Sculpture, production techniques
The visual impression generated by Egyptian stone sculpture of all periods is both cubic and frontal. Sculpture in stone seems to have been conceived in terms of the cubic block as it was removed from the quarry, unlike sculpture in other materials such as clay, bone, ivory or metal. As the techniques for quarrying stone developed, it seemed to have been practical or economical to detach units of the material from the quarry bed in regular cubes. These regular shapes perhaps first suggested and later dictated an approach to the production of sculpture, which was visualized from the four sides of the block.
The particular stone employed dictated some of the technical requirements of tools and technique. Limestone, soft when recently quarried, required cutting tools which could be of hardened copper or sharp stone such as flint or chert. The harder stones, including granite, diorite, quartzite and sandstone, required the use of a variety of techniques based on battering, pecking, sawing, drilling and abrading.
George Reisner lists eight stages in the production of stone sculpture based on observations made on a number of contemporary unfinished statues of the pharaoh Menkaure found at Giza:
1 The rough blocking of the stone, with figure vaguely indicated without delineating face, arms or legs, but with some smoothing of surfaces, probably by rubbing with stone and some kind of abrasive paste.
2 Continued blocking with some differentiation of parts—face, arms, legs, seat—and red paint outlines of areas of stone to be removed.
3 Face, beard, wig, arms and hands take on more definite outlines.
4 Planes of the face are developed and areas of decoration, such as the uraeus at the forehead, are defined. The definition of limbs is advanced, the groove between the two legs (in seated statues) is deepened.
5 Details of facial anatomy begin to emerge; less evidence of bruising of the entire surface is visible, suggesting use of smaller and more delicate tools.
6 The entire surface appears to be the product of fine bruising and rough polishing; the statue is recognizable as a representation of a king.
7 Fine details have been added, such as the separate definition of fingers, lines around the eyes and so on. Polishing could continue for greater or lesser time, determining the quality of the piece.
8 Fully finished and inscribed piece.
From Reisner’s description it is clear that he saw the process as having employed carving, pecking or bruising, and grinding, used together at all stages. The reduction of planes as the finish of the piece progressed was accomplished by a combination of all these techniques.
The eight steps or stages are not always clearly demarcated and cannot always be observed or defined as they were by Reisner. The sculptural process can be summarized in four more general steps: (1) roughing out of general shape, (2) rounding of forms, (3) carving of detail, and (4) finishing (polish and carving of inscription).
The outline of front, sides and back of the desired image were drawn on the appropriate faces of the block in ink or paint. The initial carving followed those outlines to eliminate the excess stone leaving a broad and still square figure with no rounded corners. The contours were then modeled to provide the transitions from one cubic plane to another. This was followed by a series of general reductions to refine and better describe the image, ending with the careful carving of detail of anatomy and decoration, and in the case of hard stone, the final polishing.
Egyptian sculpture, regardless of the stone employed, was always solidly designed. To ensure the permanence of the piece the sculptor usually included a back pillar, a buttresslike pilaster of attached stone which strengthened the figure from behind. The spaces between the body and arms and the space between the legs were connected by areas of uncarved stone. There was little undercutting where to do so would have weakened the statue, even if the remaining stone made the form hard to visualize. Such connectives were often painted black and treated as if they were invisible. The craftsmen were generally very conservative in their treatment of stone, rarely taking chances by removing too much of the supporting material and thus risking the weakening of the statue.
Egyptian sculpture was generally completed by painting and sometimes gilding. The vivid colors used, where they have been preserved, present to the modern observer a vastly different impression from the large majority of pieces which have lost their polychrome surface. A further embellishment, particularly in the Old Kingdom, was the use of inlaid eyes. They were often made of several different colors and types of stone to define the anatomical parts of the eye; rock crystal was regularly employed to suggest depth and transparency.
Sculpture in metal has been little preserved from early periods in Egyptian history and as a result we know little about its manufacture. Copper statues of Pepi I and his son Merenre from the 6th Dynasty demonstrate that metal sculpture existed. These examples, at least, were formed over a wooden core rather than being cast. From the Third
Intermediate Period on there is considerable evidence for the process of "lost wax" casting in the thousands of small images of deities and sacred animals which abound.
