The Khentkawes Town (KKT) - Ancient Egypt Research Associates

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www.aeraweb.org Causeway threshold Slope up West wall of building Floor level of building North end of ramp Figure 38. The ramp in the mud bank. The nearly vertical line of plastered mudbricks on the north (right), leans slightly south (left), marking the end of the ramp, which rises on a bed of limestone debris (left) sloping to a high point at the threshold of the causeway. The western wall of the lower building abuts the northern end of the ramp. A patch of marl plaster marks the floor level of the building, which was mostly removed when some force cut down through the mud foundation. View to the west. debris was the fill of a ramp that ascended to the causeway threshold from the south against the bedrock face. Now, in the shallow cuts that Hassan’s workers made along the bedrock ledge, we could see the top of this limestone debris fill. One entered the causeway by ascending from south to north on this ramp, then turning west 90° to cross the causeway threshold. There might be in this sloped, deteriorated mass, the possibility of a straight-on stairway to the causeway. If so, it is very steep, but steep stairways are not usual in ancient Egyptian architecture. At the base of the northern retaining wall—the battered line of plastered mudbrick— we came upon a patch of marl floor, only 40 cm wide, which appears to be the bottom of the ramp, and possibly the floor of the buried building. The elevation of this patch is 17.18 m asl. We know from the 1932 trenches that the lower bedrock terrace is at elevation 16.60 m asl. The 58 cm difference is taken up by a layer of dense silt with toppled mudbrick, which has been cut through. It looks as though the floor was robbed and this, a foundation layer, was cut through. If this is a foundation layer, the buried building was a rebuild of some earlier structure, indicated by the toppled bricks. We mapped articulated bricks for some distance to the south along the lower, outer, eastern edge of the bank of mud and limestone debris (figs. 39–40). These brick courses must belong to the base of an outside wall that retained the limestone debris fill of the ascending ramp. The outside wall probably rose some distance above the sloping floor of the ramp. When erosion made a 30° cut through the rectilinear cross-section of the ramp, it left the limestone debris showing on its rise through the core of the ramp. We did not continue clearing the sand east of the stairway-ramp down to expose the bedrock terrace because we were at the end of our season. We were intrigued to find, just where we stopped, a common bread pot of a style quite different than the thousands of bread pots from the HeG settlement and bakeries south of the Wall of the Crow, but very common at the end of the Old Kingdom, some 300 years after the 4 th Dynasty (fig. 41). Giza Occasional Papers 4 41
www.aeraweb.org Figure 39. Kasia Olchowska maps the ramp in Area KKT-E. Her north-south datum measuring tape crosses the line of the outer wall of the ramp, of which traces show on the lower left. View to the west. Figure 40. Kasia Olchowska maps the ramp in Area KKT-E. Her north-south datum measuring tape crosses the line of the outer wall of the ramp. The ramp, like the rest of the KKT layout, and in contrast to the GIII.VT, is oriented slightly west of north, like the settlement south of the Wall of the Crow. View to the north. 42 Giza Plateau Mapping Project Season 2008 Preliminary Report
Page 2 and 3: www.aeraweb.org Giza Occasional Pap
Page 4 and 5: www.aeraweb.org Giza Occasional Pap
Page 6 and 7: Contents www.aeraweb.org Acknowledg
Page 8 and 9: Acknowledgements www.aeraweb.org De
Page 10 and 11: www.aeraweb.org Introduction Ancien
Page 12 and 13: www.aeraweb.org Figure 2. The Tomb
Page 14 and 15: www.aeraweb.org its footprint as Ha
Page 16 and 17: www.aeraweb.org wall (the “Glacis
Page 18 and 19: www.aeraweb.org Open Court Water Ta
Page 20 and 21: www.aeraweb.org 132 126 pilaster 12
Page 22 and 23: www.aeraweb.org Figure 11. Dan Jone
Page 24 and 25: www.aeraweb.org the face, and refil
Page 26 and 27: www.aeraweb.org Vestibule GIII.VT N
Page 28 and 29: www.aeraweb.org Figure 17. The port
Page 30 and 31: www.aeraweb.org Figure 20. Mike Hou
Page 32 and 33: www.aeraweb.org terraces, leading d
Page 34 and 35: www.aeraweb.org the shoulder of thi
Page 36 and 37: www.aeraweb.org resurfaced and used
Page 38 and 39: www.aeraweb.org Collapsed brick Sou
Page 40 and 41: www.aeraweb.org Bedrock face Tumble
Page 42 and 43: www.aeraweb.org Point 13721 Figure
Page 46 and 47: www.aeraweb.org Valley Approach Our
Page 48 and 49: www.aeraweb.org Figure 43. The west
Page 50 and 51: www.aeraweb.org Archaeological Scie
Page 52 and 53: www.aeraweb.org 2008 KKT Human Oste
Page 54 and 55: www.aeraweb.org In addition, a narr
Page 56 and 57: www.aeraweb.org usually in elite bu
Page 58 and 59: www.aeraweb.org Catalog of Burials
Page 60 and 61: www.aeraweb.org Burial 456 (Square
Page 62 and 63: www.aeraweb.org Burial 458 (Square
Page 64 and 65: www.aeraweb.org References Acsádi,
Page 66 and 67: www.aeraweb.org Saqqara Laser Scann
Page 68 and 69: www.aeraweb.org Figure 56. SLSS Fed
Page 70 and 71: www.aeraweb.org Equipment The follo
Page 72 and 73: www.aeraweb.org Global Positioning
Page 74 and 75: www.aeraweb.org Figure 62. The 2008
Page 76 and 77: www.aeraweb.org KKT-N 2008 Water Ta
Page 78 and 79: www.aeraweb.org Plate 3.1. KKT, Bur
Page 80 and 81: www.aeraweb.org Plate 5.1. KKT, Bur
Page 82 and 83: www.aeraweb.org Plate 7.1. Prelimin

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