Amarna has a rich post-New Kingdom history: Gillian Pyke gives a tour of its early Christian remains. The abandonment of the ancient city of Akhetaten, shortly after the death of Akhenaten in about 1332 BC marked the demise of his vision of a society devoted to a sole deity. Some of the sacred spaces were… Continue reading Monastic Footprints at Amarna: Trails of the Unexpected
While famous for its decorated stonework talatat, Amarna was predominantly a mud-brick city. Richard Hughes outlines efforts to protect and stabilise its mud brick ruins. The siting of Amarna was ideal for its speedy construction via a military-like mass-production campaign making, shifting around and placing down mud bricks (adobes). The riverbank and floodplain graded silty… Continue reading Mud brick and termites in Amarna
Some of the most interesting elements of the ancient city of Akhetaten lie around its desert fringes. Corinna Rossi recalls her time working at Amarna, helping to survey the city's quarries and desert roadways. I worked at Amarna for three seasons (2001–2003), during which I contributed to the survey of various features. The most challenging… Continue reading Surveying (and snake scaring) in the Amarna desert
Amarna is renowned for its domestic archaeology. Anna Stevens reflects on the experience of excavating small houses in the Main City – and trying to reconstruct something of the lives of the people of Amarna through the objects they left behind. One of the things that makes Amarna so special as an archaeological site… Continue reading Busy lives – and busy archaeologists – at Amarna
Kom el-Nana, site of a solar shrine for Nefertiti, is one of the last surviving peripheral cult complexes of ancient Akhetaten. Jacquelyn Williamson talks about her work reconstructing wall reliefs from the site, and its precarious condition. Starting in the late 1980s and ending in the 1990s Barry Kemp and the members of the Egypt… Continue reading The disappearing Sun Temple of Queen Nefertiti
The dig house at Amarna has a complicated history of its own! Barry Kemp explains: Early European travellers who spent time at Amarna must have based themselves upon travelling house-boats (dahabiyas) or, in the case of Norman Davies and his co-workers whilst copying the rock tombs, in one of the actual tombs. The first to… Continue reading The southern expedition house
Anna Garnett recalls her first trip to Amarna to study the pottery from the Stone Village and a memorable trip to the EES Dig House where Mary Chubb worked with John Pendlebury's team in the 1930s, an experience she recounted in her memoir Nefertiti Lived Here. With the support of an Egypt Exploration Society Fieldwork and Research Grant, I am currently… Continue reading Mary Chubb Lived Here: Some first impressions of Amarna
Anna Hodgkinson outlines her recent investigations into the suburban glass industry at Amarna. C. Leonard Woolley excavated at Amarna in 1921–2 on behalf of the Egypt Exploration Society. Just before the end of the season, in late January 1922, his team was working on some houses in the Main City South, in the vicinity… Continue reading The manufacture of beautiful beads at Amarna
Gretchen Dabbs outlines the aims and results of the project to study the remains of the people of Amarna recovered during ongoing excavations of the city's cemeteries.
In the first of our anniversary blogs, Prof. Barry Kemp, Director of the Amarna Project, sits down for a question-and-answer session on the experience, challenges and rewards of leading fieldwork at Amarna over the past 40 years.
Amarna Anniversary 