The other major materials used for sculpture were wood, clay and Egyptian faience. The conventions employed in stone sculpture could be considerably modified in the treatment of wood. Wood could be carved more freely with less concern for its weight and, as a consequence, there was no necessity for back pillars and connective areas of material to support limbs. Examples such as the famous Sheikh el-Baled found at Saqqara demonstrate the ability of the Egyptian artist to carve in wood. Wooden statues, such as this one, were finished with a coat of gesso plaster and painted color. The eyes could also be inlaid in other materials. Clay or ceramic sculpture as well as sculpture made from Egyptian faience was either modeled freely or cast in a mold. Both materials were frequently employed for small figurines and decorative objects. The fired clay might be painted as a final decoration, again after a coating of gesso. Faience was made in a range of colors by adding various minerals to the quartzite body material before firing.
It can be seen that the form of ancient Egyptian sculpture of all kinds was dictated by the materials employed. Works in stone are quite different from those in wood or the plastic materials of clay and faience. The canonical rules so often discussed in histories of Egyptian art apply most particularly to works in stone. In other materials, the artist or craftsman had somewhat more freedom in the development of sculptural form.
Sea Peoples
"Sea Peoples" is the generic name for an array of peoples from the Mediterranean northern lands who attacked the Near East and Egypt, initially in piratical raids but later in major population movements that brought the Late Bronze Age to a close. They are attested from the Amarna period into the reign of Ramesses III (20th Dynasty). The raiders were identified by various names in the Egyptian scenes and inscriptions documenting their activities. Shardana, Lukka, Tursha, Akawasha/Ekwesh, Shekelesh, Peleset, Tjekker, Denyen and Wesesh all are names recorded for them. Some have been identified with historic peoples and places. The Lukka often are identified with Lycia, the Tursha with the Etruscans, Akawasha/Ekwesh with Achaeans, and Denyen with Danaoi (Mycenaean Greeks). Shardana have been linked with Sardinia and Shekelesh with Sicily, though these may be places they settled in their later wanderings.
In the Egyptian sources, the Sea Peoples came in three successive phases. Initially, from the Amarna period into the reign of Ramesses II (19th Dynasty), they appeared as pirates, harassing shipping and raiding isolated, unprotected coastal settlements. Such were the Lukka mentioned in the Amarna Letters, and also the Shardana who attacked Egypt’s Delta in regnal year 2 of Ramesses II. Ramesses did trap and capture the raiders in year 2, and he impressed the captives into the Egyptian army. At the Battle of Qadesh in Syria, in regnal year 5, they formed part of the pharaoh’s bodyguard, distinctive in their horned helmets and with long swords. Ramesses II was concerned sufficiently by these raids that he built a series of coastal fortresses from Rosetta to Marsa Matruh to protect the coasts. He also built another line of fortresses along the western Delta edge, to guard against Libyan raids.
The Egyptians were right to be concerned about the Libyans; in regnal year 5 of Merenptah, the Sea Peoples came in a new wave, probably landing in Cyrenaica. They armed the Libyans with bronze armor and weapons, and then jointly attempted to invade Egypt. They stirred up the southern Libyans and Nubians to revolt against Egyptian suzerainty. Merenptah was ready for the challenge; he crushed the Nubian-southern Libyan revolt, and then met the allied Libyan and Sea Peoples forces north of Memphis, defeating them roundly in a pitched battle. The Libyan chief slunk away, humiliated, and Merenptah’s forces slew and captured 9,300 prisoners, of which some 2,700 were Sea Peoples, including Akawasha, Shardana, Shekelesh, Lukka and Teresh. Merenptah, like Ramesses II before him, impressed captives from his Canaanite and Sea Peoples-Libyan wars into his armed forces. As the Sea Peoples fought in new ways, with thrusting and striking swords as infantry, Egypt gained an advantage by incorporating these in her armies. Merenptah also supplied grain and arms to his Hittite allies, as they suffered from drought and Sea Peoples raids. At Ugarit, one of the long bronze Sea Peoples’ swords, stamped with Merenptah’s cartouche, was excavated, probably part of the arms aid.
