both geographically and chronologically in our new-wing displays. The project gives us the opportunity not only to consider artistic and archaeological remains of the medieval world in western Asia, the Mediterranean, and northeast Africa but also to highlight how this evidence for the human past resonates with the concerns and lifeways of our modern world.

We’re committed to avoiding traditional boundaries and instead exploring the long-term cultural and intellectual interrelationships of these different regions and cultures, through themes such as travel, piety, soundscapes, animals and humans, and the expression of status and identity through material culture. And we can bring to the mix a strong sense of context, thanks to Kelsey excavations at numerous sites relevant to this installation. We want to give our visitors a sense of real people and their commodities sharing and moving between lived landscapes and intercultural dialogues, all materialized through a wide array of media—coins, textiles, visual productions, glassware, domestic productions, architecture, and spaces.

Emily: What is your role in the development of BIG, and more specifically, in the development of BIG Object Spotlight #1?

Janet: I’m one of the Kelsey faculty curators; my own work is in the Middle East, specifically on the Egyptian Nile Valley of much earlier periods. For 2022–2023, I was acting project manager and lead curator for the Byzantine and Islamic Gallery project. Exhibitions, especially permanent galleries, are a multiyear process; so with the curatorial team and Scott Meier (the Kelsey’s exhibits preparator), I developed the idea of a series of BIG Object Spotlight installations to give Kelsey visitors insight into the process as it unfolds. In this way, we can give visitors and students access to key artifacts and themes to watch for in the eventual permanent gallery.

Even a comparatively compact installation like this requires the collaboration of a village! We owe BIG Object Spotlight #1 to the efforts of Kelsey professional staff: Scott Meier, Eric Campbell (graphic designer), Emily Allison (editor), Michelle Fontentot (collections manager), Carrie Roberts and Suzanne Davis (conservators), and Tamika Mohr (chief administrator). The curatorial team included Nicola Barham, Terry Wilfong, and myself; curatorial assistant and IPAMAA graduate student James Nesbitt-Prosser (who sole-authored the in-depth content on the in-gallery monitor); and our new visiting curator Christy Gruber of the U-M History of Art Department, who generously shared her expertise even though she was on sabbatical. Our wonderful Kelsey docents, in a session I had with them and Stephanie Wottreng Haley (community and youth educator), came up with the idea of the colorful map you’ll see throughout the exhibition!

Emily: Can you walk us through some of the artifacts featured in BIG Object Spotlight #1? Why were they chosen? What do they tell us about the ancient and medieval Byzantine and Islamic world?

Janet: This installation highlights three different categories of artifacts in our collections, three different media, three geographic areas of the ancient and medieval Middle East, and an assortment of our key themes.

Museum vitrine containing two tan circular flasks. One is intact with two handles; the other is broken with only one remaining handle.

Two ceramic pilgrimage flasks (visible at left; KM 88209 and KM 30043), one from Egypt and one from Iraq, are a type of object produced from the 1st century BC and then manufactured in the thousands from the 5th to 7th century AD at pilgrimage sites. Such flasks were either carried by individual pilgrims, circulated among church and secular elites, or simply traded internationally as exotic commodities.

Two inscribed cotton textiles (known as tirāz) are from Yemen and Egypt. They show the visitor two styles of this type of textile: one bears a Kufic (Arabic) inscription reading, “Dominion belongs to Him [God]. Blessing to its owner.” The other is decorated with a colorful motif of rabbits. Such textiles were typically given as gifts to members of a ruler’s court as a marker of social status, but they also had religious significance—in Egypt, tirāz textiles were often used in burial rituals.

Finally, a carved wooden door lintel (see below), dating to the 12th century AD and probably from Cairo, Egypt, is an example of the long history of inscribing prayers on door lintels, a practice that bridges pagan, Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions. These materialized prayers, occurring in domestic as well as sacred contexts, not only provided blessings to people passing beneath them but also served the magical purpose of warding off evil. This panel reads, “A perfect blessing, all-inclusive grace, and lasting felicity.”

A long, narrow piece of wood with carved writing.
Inscribed door lintel (KM 10201).

