Lunch @ Lepage — Excavating Memphis with Dr. Kelly-Anne Diamond
On Wednesday, February 28, 2024, The Albert Lepage Center for History in the Public Interest hosted Dr. Kelly-Anne Diamond, Assistant Teaching Professor of History, for the first Lunch @ Lepage event of the 2024 spring semester. Dr. Diamond presented research she conducted on an archaeological dig of the Memphis, Egypt, the ancient capital of lower Egypt, shedding light on the city’s rich past through the discovery of artifacts.
Dr. Kelly-Anne Diamond hosted the Lepage Center’s first “Lunch @ Lepage” of the 2024 spring semester to share findings from her recent excavation of Kôm el-Fakhry in ancient Memphis. Kôm el-Fakhry, located in the modern village of Mit Rahinah, is one of ten ancient mounds around ancient Memphis, buried under a host of modern towns and cities. There have been no systematic excavations of the area due to modern day Egyptian settlements, and little is known of these mounds. Kôm el-Fakhry is divided into two sections: a cemetery and the surrounding settlement. The cemetery is well-documented, but the settlement is not. Dr. Diamond’s excavation focused on the settlement to gather more information about the ancient city of Memphis. In the region, there are multiple prominent cemetery sites with large amounts of remains and artifacts, but the settlement at Kôm el-Fakhry has the potential to teach about more everyday ancient Egyptian life in Memphis.
Located upriver from the Nile River Delta, Memphis was the on-and-off capital of the kingdom of Ancient Egypt starting in 3100 B.C., making it a hub for researchers like Dr. Diamond. Most knowledge of Memphis has been ascertained from ancient texts and artifacts from burial grounds, and few pedestrian artifacts have been found to qualify these findings. The excavation site is a small portion of the overall settlement site, but it is significant because it points to the oldest discovered settlement site in all of Memphis. Since people still live on ancient sites, the settlement site is one of few excavatable settlement areas in this part of Egypt, meaning it could offer insights into larger ways of life. As an archaeologist, Dr. Diamond was determined to find artifacts in the area to shed light on the city’s storied past.
A host of challenges in excavating the site proved to be obstacles for Dr. Diamond’s team. The site had been excavated prior to Dr. Diamond’s excavation; however, these excavations were not comprehensive or publicized, and Dr. Diamond hoped to delve much deeper into the site’s history. Mit Rahinah’s expansion also proved to be a challenge for the excavation, as the construction of new houses has gradually encroached on the site over time. In 2017, demolition began around the site, tearing down houses creeping onto the excavation zone and building a concrete wall around it. Part of the site had also become known as the “dustpan of Mit Rahinah” because locals had frequently tossed trash into the site. Dr. Diamond’s team did not excavate that area.
Once the excavation began, Dr. Diamond’s team found “looters’ holes”, where locals had dug into the site in hopes of finding antiquities. Looters holes are both harmful and helpful to the excavation. Obviously, the presence of these holes meant that some of the most in intact artifacts have already been taken from the site, depriving Dr. Diamond’s team of potentially vital discoveries; however, the looters’ holes, often containing the shards of broken artifacts, also provided a guide for some of the best areas to excavate for Dr. Diamond’s team.
One of the final roadblocks the excavation faced was the repercussions of construction down the road. Dr. Diamond’s team believed they had stumbled across a huge finding when they discovered large, inscribed stone blocks, but they were bemused when they learned those blocks had been moved from a construction site where they had been accidentally unearthed. The blocks had inscriptions containing Ramses II’s name on them, indicating great historical significance. However, they had no ties to the area, and Dr. Diamond’s team is tasked with removing them from the site in the future.
The excavation team was permitted to dig in three, small areas of the site that had already been partially excavated prior, labelled AA, AB, and AV. In area AA, the team’s goal was to the team found large deposits of pottery shards, and they brought in three ceramicists to analyze the findings. Area AA had been designated a ritual area by past excavators. The team uncovered the remains of a ceramic jar stand, often used for offerings in rituals, backing the ritual area designation.
Area AB is in the middle of the remains of a Middle Kingdom settlement, so Dr. Diamond’s team wanted to go deeper than past excavations to reach the oldest remains of the settlement. Prior to the excavation, the team was aware of Old Kingdom pot shards being found, but no Old Kingdom layers had been discovered on official excavations, as many of them were churned up by looters’ pits. When digging deeper into area AB, the team hit Old Kingdom layers in the settlement area. This discovery marked the first evidence of the oldest settled area in ancient Memphis, dating back to roughly 2200–2100 B.C.
Shortly after Dr. Diamond returned to the United States, she got reports that the excavation team discovered ancient remains on the site. The team believes the remains date back to the Old Kingdom, but they do not have any conclusive information and did not have a bone specialist on the excavation. The settlement area is from the Middle Kingdom, but the cemetery is from the Intermediate Period, meaning it predates the settlement. Dr. Diamond noted there has been no conclusive evidence of a Middle Kingdom cemetery in the area yet, but she also believes it is too early to confidently say if these remains are indication of a Middle Kingdom cemetery located within the settlement area. The team are making learning more about the body on the next excavation one of their priorities.
Area AC was the easternmost location of the team’s excavation site, located in front of a temple of Ptah, the patron god of Memphis. The team hoped that excavations would unearth an entranceway to the temple or other related buildings. The area was also very flat, and the team believed this indicated that the area would provide insight into the area’s history. Unfortunately, the area was flat because the locals had piled trash there in the past to create a soccer field. After days of digging, the team was disappointed to uncover that trash. To continue excavating the site, the team needed to prove it had potential. Digging below the trash would take too much time, so the excavation team decided to abandon area AC for the time being.
Moving forward, excavations of the area will continue because the remains and pot shards point to evidence of further Old Kingdom artifacts and remains. This will be a challenge, as excavations have lots of procedure and red tape; however, the site was deemed a “critical site” (I’m going to email her to see if this was the antiquities board or some other org because I know the Egyptians have lots of regulatory bodies about this sort of thing) because the area has historical significance and is at risk of encroachment from real estate and trash accumulation. Dr. Diamond is confident the team will get further opportunities to excavate the site. As a site with great historical significance in the history of ancient Memphis and Egypt as a whole, Kôm el-Fakhry is likely to be deeply educational in the future of Egyptology.
