Field Diary 2022.2 © Abydos Archaeology Results of the latest excavation season at the Abydos Royal Brewery and a closer look at the newest finds with immersive video and 3D models By now most of our readers will have a good sense of the pre/Early Dynastic brewery site at north Abydos, affectionately called “Cemetery D,” where the early twentieth-century archaeologist, T.E. Peet, had noted parts of eight separate brewery structures laid out in parallel trenches of “kiln”-like emplacements. Since 2018, seven of those original eight installations have been re-located and documented. Peet was not ..read more

Field Diary 2022.1 © Abydos Archaeology موسم حفائر جديد في مصانع الجعة الملكية القديمة في أبيدوس T.E. Peet (striped jacket) in front of the first Egypt Exploration Fund field house at Abydos in 1909. Photo courtesy of the Egypt Exploration Society. Archaeological excavation is a lot like watching an old photograph develop in slow motion — you stand over a chemical soup in the dark and watch the colors and shapes imprinted on a negative as they transfer onto a piece of paper that will, once printed, preserve a moment in time. In archaeology, our picture of the past becomes clear only too slowl ..read more

Fall Update / Field Diary 2021.4 © Abydos Archaeology Happy Fall, Archaeology/Beer Lovers everywhere! Excavation of a Second Dynasty ritual beer jar deposit at the cultic enclosure of King Khasekhemwy, a few hundred meters south of the royal brewery site. Photo by Greg Maka for Abydos Archaeology © 2012 If you haven’t already marked your calendars for our first FREE public/virtual lecture about the Abydos royal brewery, we’ll be streaming live from the Harvard Museums of Science & Culture / HMANE, Thursday, October 14 at 6:00pm (EDT). Register here for the free zoom link and join us on th ..read more

Field Documentary 2020 (episode 4) / Posted in Field Diary 2021.3 © Abydos Archaeology A curious pottery sherd emerged in last year’s excavations, during the 2020 field season at the predynastic brewery site in north Abydos. The sherd, which surfaced during the excavation of 100-year-old backdirt in an area known as “Peet’s Cemetery D,” featured the interesting juxtaposition of a First Dynasty pot mark (sherd bottom) and the modern letters “UQ” on the shoulder (upper right). After identifying the label as Flinders Petrie’s designation for the tomb of King Qa’a — excavated by him in 1899 — the ..read more

Field Diary 2019.3 © Abydos Archaeology Fig. 1. Architectural illustrator Damon Cassiano planning a Middle Kingdom chapel in the Abydos North Cemetery. Photo by Robert Fletcher for North Abydos Expedition © 2003 How do you see into the past? Step 1: Get down in the dirt. Step 2: Document everything. Step 3. Document some more. Step 4. Document, document, document! Step 5. Repeat. (Figs. 1-3). Archaeological documentation means many different things — measuring, drawing, mapping, photographing, registering and housing material, and even publishing. It is one of the most important aspects of ev ..read more

Field Diary 2019.2 © Abydos Archaeology Fig. 1. Painted, anthropoid coffin in situ, outside the east corner gateway of the Shunet el-Zebib. Photo by Ayman Damarany for North Abydos Expedition © 2019 Thousands of burials lie beneath the desert landscape at Abydos, many in subterranean tombs, others in plain wooden coffins placed in pits in the sand. Once in a while, an elaborate burial comes to light and takes your breath away — like the one we found last week just outside the east corner gateway of the Shunet el-Zebib (Fig. 1). This example is exceptional for the quality of its painted decora ..read more

Field Diary 2019.1 © Abydos Archaeology Fig. 1. Tools of the Trade. Photo by Wendy Doyon for North Abydos Expedition © 2019 It’s late winter in Egypt, and that means a new field season is underway at North Abydos — and this is a big one! This season we’re opening a new excavation at the Temple of Osiris in Kom el-Sultan; returning to our excavations and architectural preservation work at the Shunet el-Zebib, the Second Dynasty royal cult enclosure of King Khasekhemwy; and completing a condition assessment in preparation for a new conservation program at the “Portal” Temple — a small temple bu ..read more

Media Roundup / Field Diary 2021.2 © Abydos Archaeology Worldwide interest in the discovery that the predynastic brewery at North Abydos is Egypt’s first royal brewery and possibly the world’s oldest industrial-scale brewery has made at least one thing clear: Beer is a big part of what makes us human (and, as it turns out, a big part of what makes humans into gods, too). But headlines, as we all know, never tell the whole story—archaeology does. Image courtesy of ABInBev © 2021 Image courtesy of ABInBev © 2021 Image courtesy of ABInBev © 2021 Image courtesy of ABInBev © 2021 The Abydo ..read more

Field Diary 2021.1 / Abydos Archaeology Three years ago, excavations began at the far northern tip of the ancient site of Abydos, in a suburb out on the edge of a vast city of the dead that stretches for miles across the sacred desert landscape of Egypt’s first kings. Tombs and other structures here, including very ancient kilns, were known to date back to the late predynastic and early Old Kingdom (c. 3100—2700 BCE). Out on the margins of ancient activity, this part of the site was only half understood from previous excavations more than a hundred years earlier. Those early excavations left u ..read more

Field Diary 2020.6 / Abydos Archaeology View of the early Egyptian road to the afterlife from inside a newly discovered rock-cut chamber high above the sacred wadi of Abydos, June 6, 2020, photo by Wendy Doyon. We are thrilled—as in walking on the moon doing a happy dance EXCITED—to report on new work undertaken by the Ministry of Antiquities-Baliana Inspectorate’s New Survey Project on a previously unknown and mysterious archaeological site hidden high in the desert cliffs of the sacred wadi (canyon) of Abydos, the road to the afterlife in early Egyptian cosmology. The discovery, just a ..read more