Emily: What challenges did you face in the development of this initial Spotlight case?

Janet: Choosing colors for the BIG Spotlight space on the second floor of the Kelsey’s new wing. We went into this thinking about deep red, gold, and green—powerful colors of the period across the Middle East. After first trying red on the walls, we did a pivot to trying different (many different!) shades of green, drawing inspiration from a manuscript image Christy Gruber sent us. I’m sure Scott Meier will describe how many different small pots of paint he tried! Christy points out that the final shade used looks like cyprus, appropriate for the geographic emphasis of the gallery.

Other challenges included working out effective content for the introductory and in-gallery monitors (check out Eric’s gorgeous accompanying visuals!) and strategically situating the textiles case in a lower-light area.

In addition, scheduling such an installation is always a process of negotiation with the museum’s different departments to slot in work on this project amid everything else going on at the Kelsey. Scheduling also specifically comes into play for the textiles in particular, the conservation requirements around which are that they cannot be on display for more than four months. So that actually helped us decide on how frequently the BIG Object Spotlight installations will rotate: every fourth months for the next year or so, until we begin the construction phases of the permanent gallery project.

Emily: What are some challenges you foresee in the development of the permanent BIG?

Janet: Scheduling and conservation concerns, as with any exhibition. Cost is always a factor too—not only for expenses related to the installation but also for programming around the project and the gallery. We are fortunate to have the substantial support of LSA for the gallery itself but will be undertaking advancement activities for these related things. 

We’ll need to focus intensively in the coming year on nailing down the overall object list (taking into account conservation limits on display of organic objects) and developing the themes and narratives and look of the gallery.

Emily: What other artifacts or themes can we look forward to in subsequent Object Spotlights?

Janet: Each of these will be lead-curated by different people and poll different audiences for ideas about the kinds of objects to display. Next up is Christy Gruber, who is already advanced in her planning for Object Spotlight #2, which will open sometime in November!


As Janet pointed out, the creation of any exhibition—even one with a handful of artifacts like this one—takes a village. Next up is Scott Meier, the Kelsey Museum’s exhibition coordinator, who oversaw the development of the physical space in which the Object Spotlight resides. 

Emily: What is your role in the development of BIG and the first Object Spotlight?

Scott: I was responsible for the design and fabrication of the physical space of the gallery. One of the driving forces was to give the visitor a sense of what is still to come once the actual gallery is built. As we continue the Object Spotlight gallery, I would like to see it grow into more of an informational hub for the visitor to not only learn what is happening with BIG but also provide feedback for us about different design ideas.

Emily: Can you talk about the redesign of the Kelsey Museum’s second-floor galleries?  

Scott: We are at the very early stages of the redesign, but one of the things we would like to do is create a more open feeling to the galleries so that there is an interplay between them, both in content and visually. We want to convey the message that there was crossover in relationships and time periods.

We are also looking to use color a bit more than in other previous galleries to convey the various cultures. It is still early, but this may provide an opportunity to introduce totally new graphic branding for the permanent galleries.

Emily: What considerations did you keep in mind while prepping the space for the installation of BIG Object Spotlight #1? What challenges did you face?

Scott: The biggest consideration that had to be dealt with was lighting. The two textiles (see below) require low light—five footcandles—so to achieve this without making the gallery look underlit, I had to lower all the light that led up to or was around the textile cases so that the visitors’ eyes could adjust by the time they reach the textile cases.  

The biggest obstacle I faced was getting the correct color palette. Because color is going to play a vital role in the new gallery, I wanted to be sure what was represented was accurate as well as palatable to the visitor. What looks good as a small sample doesn’t always read well as a painted wall. It took about 18 samples painted on the wall and three complete gallery paintings until we were happy.  

Emily: What are some goals you have for the physical final product of the Byzantine and Islamic Gallery? How will it differ from, or be similar to, the Kelsey’s existing gallery spaces?

Scott: As I mentioned before, we hope to have more interconnected galleries in the future. In terms of design, it is still early, but due to earlier conversations the Exhibition Committee had, I think we are going to walk a fine line between having the gallery reflect the culture via color and graphics without crossing over into trying to be an overly immersive experience.  