The final and heaviest raids of the Sea Peoples came against Ramesses III, in regnal year 8, and are recorded in scenes on the walls of his funerary temple at Medinet Habu. This Sea Peoples campaign came between two Libyan wars, of regnal years 5 and 11. Those Libyans though had no Sea Peoples help this time, for the Sea Peoples attack came from the Levant. From Ramesses III’s documents we are told that the Sea Peoples had hatched a conspiracy in their isles and had started their attack on the Hittites, Ugarit and northern Syria, all of which they overwhelmed. They seized Cyprus also, and advanced on Amurru, where they set up a camp. Another contingent came in ships by sea, wiping out local navies. From there they set out for Egypt. The Egyptian navy drew the sea raiders into the Delta. With archers stationed along the river banks, the Egyptians overwhelmed the Sea Peoples with many drowning and others being taken captive. Ramesses III marched armies into Syro-Palestine to halt the Sea Peoples land contingent. These land units were depicted not just as raiders but as migrants, complete with women and children in wagons. Ramesses III also defeated and deflected these Sea Peoples from Egypt, though he had to allow them to settle along the coasts of Palestine and Lebanon. Initially they were under loose Egyptian control, but by the mid-20th Dynasty they became independent and ruled in the coastal cities.
Known as Philistines to the early Israelites, these Sea Peoples sorely troubled the early Israelite settlements in the hill country in the twelfth century BC. From the Egyptian sources, this group of Sea Peoples were Peleset, Tjekker, Shekelesh, Weshesh and Denyen. The Peleset were the biblical Philistines. The Sea Peoples are mentioned in Papyrus Wilbour, where Shardana feature among the Egyptian veterans holding plots of land in Middle Egypt. These Sea Peoples had done well, earning settlement in Egypt and land grants as veterans.
Another Egyptian document mentioning the Sea Peoples is the tale of Wenamen. Around 1075 BC, Wenamen was sent to Lebanon to buy cedar for Amen’s divine bark. He boarded a ship in the Delta, and found the Tjekker controlling the coastal cities of Palestine. A Tjekker aboard his ship robbed him in Dor, and, failing to gain satisfaction from the ruler, Wenamen in turn plundered a Tjekker ship that came into Dor. Proceeding to Byblos, he eventually met the ruler, Tjekker-Baal. After much sarcasm from the prince and some haggling, the prince agreed to fell the cedar, but only after receiving promise of full payment from Smendes and Tanutamen, ruling in Tanis in Egypt. The prince also mentioned that the settled Sea Peoples now had a lively trade going with Tanis in Egypt. After receiving full payment he allowed Wenamen to sail. The Tjekker lay waiting for Wenamen just outside Byblos, in retribution for his plundering of them in Dor. The prince of Byblos did not allow them to touch Wenamen in his port, but he permitted them pursuit on the open sea. Luckily for Wenamen, a storm arose at sea and he outwitted the Tjekker but was blown off course and landed on Cyprus. There a mob descended, ready to kill him, but he glibly talked himself out of this predicament. Thus, he survived the adventure to tell his story. It is clear that by now the Sea Peoples were independent rulers from Gaza to Byblos, and they were totally free of Egyptian dominion.
Whence, and why, did the Sea Peoples appear? Some have suggested locales including Lycia and other parts of coastal Anatolia. Still others may have originated from Mycenaean lands, Achaea and elsewhere. Still others may have come from lands north of the Aegean Sea. It is clear that the Sea Peoples were excellent seafarers and that they possessed a strong bronze culture. Other factors that led to their appearing in the Late Bronze Age may include the collapse of the Minoan navy and the decline of the Egyptian navy, both of which had dominated the Mediterranean earlier. The Mycenaeans had invaded and seized Crete, and during Akhenaten’s reign the Egyptians lost naval supremacy in the Levant. It is just then that the Lukka are first attested as raiders. It is a truism in the Mediterranean that when strong navies exist, piracy and freebooting are reduced, but whenever such navies decline, the peoples of Lycia, Caria and Illyria ever have been ready to start piratical raiding. That could well account for the initial Sea Peoples raids.
