Medamud, un centro de producción cerámica en el Alto Egipto: Estudio de los materiales cerámicos recuperados en las excavaciones del IFAO entre 1925 y 1939

The archaeological site of Medamud, just north of Karnak in Upper Egypt, stands out in Egyptological historiography as one of the first sites to document the successive stages in the history of a temple and its architectural complex from its origins in the Pharaonic period to late Roman and Byzantine times. The first excavations at the site were carried out in the 1920s and 1930s by the Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale (IFAO) in Cairo and the Louvre Museum. These archaeological campaigns yielded a large quantity of ceramic materials, including vessels, terracotta, supports and pipes, which soon proved to be of great interest for chronological reasons, as they covered much of Egypt's history, and for technological reasons, as they were found to be associated with workshops and kilns. However, these finds needed to be re-evaluated in the light of current knowledge and methods in the field of ceramological and archaeological studies in general.

This is the aim of the present work. Thanks to the detailed study of these materials in relation to their original context and meticulous archival research in several international institutions where documents, plans and photographs related to those excavations are kept, it has been possible to reconstruct most of the original sets of pieces and new and important archaeological, social, economic and cultural conclusions have been reached.

In an interrelated manner, the work also proposes a reinterpretation of the architectural ensemble of the site, in which the re-study of the so-called primitive temple is of particular importance. Through the analysis of the pottery, it has been definitively dated to the beginning of the Middle Kingdom (and not to earlier times, as its discoverers had supposed), which redefines the chronology of the site, and it has been possible to establish the successive historical phases through which the architectural complex passed from those origins until the abandonment of the city around the 8th century AD. Likewise, the reoccupation of the space of the temple temenos in the Late Roman and Byzantine periods has been studied, and the importance of the city in these late periods as an urban centre of great economic and cultural dynamism has been demonstrated.

But one of the most important contributions of this work is the analysis of the ceramic productions of Medamud, spanning from the Middle Kingdom to the Byzantine period, and the historical conclusions derived from it. For more than 2,000 years, the city was one of the most important centres of pottery production not only in Egypt but in the entire eastern Mediterranean, making it one of the economic engines of its region and the country. In Roman times, this led to it being renamed with the eloquent name of Keramiké. The identification of numerous ceramic workshops and kilns, dating from the 15th century BC to Byzantine times, has led to the name Keramiké. The identification of numerous workshops and kilns, dating from the 15th century BC to Byzantine times, reveals a significant volume of production and a great diversity of products, from utilitarian to ritual, characterised by unique decoration, all of which suggest forms of industrialised production unique to the region.

The text is complemented by a wealth of high-quality illustrative material, consisting of photographs and plans, both current and in colour, and old and recovered from the archives.