I would like to make the actual case design and case layout very similar to what we already have so the transition is seamless. However, there are numerous opportunities to update the look to reflect the new gallery. One of these opportunities is addressing potential lighting issues with the artifacts. I am exploring drawers that have motion-sensor lighting that goes on when the drawer is pulled out. If we find this does work, I hope we can take this technology to our existing drawers that are difficult to view because of low light.  

I am also hoping we can introduce more interactive exhibits to the new Byzantine and Islamic Gallery with an eye toward adding interactive opportunities in the other permanent galleries.


Finally, I turned my questioning to Eric Campbell. As the Kelsey Museum’s graphic designer, Eric also played a major role in the visual final product of BIG Object Spotlight #1. 

Emily: Can you describe your role in the development of Object Spotlight #1 and BIG more generally?

Eric: I am responsible for designing the overall look of the gallery (along with Scott), as well as creating the panels, videos, signage, and miscellaneous collateral.

Emily: What are some challenges you faced while working on the BIG Object Spotlight #1 materials (if any)? Are there any challenges you foresee in the development of future Spotlight cases and, ultimately, the permanent Byzantine and Islamic Gallery?

Eric: Working on the BIG Object Spotlight was not particularly challenging, although the delicate nature of some of the objects—textiles specifically—make displaying them difficult. For future spotlights, and the permanent BIG, we will have to get creative with how we present these objects.

Emily: Do you have any goals for the visual final product of BIG?

Eric: In designing the visual look of the BIG, I hope to push past the subdued museum design that is commonplace. I want to incorporate colors, patterns, and textures from the Byzantine and Islamic world to bring drama to the gallery. 


If you have not had a chance to see the first Object Spotlight in person, there are still a few weeks yet left to visit before its deinstallation. And of course, the second Object Spotlight, curated by Christy Gruber, will be up before too long, allowing visitors to view a new thematic grouping of artifacts. 

Thank you to Janet, Scott, and Eric for taking the time to discuss BIG and Object Spotlight #1 in detail—we look forward to seeing more in the coming months and years!

 Assemblage of artifacts, including brightly colored textiles, coins, bracelets, amulets, bowls, and flasks.
Kelsey Museum artifacts relating to the Byzantine and Islamic worlds.

BIG Object Spotlight #1: Interviews with Kelsey Curators and Staff Read More »

Notes from the Field—Tharros Archaeological Project

By Bailey Franzoi, IPAMAA

Bailey Franzoi, a young woman with dark brown hair wearing a Brown University T-shirt, smiles widely while holding her arms out as she sits at a table covered in bone fragments sorted into piles.
A bone bonanza! Bailey with faunal finds from the Tharros Archaeological Project.

I spent the month of June in Sardinia, Italy, at the Tharros Archaeological Project run by the University of Cincinnati. Tharros was a Punic and Roman city inhabited from the 8th century BCE to the 4th century CE.

I spent most of my time at Tharros in our finds lab in the nearby town of Cabras. I was responsible for washing, processing, and recording all of the project’s faunal material for the first time since it began in 2019. Our goal for the season was to begin to understand some of the patterns of animal use visible in the excavated material and to identify which contexts were worth coming back to for a closer look in later years. 

This year, the field team excavated an 18-meter trench within a Roman house from the 3rd century CE, as well as two trenches in the temple area of Tharros. I enjoyed working with colleagues from Cincinnati, Stanford University, and Brown University. Finding equid and deer bones in areas all over Tharros was very exciting, but my favorite finds were hedgehog mandibles.

I could not have accomplished any of the work I’ve done at Tharros or elsewhere without the support of the Kelsey Museum and, in particular, Dr. Richard Redding, whom I miss very much.

Notes from the Field—Tharros Archaeological Project Read More »

#TrenchTalkTuesday — Get your archaeology questions answered!

Did you know that Kelsey Museum researchers and students participate in a broad array of archaeological field projects throughout the Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, and North African region? These excavations continue to enrich our understanding of the ancient world and give us a fuller view of the past. Archaeology uncovers, both figuratively and literally, new pieces of information that add to or alter our modern knowledge of ancient people and places. 