During Merenptah’s reign and the late Hittite imperial age, larger freebooting raids were attempted. Now certain coastal areas could be menaced, and even city-states could succumb. To this stage may belong the Homeric raids on Troy. Still later, under Ramesses III, whole populations were on the move. What provoked such migrations? Drought has been implicated and Herodotus’s account about the Etruscans/Teresh, and Merenptah’s shipments of grain to Hatti, might denote climatic problems. New methods of warfare by the Sea Peoples emphasizing infantry have been suggested as a factor, and the use by Egypt of captive Sea Peoples lends to this credence. Finally, a mega-volcanic event, the eruption of Hekla III in Iceland in 1159 BC, may have played a role. That eruption is dated by ice cores and tree rings. It coincides with Ramesses III’s last years, during which the pharaoh had trouble supplying grain rations to Deir el-Medina’s work force. Also in the mid-20th Dynasty, wheat and barley prices rose dramatically in Egypt. Thus massive crop failures may have set whole populations migrating.
The Homeric poems and other Bronze Age Greek epics may record traces of Sea Peoples’ activities. In one epic, Odysseus raids Egypt and is captured, but spared. After serving Pharaoh seven years, he leaves Egypt wealthy. This echoes the experiences of captured Sea Peoples who went on to serve in Egypt’s armies and ended up with land grants. Another Greek epic recounts how Menelaus pursued his wife Helen to Egypt, where she had fled with Paris. Excavations in Palestine and Lebanon have confirmed Sea Peoples settlement in the coastal areas and are revealing the sophisticated Philistine civilization that emerged, confirming Wenamen’s account. This Philistine civilization has many traits in common with Mycenaean culture, from pottery types to architecture and political organization. Along the way the Philistines also acquired iron-working technology that allowed them to dominate the early Israelites. As Lawrence Stager, excavator of Ashkelon, has remarked, all that lacks now is a Philistine text in Linear B from Palestine. Ultimately the Sea Peoples transformed the Near East, ending the Bronze Age and ushering in the Iron Age that followed.
Seila/Silah
Seila is the name of a site (29°23′ N, 31°03′ E) with the largest pyramid of a group of seven small step pyramids in which no chambers or corridors have yet been found (they probably never existed). The pyramid stands on a high peak in the chain of hills called the Gebel el-Rus which overlook the fertile plain of the Fayum to the west and the desert and the Nile Valley to the east. The pyramid of Meydum, about 18.5km to the east, can be clearly seen from the pyramid of Seila.
In 1898, Ludwig Borchardt visited Seila and identified the inner core of a small step pyramid that Flinders Petrie (in 1889-90) had concluded represented the remains of a mastaba. In 1961 J.-P.Lauer published a short report confirming that the building was a pyramid, probably with four steps. A joint expedition of the University of California, Berkeley, and Brigham Young University, directed by Leonard Lesko and C.W.Griggs, began a detailed survey of the monument in 1981. Six years later the work was resumed by Griggs.
The exact dimensions of the pyramid have not yet been ascertained. Its base is approximately 35.5m sq. and its height is calculated to have been about 10m. It probably had six steps, but very little of the two lowest steps has been preserved. Its special importance lies in the fact that its builder is known beyond doubt to have been Seneferu, the first king of the 4th Dynasty. In 1987, two round-topped stelae were found on the east side of the pyramid; one of these was inscribed with the names of Seneferu. The other stela was uninscribed.
Seven pyramids in the chamberless group have been identified. The second largest of these was built at Zawiyet el-Mayitin (Zawiyet el-Amwat); each of its sides measures 22.48m at the base. The base dimensions of the chamber-less pyramids, at Abydos (Sinki), Edfu (el-Ghenimiya), Elephantine, el-Kula and Nagada, average about 20m square. Only the pyramid of Zawiyet el-Mayitin has preserved a substantial part of its fine limestone casing. The visible cores of all these pyramids consist of local stone which, in the case of the Elephantine pyramid, is granite. It is the only pyramid in the group, apart from that of Seila, for which written evidence of its builder’s name seems to have been preserved. A large granite cone, excavated near the pyramid, bore on its base the name of Huni, Seneferu’s predecessor and the last king of the 3rd Dynasty.
