Administration Building & Silos found at Edfu
A large administration building as well as ancient grain silos have been discovered by archaeologists from the University of Chicago at Tell Edfu in southern Egypt.
The work is a continuation of last year’s discovery when the remains of seven silos were uncovered by the the team headed by Nadine Moeller, Assistant Professor at the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago.
The discovery adds new information to our understanding of the development of cities in Ancient Egyptian times.
The traditional view of ancient Egypt has been biased by the fact that most excavation work so far has focused on temples and tombs. The mounds which comprise the remains of Egyptian cities were either ignored, buried under modern towns, or else destroyed by modern agricultural activities. Edfu is one of the very few remaining city mounds that are accessible for scientific study,” said Gil Stein, Director of the Oriental Institute.
“The work at Edfu is important and innovative in that it finally allows us to examine ancient Egypt as an urban society, whose cities and towns housed bureaucrats, craft specialists, priests, and farmers. Nadine Moeller’s discovery of silos and local administrative buildings shows us how these cities actually functioned as places where the agricultural wealth of the Nile valley was mobilized for the state. Grain as currency provided the sinews of power for the pharaoh,” he added.
“Ancient Egyptian administration is mainly known from texts, but the full understanding of the institutions involved and their role within towns and cities has been so far difficult to grasp because of the lack of archaeological evidence with which textual data needs to be combined,” Moeller said.
Read the full report at the University of Chicago website
Visit the Oriental Institute’s Tell Edfu website to read more about the Tell Edfu Project. There you can read the latest news about the ongoing excavations, view photos and download the latest newsletter.
Tags: Edfu
