Unearthing the cemeteries at Amara West
In wintery, snow-covered Durham preparations for the coming season of work in the cemetery are underway, with only six weeks left until the new season starts. During January and February, we will return to Cemetery C, the post-New Kingdom necropolis first excavated in 2009.
The international team of three archaeologists – including myself and two new team members from the UK and Canada – all specialise in the excavation of graves and human remains.
This is crucial because we are likely to encounter complicated multiple burial situations, and only archaeologists with experience and understanding of human skeletons are able to recover all of the evidence. For example, the way in which individual bones lie when discovered can indicate whether the bodies were disturbed shortly after burial or later, after the soft tissue had disappeared.
During the six weeks in the field we will extend the area investigated in the previous season further to the east and to the north. A magnetometric survey is used as a guide towards promising areas, allowing us to pinpoint exactly the location of graves and tomb shafts.
Cemetery C is particularly important as it dates to a period in history about which relatively little is known, after the pharaonic occupation of the area ceased.
The finds and human remains will help us to find out more about how people lived, and what religious and cultural beliefs they were following.
We already know from the previous season in 2009 that the graves yield a large range of well preserved wooden furniture, pottery and other grave goods such as jewellery and scarabs.
An exciting new season starts in less than 40 days…
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