While there is no reason to doubt that all the pyramids in the chamberless group date from about the same time as those which can be ascribed to the reigns of Huni and Seneferu, nothing is known with certainty about their function. One suggestion is that they were cenotaphs for queens, which were erected at their places of birth while their real tombs would be near those of their husbands. Another suggestion is that they were cenotaphs erected near a king’s provincial residences as emblems of his power. Yet another theory is that the pyramids were representations of the primeval mound, the hieroglyphic sign for which depicted a step pyramid. Two discoveries by the Brigham Young University expedition at Seila in 1990-1 may indicate that rituals were conducted there. An alabaster (travertine) altar was found on the north side of the pyramid, as were fragments of a seated human figure, also in alabaster. There is, however, no positive evidence of these pyramids’ use, but it seems certain that they are not tombs.
Serabit el-Khadim
Serabit el-Khadim (29°02′ N, 33°28′ E) in South Sinai is located circa 29km east of the Gulf of Suez, and lies 735m above sea level on a sandstone plateau. During the 12th Dynasty and New Kingdom periods Egyptian expeditions mined and smelted copper at Wadi Nasb (circa 6km to the west of Serabit el-Khadim), mined turquoise from at least twenty mines at Serabit el-Khadim, and established a Hathor temple on the plateau. The Middle and New Kingdom inscriptions from this site record the use of sea transport and overland caravans consisting of 50 to 500 donkeys and 200 to over 700 men, often led by treasury officials.
Since Niebuhr’s rediscovery of Serabit el-Khadim in 1762, many travelers have visited this site. The first significant investigations at Serabit el-Khadim include the 1845 expedition of Richard Lepsius, mostly unpublished excavations by Major C.K.Macdonald in 1845-6 and 1867, and an ordnance survey by Wilson and Palmer in 1868-9. Captain Weill published two volumes concerning pharaonic activity in South Sinai, and later accompanied Flinders Petrie’s expedition to South Sinai in 1904-5, during which Petrie copied inscriptions and excavated the Hathor temple and surrounding mines. Lake directed Harvard University’s 1927 survey at Serabit el-Khadim. Professor Hjelt led a Finnish expedition to this site in 1929. Lake continued investigating Serabit el-Khadim in 1930 and 1935, excavating parts of the temple, five quarries and Mine M.W.F.Albright explored Serabit el-Khadim during a 1947-8 survey of the Sinai peninsula. This site was examined more thoroughly between 1967 and 1982, when numerous Israeli archaeological surveys and excavations were conducted in the Sinai peninsula by Rothenberg (1956-7 and 1967-73) and Beit-Arieh. Beit-Arieh excavated parts of the Hathor temple and Mines G and L in 1978-9. Lastly, Dominic Valbelle surveyed South Sinai in 1992, and in 1993 began an ongoing program of excavation and restoration in the Hathor temple.
The earliest, albeit probably indirect, Egyptian contact with South Sinai dates to the Predynastic and Early Dynastic periods; during these periods, turquoise is found in Egypt. The South Sinai contains 1st Dynasty Egyptian pottery amounting to 1 percent of the pottery assemblages at a Chalcolithic settlement (circa 3,500 BC) near Serabit el-Khadim and some Early Bronze I-II sites (3,200-2,650 BC) in South Sinai. Despite the presence at Serabit el-Khadim of a hawk statuette bearing the name of the 4th Dynasty ruler Seneferu, this statuette likely dates to the Middle and New Kingdom periods, when many Sinai inscriptions contain dedications to Seneferu.