To bring more attention to the Kelsey’s active field projects, we want to answer your questions! Between Tuesday, August 9, and Wednesday, August 31, specialists at the Kelsey will answer all your questions about archaeology and fieldwork. Participating is easy. Search @KelseyMuseum on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, find one of our #TrenchTalkTuesday posts, and type your question in the comments field. Kelsey archaeologists and specialists will respond before the end of August. Your question might even be featured at the Kelsey Museum!

What would you like to know about archaeology? What ancient materials or objects would you like more information about? What about some of the field sites, like Gabii in Italy, Notion in Turkey, Abydos in Egypt, or Jebel Barkal in Sudan? Explore the Kelsey’s Current Field Projects web pages to get you started.

We look forward to your questions!

Not on social media? We still want to hear your questions! Email your archaeology-based questions to KelseyMuse@umich.edu before August 23, 2022.

 

#TrenchTalkTuesday — Get your archaeology questions answered! Read More »

Geoff Emberling To Give Lecture About Jebel Barkal

Jebel Barkal: The jebel (mountain) in the background with the Amun Temple (B 500) in the foreground. 2019 drone photo by Kate Rose.

This Wednesday, Kelsey Museum Associate Research Scientist Geoff Emberling will give a lecture about current archaeological work at the site of Jebel Barkal (ancient Napata) in northern Sudan. The site is being investigated as a joint project of the National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums of Sudan and the University of Michigan.

The lecture, “Collaborative Archaeology of Kush in Northern Sudan: Recent Work around Jebel Barkal,” will present the results of the project’s first seasons of work on Meroitic levels of settlement at the site, contemporary with the Roman occupation of Egypt (1st century BCE–1st century CE). Dr. Emberling will also discuss how the long histories of colonialism and structural racism have distorted our understanding of the ancient cultures of Africa and diminished their contributions to world history.

Visit Stanford University’s Archaeology Center website for more information and to register to attend this free lecture, which will be live-streamed from Stanford University on Wednesday, May 4, at 3:00 PM ET.

Geoff Emberling To Give Lecture About Jebel Barkal Read More »

Happy Birthday, Oleg Grabar

On this day, in 1929, Oleg Grabar was born in Strasbourg, France. Today would have been his 92nd birthday.

The son of eminent Byzantinist André Grabar, he attended the University of Paris and Harvard, earning diplomas in medieval and modern history. In 1955, he earned his doctorate from Princeton in Oriental languages and literatures. Although his interests later widened to include the Islamic world beyond the Middle East, Grabar first specialized in the art and architecture of the Umayyad dynasty (7th–8th-centuries). 

Grabar began his professional career at the University of Michigan, where he taught from 1954 to 1969. U-M was the first American institution to create a position for an Islamic art historian, and was unique in the United States at that time in its commitment to the study of the Muslim world.

in 1956, Grabar accompanied then-chairman of U-M’s History of Art Department George Forsyth (later director of the Kelsey Museum) on a trip through Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Turkey, Libya, and the Sinai Peninsula. Their goal was to identify an Islamic site to excavate. They settled on Qasr al-Hayr al-Sharqi, also known as Qasr al-Hayr East, an Umayyad-period urban settlement located in the semiarid Syrian steppe. Between 1964 and 1971, with the support of the Kelsey Museum, Grabar directed a large-scale archaeological excavation at the site. Drawn to the remote 8th-century complex in the hopes of uncovering a princely Umayyad palace, Grabar and his team instead stumbled upon a new type of urban settlement. A rich lifeworld emerged in the midst of their discoveries, and over the course of the excavation’s six seasons, close relationships formed between the American and Syrian archaeologists, historians, and workers who labored and lived at the site.

Aerial view of Qasr al-Hayr al-Sharqi.

