Sanam Temple Project

13/12/2024

The Assistant Director and Director are hard at work in the labs for a few days, putting Nubian faience literally under the microscope! Looking forward to tracing people and their movements through micro-analyses of materials. Huge thanks to the MFA in Boston for facilitating our visit. Next stop, the archaeological labs in Cambridge!

20/01/2024

Our team photo looks rather different from most years, but the smiles stay the same! We just finished 2.5 weeks of our STP24 study season, working together across cities, countries and continents to process and interpret our data. Publications, grant proposals and public presentations are in the works, so watch this space! While discovering new things about Sanam always brings joy, it was hard not to be in Sudan this year, and we are holding all of our Sudanese friends and colleagues in our hearts. Insha’allah 2024 will herald a more peaceful future and we can all be together again soon.

01/05/2020

Taharqo's perfume, mystery walls, and AAAAALLL the beads–hear about the findings of our 2020 season, wherever in the world you happen to be! Live-streamed Zoom lecture, Wednesday May 13, 1pm US Eastern time (6pm UK; 7pm NL; 7pm Sudan!). Register at the link below to attend, we hope to see you there!

The Institute of Fine Arts, NYU 1 East 78th Street New York City RSVP Required. Please note this is a live-streamed event. A link to view the event will be sent out via email the morning of the lecture to those who RSVP in advance. The Institute of Fine Arts provides reasonable accommodations to peo...

02/02/2020

Now that we're back in the US, bags unpacked, (most of) the sand removed from various crevices...we can celebrate a great season, thanks to the hard work of all these wonderful people! Lots of interesting finds this year, with plenty of talks and articles planned to share our results–watch this space and we'll keep you updated!

16/01/2020

Today, we smelt Taharqo!! We tested some resinous material from a trash deposit in the temple which we suspected was incense by, well, setting it on fire. We are happy to report that it still smells-after about 2600 years! The smell was sweet and spicy, just like the bahur incense still used in Sudan today (as our inspector Dr Shadia Abdu Rabo is explaining to excavator and head pyromaniac Martin Uildriks here). Taharqo’s temple must have been a sensorially delightful place to be!

16/01/2020

Backfill day! It’s always hard to say goodbye to the temple after four weeks of work, but refilling it with sand is by far the best (if dirtiest) way to preserve it for the future.

14/01/2020

Aerial photography comes in many forms! And this time, it’s on the end of a broomstick 🧹

12/01/2020

This weekend we were lucky enough to take a trip to Kerma, one of the most important sites for understanding ancient Sudanese urbanism. And we were even MORE lucky to get a tour from the eminent Charles Bonnet, who has been directing excavations there for the last fifty years! Here we are in the site museum, saying hi to our guy King Taharqo.

11/01/2020

Fieldwork always requires ingenuity and a can-do attitude! In this case, we were successful in assembling cartridges and acquiring samples for OSL (optically-stimulated luminescence) dating.

OSL is a method for measuring doses of ionizing radiation through making use of the electrons trapped between the crystalline structure of certain minerals. By sampling mudbrick walls and ceramic samples throughout the site, we hope to gain a better sense of the dating of different phases of occupation.

10/01/2020

Karima souq-for all your hardware needs! (In this case plastic plumbing tubing to be jerryrigged as mud brick sample containers)