Expeditions during the 12th Dynasty initiated turquoise mining at Serabit el-Khadim and concentrated on this site in contrast to other South Sinai sites, such as Maghara, Wadi Kharig and Wadi Nasb. The 12th Dynasty inscriptions indicate the presence of at least one expedition during the reigns of Amenemhat I, Senusret I, Amenemhat II, Senusret II and Senusret III, 18-20 expeditions during Amenemhat III’s reign, and four expeditions during the rule of Amenemhat IV. These expeditions began the temple at Serabit el-Khadim by cutting northern (Room T) and southern (Room U) shrines within a rock outcrop. Giveon has suggested that prior to becoming a Hathor Shrine, Room T began as a tomb chapel with funerary-style inscriptions and scenes, but remained unfinished. Giveon also proposed that Room U began as a shrine to Hathor rather than to Sopdu. The presence of 12th Dynasty-style beads indicate that these expeditions likely brought votive jewelry to the temple. Other Middle Kingdom activity on the plateau includes twenty-three graffiti (boats, people and animals) and a rock stela at Rod el-’Air (Valley of Donkeys), which provided access to the plateau and a nearby fortified settlement ("the camp of the Egyptians") with circular structures, ore-processing basins and a 12th Dynasty stela, as well as a series of circular enclosures (bethels) with a central stela en route to the temple.
1=Senferu 4th Dyn.*
2=Amenemhet I
3=Senuaret I
4=Amenemhat II
5=Senwosret II
6=Senwosret III
7=Amenemhat III
8=Amenemhat IV
9=Queen Sobekneferu*
10=Middle Kingdom
11=Ahmose
12=Amenhotep I
13=Tuthmose I
14=Tuthmose II
15=Hatshepout
16=Hatshepout and Tuthmose III
17=Tuthmose III
18=Amenhotep II
19=Tuthmose IV
20=Amenhotep III
21=Amenhotep IV*
22=Smenkhkare*
23=Tutankhamen*
24=Ay*
25=Horemheb*
26=18th Dynasty
27=Rameses I
28=Seti I
29=Rameses II
30=Merenptah
32=Seti II
33=Siptah*
34=Tawosret
35=Sethrakht
36=Rameses III
37=Rameses IV
38=Rameses V
39=Rameses VI
40=19th-20th Dynasties
Nos. 1, 9, 21-25, 31 and 33=rulers absent from s.El-Khadim
Q=SANCTUARY
R=PORCH
S=PORTICO
T=HATHORCAVE
U=SOPDU CAVE
V=SOPDU APPROACH
X=LESSER HANAFIYEH
Y=HANAFIYEH COURT
Z=HATHOR HANAFIYEH
Figure 102 Map of the monuments and inscriptions at Serabit el-Khadim, Sinai
From the Second Intermediate Period, Serabit el-Khadim and Bir en-Nasb have produced seven Hyksos-style scarabs, several sherds from Tell el-Yahudiya juglets (noted by Giveon), and twenty-nine or more Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions. The Proto-Sinaitic script is assigned to either the 12 th Dynasty or the 18th Dynasty. Sass has concluded that a palaeographic comparison between it and related Northwest Semitic languages allows a date range from 1,800-1,000 BC. Proto-Sinaitic is a Semitic language containing 27-29 consonantal, pictographic signs with 23-26 identified forms derived largely from Egyptian hieroglyphs. Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions occur on two statue busts, a block statuette and a sphinx (recently redated from the 18th Dynasty to the 12th Dynasty), a stone slab from the "camp of the Egyptians," five slabs from stone enclosures (near Mines K and L), fourteen to sixteen slabs beside and in Mines L and M, and five to six rock inscriptions at Mines L, M, N and an undesignated mine. Some Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions accompany depictions of the Egyptian deity Ptah, who occurs more frequently in Middle Kingdom inscriptions and scenes than on New Kingdom monuments from the Hathor temple. Although the Asiatic character of this script is best reflected in Middle Kingdom texts which mention the presence of Asiatics at Serabit el-Khadim, New Kingdom texts from the site usually lack detailed personnel lists. Two New Kingdom stelae bear Semitic names (Aperba’al and Shalim-Shema’) for officials with Egyptian titles.