A new Kelsey Museum publication examines the six seasons of excavation at Qasr al-Hayr. Co-authored by U-M professor of art history Christiane Gruber and graduate student Michelle Al-Ferzly, City in the Desert, Revisited features previously unpublished documents and over 80 black and white and color photographs from the Qasr al-Hayr dig and recounts the personal experiences and professional endeavors that shaped the fields of Islamic archaeology, art, and architectural history during their rise in the U.S. academy. Grabar remembered his time at Qasr al-Hayr fondly, writing: 

When I visited Damascus, Palmyra, and Qasr al-Hayr in April 1964 in order to organize the expedition planned for the Fall, I did not imagine that so many individuals would become involved in the work over the course of the next fourteen years. Nor did I realize in the crowded bus taking me back, on the eve of Easter, from Homs to Damascus, that, from the black tents of the Syrian steppes to the austere rooms of Damascus officials or to the institutions as far west as San Francisco, there would be men and women whose lives, affections, and memories share a few weeks or months of unbelievably concentrated energy devoted to Qasr al-Hayr. My gratitude to them extends much beyond the ideas they had or the work they did, both work and ideas being by now processed into a frozen book. For all of them taught me something of the joys and pleasure to be had from collective work and I hope all of them feel richer for it, as I do.

— Oleg Grabar, in the official excavation monograph, City in the Desert, p. ix.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Available for purchase through ISD.

 

An interactive PDF of the book is available for free download through the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology website.

Happy Birthday, Oleg Grabar Read More »

Wish you had been there when Vesuvius erupted? Pittsburgh feels you.

Hey, history nerds! For those of you who are within driving distance of Pittsburg and are itching to take a road trip, the Carnegie Science Center has an exhibition currently on view about the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.

With over 180 objects on loan from the Naples National Archaeological Museum and an “immersive 4D eruption theater” that uses CGI imagery, surround sound, vibrations, and special effects to bring Mount Vesuvius to life “with startling reality,” Pompeii: The Exhibition seems like it might be worth the price of admission.

Or, for a less bombastic experience, you could come to the Kelsey and sit in the calming quiet of our Villa of the Mysteries room.

If you decide to make the trip, let us know what you think about the exhibit!

Wish you had been there when Vesuvius erupted? Pittsburgh feels you. Read More »

New Podcast Interview and TED-Ed Animated Video from Geoff Emberling

Kelsey Associate Research Scientist Geoff Emberling has been busy! He’s featured on the October 7 episode of the podcast Tides of History, hosted by historian Patrick Wyman. In the 42-minute interview, Geoff talks about the long and fascinating history of Kush, the contentious nature of previous archaeological research in Sudan, how he came to work in the region, and his projects at El-Kurru and Jebel Barkal.

Geoff also served as the academic consultant for a TED-Ed video about Kush. Published on TED.com earlier this month, the beautifully illustrated video short outlines the rise and fall of this ancient African civilization.

New Podcast Interview and TED-Ed Animated Video from Geoff Emberling Read More »

Two New Publications by Kelsey Affiliates

Associate Research Scientist Geoff Emberling is happy to announce that the Oxford Handbook of Ancient Nubia, which he co-edited with Bruce Williams of the University of Chicago, was published in December 2020 after five years of work. It has 55 chapters (over 1,100 pages) that give the most recent account of the archaeology, history, and art history of Nubia from the Epipaleolithic to early modern times, with synthetic articles on a range of subjects including gender and the body, rock art, and community engagement in archaeology.

More recently, Kelsey Museum Assistant Curator of Numismatics Irene Soto Marín is very pleased to announce the publication of Ancient Taxation: The Mechanics of Extraction in Comparative Perspective, which she co-edited with Jonathan Valk of the University of Leiden. Published by the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World and NYU Press in the series ISAW Monographs, this volume is a collection of studies that explores the extractive systems of eleven ancient states and societies from across the ancient world, ranging from Bronze Age China to Anglo-Saxon Britain. The book can be purchased through NYU Press.

Congratulations to you both!

Two New Publications by Kelsey Affiliates Read More »

From the Archives #63

By Sebastián Encina, Collections Manager

Friends of the Kelsey Museum are quite familiar with the excavations of Karanis and how that project makes up a significant portion of our artifacts and archival collections. The Kelsey has published numerous books and articles about Karanis and the artifacts found there, and we have mounted various exhibitions related to the site and its interpretation.

