Instead, the entry for this week will present a number of sandstone
blocks from the excavations conducted by Professor John Garstang (1876–1956) at
Meroe between 1909 and 1914. Since Sir Henry Wellcome was a sponsor of the
excavation, he received a share of the finds brought back to England. In 1959,
David Marshall Dixon (1930–2005) was appointed Research Fellow at the Wellcome
Institute to classify the Egyptian collection. In a report dated December
1959, he noted that “the most important items so far examined are the 11 cases
of Sudan material. Fortunately, the lists of items made at the time the cases
were received have survived and the contents of the cases have been checked
against these and found to be intact.” Later, in April 1960, he noted that “these
[cases], like the remainder of finds from the site, had never been touched,
having apparently been sent to store almost immediately after arrival in the [Wellcome]
Museum. In consequence some of the material, in particular the inscribed
architectural blocks, had suffered some damage during the past half a century.”
Fig. 1: Offering table excavated in tomb 307. |
A few weeks ago, I decided to photograph several architectural elements
in the Egypt Centre collection, which can be traced back to Garstang’s
excavations at Meroe. This included offering tables from the necropolis, which
were excavated during the 1910 season (fig. 1). Recently, Jochen Hallof reidentified
and published one block (EC1295) bearing an inscription of the Meroitic king
Teqorideamani (fig. 2). The text (REM 1261) includes a reference to the god
“Aqedise in Meroe”, to whom the king obviously delivers a donation. This is the
first evidence of a cult of this god in the city of Meroe so far. The block,
found by Garstang during his excavations in 1911, was published for the first
time by Török (1997, I, 145, fig. N), although he was unaware of its current
location.
Fig. 2: Sandstone block with Merotic inscription (EC1295) |
Fig. 3: Sandstone block (EC1304) |
Fig. 4: Archival photo of complete block, courtesy of the Garstang Museum |
Two weeks ago the personal archive of David Dixon was transferred from
the Department of Classics, Ancient History, and Egyptology at Swansea
University, where it had resided for the past 15 years, into the care of the
Egypt Centre. Amongst the material was a box of photos of objects and reliefs
from Meroe photographed in the Wellcome Collection by Dixon in the 1960s. While
scanning through these photos, two in particular grabbed my attention. The
first contained the upper half of the double plumes of Amun(?), with the
feathers of a winged figure to the left. Just a few days beforehand, I had
photographed EC1292, a block decorated with the outstretched wings of a figure
(Behdet?). Comparing measurements and the break, it is clear that both
fragments belong together (fig. 5). As with the block discussed previously, the
adjoining fragment was later traced to the Petrie Museum (UC44567).
Fig. 5: Reconstruction of EC1292 and UC44567 (Dixon archival photo on the right) |
Fig. 6: Reconstruction of doorjamb (Dixon archival photo at the top) |
Bibliography:
Bierbrier, M. L. (2019) Who
was who in Egyptology. London: The Egypt Exploration Society. 5th edition.
Garstang, J. (1911) Meroë, the city of
the Ethiopians: being an account of a first season’s excavations on the site,
1909–1910. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Griffin, K. (2018) ‘A doorjamb of a chief steward of the Divine
Adoratrice in Swansea’. In A. I. Blöbaum, M. Eaton-Krauss & A. Wüthrich
(Eds.), Pérégrinations avec Erhart
Graefe. Festschrift zu seinem 75. Geburtstag (pp. 203–208). Ägypten und
Altes Testament 87. Münster: Zaphon.
Hallof, J. (2017) ‘Eine
wiederentdeckte Inschrift des Königs Teqorideamani (REM 1261)’. Beiträge zur
Sudanforschung 12: 111–117.
Leclant, J., A. Heyler, C.
Berger el-Naggar, C. Carrier, and C. Rilly (2000) Répertoire d’épigraphie méroitique: corpus des inscriptions publiées,
3 vols. Paris: Boccard.
Török, L. (1997) Meroe City, an ancient African capital: John
Garstang’s excavations in the Sudan. Egypt Exploration Society, Occasional
Publications 12, 2 vols. London: Egypt Exploration Society.
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