New Kingdom expeditions utilized two routes to South Sinai. One route traversed the Eastern Desert, then crossed the Red Sea to el-Merkha Bay (18th Dynasty coastal site no. 345), and subsequently followed Wadi Baba inland to Wadi Nasb, Rod el-’Air, Serabit el-Khadim and possibly Wadi Reqeita in south-east Sinai. The Wadi Tumilat and Isthmus of Suez provided an alternative maritime and/or overland route to el-Merkha Bay, and included Ramesside sites at Tell er-Retabeh, Serapeum(?), Gebel Abu Hassa, Gebel Mourr, Kom el-Qulzoum at Port Suez (where a "Ramesside" fort lies below Ptolemaic Clysma), and possibly at Ain Moussa (Moses’s Well) where Major Macdonald found a fragmentary shawabti.
Egyptian activity at Serabit el-Khadim and its environs intensified during the New Kingdom. Wadi Nasb contained a well (Bir en-Nasb), a copper mine, two furnaces, slag heaps with New Kingdom faience, clay tuyeres and an inscription of Ramesses II. New Kingdom expeditions carved three inscriptions and a graffito (boats, an axe and a giraffe) at Rod el-’Air, and dedicated an inscription and three stelae to Hathor and Ptah at Rock-Shrine Q which lay on the plateau en route to the Hathor temple. Mine M contained a few stone containers, a hammerstone, a disk and sherds from two bowls. Mine L produced forty-seven stone molds for axes, adzes, knives, chisels, mirrors and ingots, forty crucible fragments, five clay tuyeres, a stone foot-bellows, an arrowhead, bronze lumps, stone tools and vessels, and a New Kingdom potsherd. Mine G yielded a New Kingdom faience bowl, while a fragmentary stone foot-bellows, five tuyeres, seven clay crucibles and two mortars lay above this mine.
The Hathor temple contains inscribed monuments and votive artifacts dating from the reigns of Ahmose to Ramesses VI, including the prenomen of Horemheb on an unpublished ring-stand (in the Royal Ontario Museum), but the names of Akhenaten, Smenkhkare, Tutankhamen, Ay and Amenmesses are lacking. The votives encompassed plain and inscribed objects from the sanctuary (Q) and portico (S): faience vases, bowls, cups, jar-stands, beads and pendants, menat-necklace counterpoises, "wands" (throw-sticks), sistra, bracelets, cat-figure and Hathor-head plaques, a Bes-head, female figurines, a clay ear, scarabs, fragmentary alabaster vessels, several alabaster statuettes, 1,045 pieces of late 18th-19th Dynasty Egyptian core glass vessels (bowls, krateriskoi and pomegranate vessels), Egyptian pottery, and some Cypriot and Mycenaean sherds. The Hathor shrine (T), the Sopdu shrine (U) and the Shrine of Kings yielded ten stone "altars." In addition, a 10-45cm deep layer of white wood ash lay below the walls and surface of Rooms E/F to O (which were built during the reigns of Hatshepsut to Amenhotep III); this has been interpreted as waste from camp fires or burnt offerings.
New Kingdom expeditions repaired, embellished and/or added new rooms onto existing structures within the Hathor temple in addition to erecting private and royal monuments. Amenhotep I repaired the 12th Dynasty Hathor shrine. Queen Hatshepsut and Tuthmose III embellished and added several rooms with Hathor-headed columns: the Sopdu hall (V), the sanctuary (Q), the Hathor Hanafiyah (Z), the pylon (M/N), and Rooms L, M and N. Amenhotep II added Room K. Tuthmose IV constructed Room J, inscribed parts of Room K, and appears on rock stelae beside two mines. Amenhotep III built Rooms C-G and may have built the temple’s outer enclosure wall. Seti I probably constructed Room B, and appears on a reused block in Room A which was built by Ramesses II. Merenptah inscribed a door jamb between Rooms H and J, while Setnakhte and Ramesses III each added a stela before Room A. Ramesses IV constructed the porch (R), and embellished the sanctuary (Q) and Room O. Ramesses VI conducted modifications to the temple, inscribing a wall and two pillars in Room O.
