Entering Uncharted Territory

2500 years ago, there was a regional center in southern Egypt where a flourishing urban community lived, engaged in interregional and long-distance trade and exchange, arts and crafts, and where numerous people lived some of whom wealthy enough to afford themselves and their families monumental rock tombs for a proper Egyptian afterlife. According to historical sources, this place had a long history going back thousands of years and also comprised important sanctuaries for ancient Egyptian gods. One of these gods was the jackal-headed Anubis, one of the chief gods of the netherworld who was considered so significant that large numbers of dogs were ritually offered, mummified and buried in the main cemetery near the modern village of el-Sheikh Fadl. This is why this area was later called Kynopolis, `city of dogs`. While the name of this urban center changed over time, in the Pharaonic period it was called Hardai, `Horus is here`, in reference to yet another important deity that must have been worshipped here. This city and the neighboring town of Saka were capitals of two large provincial districts within the ancient Egyptian administration, the so-called 17th and 18th Upper Egyptian nomes. And yet, this region, which is located about 180 km south of Cairo, has never been scientifically explored in modern times and up until very recently there was next to no reliably dated archaeological evidence for it. What is even worse, the area, and especially its main necropolis at el-Sheikh Fadl, has been subject to intensive illicit diggings by antiquities smugglers over many years and valuable archaeological information is already lost. For this reason, the University of Vienna Middle Egypt Project has recently received permission from the Ministry of Antiquities in Egypt to engage in rescue excavations and modern scientific investigations in the ancient cemetery. Surprisingly, the archaeological mission has discovered numerous ancient tombs that open up new insights into a time period of Pharaonic history that is also poorly investigated. This is the Late Dynastic era of the 5th and 4th centuries BCE. This period saw the end of the first Persian occupation of Egypt (27th Dynasty), followed by the rise of the very last indigenous Egyptian Pharaohs (28th-30th Dynasties), when new Persian kings and, in 332 BCE, Alexander the Great finally conquered the country of Egypt and ultimately led it into the Ptolemaic and Roman empires. For the first time, an international team of archaeologists, Egyptologists, surveyors, conservators, physical anthropologists, archaeozoologists, archaeobotanists and other specialists will conduct most intensive archaeological research into this little-known area and time in order to explore and document the rich material culture and heritage of this important ancient community of 2500 years ago.

About 2500 years ago, there was a regional center in southern Egypt with a flourishing urban community that engaged in interregional trade and exchange, arts and crafts. Among a range of different societal groups were also numerous people who were wealthy enough to afford themselves and their families monumental rock tombs for a proper Egyptian afterlife. According to historical sources, this place had a long history going back thousands of years and also comprised important sanctuaries for ancient Egyptian gods. One of these gods was the jackal-headed Anubis, one of the chief gods of the netherworld who was considered so significant that large numbers of dogs were ritually mummified and buried in the main cemetery near the modern village of el-Sheikh Fadl. This is why this area was later called Kynopolis, 'city of dogs'. While the name of this city changed over time, in the Pharaonic period it was called Hardai, 'Horus is here', in reference to yet another important deity that must have been worshipped here. This city and the neighboring town of Saka were capitals of two large provincial districts within the ancient Egyptian administration, the 17th and 18th Upper Egyptian nomes. And yet, this region, located about 180 km south of Cairo, has until recently never been scientifically explored in modern times and there had been next to no reliably dated archaeological evidence for it. What is even worse, the area, and especially its main necropolis at el-Sheikh Fadl, has been subject to intensive illicit diggings by antiquities smugglers over many years, and valuable archaeological information is already lost. To change this a team of Egyptologists and archaeologists of the University of Vienna, together with the Ministry of Antiquities in Egypt, has conducted a research project funded by the Austrian Science Fund and engaged in modern scientific research in the ancient cemetery. The Austrian archaeological mission has discovered numerous ancient tombs that open up new insights into a time period of Pharaonic history that is also poorly investigated. This is the Late Dynastic era of the 5th and 4th centuries BCE. This period saw the end of the first Persian occupation of Egypt (27th Dynasty), followed by the rise of the very last indigenous Egyptian Pharaohs (28th-30th Dynasties); when new Persian kings and, in 332 BCE, Alexander the Great finally conquered the country of Egypt and ultimately led it into the Ptolemaic empire. For the first time, an international and interdisciplinary team of archaeologists, Egyptologists, surveyors, conservators, physical anthropologists, archaeozoologists, archaeobotanists and other specialists have conducted most intensive archaeological investigations into this little-known area and time in order to explore and document the rich material culture heritage of this important ancient community of 2500 years ago.