Even now, almost 100 years since the start of the University of Michigan excavations at the site, materials from Karanis continue to draw researchers who are posing new questions. The existing literature is of course still useful, but new pairs of eyes are looking at the excavation data in different ways and asking new questions. This is exciting for us; new scholarship enlivens the collection.

For this month’s “From the Archives,” we highlight the work of one of those new sets of eyes. This year, the Kelsey is honored to welcome a new assistant curator of numismatics, Irene Soto Marín. Many of you may already have read some posts on her new blog, The Social Lives of Coins. Since she arrived in September, Soto Marín has been working through the Kelsey’s numismatic collection, paying specific attention to the nearly 30,000 coins from Karanis (about three-quarters of the entire coin collection).

As artifacts were excavated at the site, the Karanis team would work with officials from the Egyptian Department of Antiquities to decide which items could return to Ann Arbor and which were to stay in Egypt. This system of partage was common throughout foreign excavations in the early part of the 20th century; most of the objects in the Kelsey Museum are here as a result of partage. We also hold the Division Albums from Karanis—photographs of similar items of all kinds (wood, stone, pottery, textiles, etc.) that the Antiquities officials would consult to decide how to divide the finds. The album pages showing the excavated coins are what we present here. These photographs were taken in February 1935.

The Karanis coins were published by Rolfe Haatvedt and E.E. Peterson in 1964, yet they still offer much to discover and learn. Soto Marín and other researchers will continue to study them and produce new publications that will give us greater glimpses into life in Roman Egypt. The Kelsey Museum holds only a portion of the coins that were excavated at Karanis; the photographs from the Division Albums show us those that remain in Egypt. From these photographs and the coins in Ann Arbor, Soto Marín can teach us so much about the site, the times, and the people of Karanis.

We are excited to work with new researchers, and even more excited that one is now at the Kelsey Museum. There is still so much to learn about Karanis. As we make the collections more accessible, we will be able to get more voices, eyes, and minds on the materials and generate new scholarship. Photographs like these are just one way we can ensure such research continues.

From the Archives #63 Read More »

News from the Conservation Lab — Kelsey Dig Wanderlust

By Suzanne Davis, Curator of Conservation, and Carrie Roberts, Conservator

The inability to travel to the Kelsey’s field sites due to the COVID-19 pandemic has made us, well, crazy to travel to the Kelsey’s field sites. If you, too, are experiencing serious wanderlust, we invite you to take a quick photographic mini-break with us. Here’s a beautiful photo and something we love about each of the four sites we currently support.

 

Suzanne loves the incredibly good-looking site of Notion, Turkey. It’s got everything a conservator could want — the romantic ruins of an entire ancient city, lots of conservation work to be done, and a beautiful seaside location.

View over a ridge with shrubs onto the ocean below
Notion, Turkey. View of the site from the west at sunset; the ancient city is located on top of the yellow, sunlit hill. If you look closely, you can see the Fortifications.

 

This spectacular photo of the ancient temple, cemetery, and city site of Jebel Barkal, Sudan, makes Suzanne miss the desert sunshine and all her fellow Jebel Barkal and El-Kurru teammates.

aerial view of small pyramids in the desert
Jebel Barkal, Sudan. This image shows the remains of some of the site’s pyramids, with Jebel Barkal (in Arabic – the holy, or pure, mountain) in the background. Photo by Kate Rose.

 

Carrie is inspired by the ancient landscape of Abydos. It’s great to drink a cup of coffee with the team at sunrise and know that the Seti I temple is only a 10-minute walk from the dig house, while the early dynastic tombs below the desert cliffs can be reached in 20 minutes.

photo of a house in the desert
View of the front courtyard of the Abydos dig house at sunrise.

 

At El-Kurru, Carrie loves village life — walking from the house where we live to the temple site and saying hello and how are you to neighbors on the way, then grabbing a snack at the corner store at the end of the day. She also misses the family we live with, especially the kids.

men in front of a low beige building in Sudan
El-Kurru, Sudan. On the left is Kurru’s hardware store, and on the right is the barbershop.

News from the Conservation Lab — Kelsey Dig Wanderlust Read More »

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