Following Odysseus Not the end of the world Amarna city of light ...

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Egyptian archaeologythat continued where Borchardt leftoff, gradually moving from ancienthouses to Akhenaten’s temples andpalaces. By 1936, with the completionof the excavation of the CentralCity, the site’s attraction had sufficientlydiminished for the work tobe abandoned.The archaeology of that era hada style and set of expectations ofits own. It took advantage of cheaplocal labour to dig on a large scale.It sought ‘discoveries’ – and itdepended for its funding on beingable to provide a stream of suitableobjects to foreign museums andtheir patrons, taking advantage ofthe system by which the Egyptiangovernment allowed foreign expeditionsto export a share of the finds.I started working at Amarnain 1977, with a set of ideas inkeeping with the new times. Thesocial and economic processes bywhich ancient societies workedand how they manifested themselvesin the details of buildings andobjects were hot topics. Settlementarchaeology was becoming a subjectin its own right. It seemedworthwhile to document what wasin the ground in immensely greaterdetail than before and to bring in awider range of experts in order toextract more and different kinds ofinformation. We were starting touse computers and it was exciting.I saw Amarna’s unique combinationof city-size scale and narrow intervalof time as perfect for developingan investigation of this kind.What made Amarna as a city tick?12. and 13. side andfront views of ahead of Nefertiti.Granodiorite. NewKingdom, 18thDynasty, 1351-1334.© State Museum ofBerlin. Photograph:Sandra Stelb.14. Relief showingAkhenaten, his wifeNefertiti and theirthree daughtersbathed in the divinelight of the Aten.New Kingdom, 18thDynasty, 1351-1334.Limestone. H. 33cm.W. 39cm. © StateMuseum of Berlin.Photograph:Margarete Busing.12 13Akhenaten and Nefertiti were barelyin my mind. Once again the workwas under the auspices of the EgyptExploration Society, largely usinggovernment funds channelled tothem by the British Academy.This kind of archaeology does notprovide quick and easy answers. Thequantity of humdrum finds – tens ofthousands of potsherds, shelf aftershelf of boxes of charcoal fragmentsthat are gold to archaeo-botanists– is almost overwhelming. In the35 years that have followed, sometimesbuffeted by difficult conditionsin Egypt, we (myself and theAmarna team) have carried outexcavations of limited scale at aseries of places that cover the spectrumfrom small to large houses,royal buildings and now an extensivecemetery where the ordinaryinhabitants were buried and whosebones represent an entirely new kindof evidence for the life of the people.Sometimes, as with the bones, theevidence tells a tale directly. Moreoften it fuels debate. How far wasAkhenaten’s society one directedfrom above and what scope was leftfor individual responsibility? Was ittightly or loosely organised? As thediscussion and thinking about thesite has continued, Akhenaten hasmoved to a more prominent place.Did he care about his people or not?And what about his religious drive?Did it generate the kind of intolerancethat we might expect? Here theanswer seems to be no, for Amarnaemerges as a particularly rich sourcefor the archaeology of domestic religionthat, in its visible manifestations,paid little heed to the Aten.As with the humanities in general,there are no final answers. Each newgeneration changes the questionsand terms of debate. Those whocome in the future will find, in ourpublications, archives and materialstored on site, the raw material fortaking research forward as to howEgyptian society evolved. n14• The Amarna Trust (www.amarnatrust.com) is a registeredcharity that supports a broadprogramme of fieldwork(www.amarnaproject.com) runin agreement with the EgyptianMinistry of State for Antiquities.• The City of Akhenaten andNefertiti: Amarna and Its Peopleby Barry Kemp (£29.95) ispart of the series New Aspectsof Antiquity, general editorColin Renfrew, published byThames & Hudson.• In the Light of Amarna, anexhibition celebrating thediscovery of the bust of Nefertiti100 years ago and including600 objects from, or related to,Amarna, opens at the NeuesMuseum in Berlin (www.neuesmuseum.de) on 6 Decemberand runs until 13 April 2013.Minerva November/December 2012
