Étiquette : cône funéraire

Par Frédéric Colin, Chaire Marc Bloch de l’USIAS, Université de Strasbourg, CNRS, UMR 7044 Archimède

Abstract: This paper reports on experiments in digital archaeology focused on two fragments of so-called ‘paddle doll’ figurines dating from the Middle Kingdom but discovered in 2023 in a 7^th century BC context in al-Asasif. It is intended both as a progress report on the project “Digital Archaeology in a Monumental Necropolis in Thebes, Egypt”, sponsored by the University of Strasbourg Institute for Advanced Study, and as a supplement to the report “Assassif (2023). Le mur de Thoutmosis III et les ateliers de Padiamenopé”, published in BAEFE 2024 (Colin & Hartenstein et alii 2024).

The first objective is to propose a new method of 5D modelling to provide a solution to two classic difficulties encountered in stratigraphic excavations and their publication protocols.

1. 1. Archaeological digging is a destructive procedure where the observer erases data in the same process as he records it.
   2. The formal conventions of chronostratigraphic synthesis imagined by Edward C. Harris (1979) based on his experience of excavating settlement contexts known for their complex stratigraphy are in fact a highly abstract tool. Indeed, the disembodiment and decoupling of the so-called ‘Harris matrix’ from other documentary evidence makes it difficult for the reader to ‘falsify’ (in an epistemological sense) the archaeologist’s interpretation.

The first three dimensions of the 5D model provide a tangible image of the strata that the excavator destroyed as he progressed. The fourth dimension links the ‘Harris matrix’ directly to the corresponding stratigraphic layers, reconnecting it to the rest of the visual documentation of the site and allowing the reader to empirically assimilate and possibly refute the chronological and spatial framework established by the archaeologist. Finally, the fifth dimension offers the possibility of integrating an additional level of typological interpretation in the same virtual space.

The second aim of this article is to present two new examples of female figurines known as ‘paddle dolls’ and to discuss the outcomes and views of a number of important publications that have appeared in the first decades of the twenty-first century. Among others, we will review interesting studies by Morris 2011 & 2017, Díaz Hernández 2017, and Moreno García 2017, whose interpretations of the image we will consider based on a method that distinguishes three different levels of analysis.

1. 1. The denotative level: what do the signs that make up the figurines literally represent?
   2. The connotative level: what semantic cluster do these signs belong to in the minds of the Egyptians?
   3. The pragmatic level of interpretation, which aims to analyze the specific situation in which the artist has placed his composition of signs to make it perform a particular function, either predicative (to commemorate or convey information about something) or performative (to actualize an ontological assertion, a status, a situation or an action). What specific meaning does he ascribe to them in a given context of use?

The context in which the two new examples were discovered merely confirms the importance of this type of artefact in the funerary culture of the Theban elite in the entourage of Montuhotep II, without providing any new clues as to the meaning of these objects. On the other hand, the stratigraphic modelling of the archaeological context highlighted the long journey of these objects between their first deposit in a tomb at the beginning of the Middle Kingdom and their successive removals by Thutmose III’s and then Padiamenope’s workmen. The material condition of the two pieces indicates that they were deliberately broken by people working in the necropolis at some point in this artifact biography. We can therefore add this find to the collection of ‘broken images’, which has also been the subject of considerable bibliographical production in recent years.

Pour citer cet article : Frédéric Colin, « Quand Thoutmosis III et Padiamenopé rencontrent le Moyen Empire : paddle dolls neutralisées et modélisation en 5D (espace – temps – typologie) », Carnet de labora­toire en archéologie égyptienne, 25/08/2024, https://clae.hypotheses.org/4084, consulté le xx/xx/xxxx.

Sommaire

• 1. Introduction
• 2. Méthode
• 3. Résultats et observations
  • 3.1. Le contexte stratigraphique
    • 3.1.1. Construction de la rampe
    • 3.1.2. Fonctionnement et destruction de la chaussée
    • 3.1.3. Phase intercalaire
    • 3.1.4. Début des travaux de Padiamenopé
    • 3.1.5. Datation contextuelle des deux « paddle dolls »
  • 3.2. Deux fragments de « paddle dolls » et un bâtonnet
    • 3.2.1. Fragment de figurine féminine de type « paddle doll », AS-2023-1598-12
    • 3.2.2. Fragment de figurine féminine de type « paddle doll », AS-2023-1596-1
    • 3.2.3. Tige en bois sculpté AS-2023-1596-2
• 4. Discussion
  • 4.1. Une stratigraphie inversée
  • 4.2. Un contexte tertiaire
  • 4.3. Une destruction volontaire
  • 4.4. Le corpus des « padlle dolls »
• 5. Conclusion
  • 5.1. De la « matrice de Harris » à la maquette en 5D espace – temps – typologie
  • 5.2. Paddle dolls neutralisées
• 6. Données numériques en ligne
• 7. Bibliographie

The figures in this article are permanently stored on nakala and freely available in full resolution by following this link: https://nakala.fr/collection/10.34847/nkl.538db3t5.

1. Introduction

À la suite d’un essai d’épigraphie numérique publié dans une livraison précédente de ce Carnet de laboratoire ¹, la présente contribution prolonge la démarche expérimentale en se focalisant, cette fois, sur la construction d’un espace virtuel de synthèse (fig. 1) en aval des opérations de relevé systématique sur le terrain. Ce dispositif permettra de visualiser l’évolution spatiotemporelle d’un contexte archéologique stratifié en combinant dans un univers commun une séquence signifiante de modèles 3D issus de la photogrammétrie (field surveys)².

1. Colin 31/07/2022. [↩]
2. Ibid. § 14. [↩]