InterviewRoaming withRomerEgyptologist, historian and archaeologist John Romer tells Diana Bentley how hemoved from studying stained glass to digging in the Valley of the KingsWhen John Romer entered theRoyal College of Art in 1966to study the art of stainedglass, little did he thinkthat it would lead him all the way backto ancient Egypt. But when he saw a noteposted on the Stained Glass Department’snoticeboard asking for artists to jointhe University of Chicago’s EpigraphicSurvey in Luxor, he leapt at the chance.‘I’d been interested in ancient Egypt since Iwas a child. I gave a lecture on the Pyramidsat school when I was 12, and the first bookI purchased was Wallis Budge’s Guide tothe British Museum’s Egyptian Collections,price 1/3d,’ he recalls. Romer and his newwife Beth, a fellow art student who laterbecame an archaeologist, set off for Egypttogether, and an enduring and mutual passionfor the country and its long, enthrallinghistory was born.The renowned archaeologist, author andtelevision presenter remembers how hefelt when he first arrived there: ‘My initialimpressions, during a night drive from theairport, were unforgettable. Hot, marvellouslyperfumed air, dark streets, with littlefires lit on the pavements and people in galabeyasflitting in and out of the shadows.’In Luxor the Romers set to work as epigraphicartists, although at first they foundthe ancient temples disappointing.‘I couldn’t see what all the fuss was about,’he says. ‘It took years of working in themto appreciate their beauty – you have tobe able to look through the dust and ruin.’The sites were also disconcertingly disordered:‘Thebes looked like an explosion hadoccurred, with mummies lying all around.’Nevertheless, after working six days a weekin the temples, the Romers spent the seventhlooking at other monuments and, like otherartists before them, including the legendaryHoward Carter, they became increasinglydrawn to archaeology. Fortunately, the environmentwas perfect for those keen to learn.‘Chicago House, the very grand headquartersof the University of Chicago’sOriental Institute Epigraphic Survey in16Luxor, was a centre of archaeology and hada superb library. I spent all my waking hoursreading and asking an extraordinary rangeof archaeologists what they were doingand why,’ Romer explains. ‘So Beth and Ihad seen dozens of digs before we wereemployed to work on one.’The Valley of the Kings especiallyattracted the couple’s interest. After manyyears of working privately at the site, theyorganised and ran an expedition to makegeological, epigraphic and conservationalstudies between 1977 and 1979.‘It was the first ever at that site, whichthen was little known or cared about byEgyptolgists. Not much had been done sinceHoward Carter’s day and it was sufferinggreatly because of a rise in tourism,’ Romerexplains. ‘We needed a base in the valley tostore our equipment, and Ramesses XI wasa huge open and largely empty tomb whichseemed perfect for that task. Carter, in fact,had used it as a store and a dining roomwhen he excavated Tutankhamun.’Before they could use the tomb, however,the debris within it had to be cleared away.‘That’s when we realised that most of thisdebris was very ancient, that the tomb wasonly half finished and had been used at theend of the New Kingdom as a storeroomfor the royal mummies. So we found lotsof extraordinary stuff. It was the first tombto be excavated in the valley since Carter’swork on Tutankhamun. It was tense workand very exciting but, nonetheless, a sideshow to the expedition’s main task ofconservation, of which I am very proud.Virtually all the later work in the Valley ofthe Kings stems from some of the brilliantwork of the specialists who worked on theexpedition and later wrote articles in ourreports,’ he says.The team also found that despite its aridappearance, the valley was subject to flooding,so work was undertaken to lessen thedamaging effect of water on the tombs.Much work was also done to clean up thearea and organise its tourist facilities.‘The ticket office lay in the middle of thevalley and buses and taxis were driving rightinto it,’ Romer recalls.In 1979 he and his wife, together withsome American colleagues, also foundedthe Theban Foundation, based in Berkeley,Minerva November/December 2012
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