Johannes Auenmüller

Copper played a central role in the material culture of ancient Egypt. Appearing in the archaeological record as early as the fourth millennium BCE, copper and copper alloys were the most widely used metals throughout pharaonic history. Significant copper ore deposits, such as those of the Eastern Desert and Sinai, were located in proximity to the Nile Valley and were usually mined through large state-organized expeditions. In addition to textual and iconographic evidence, copper alloy objects constitute a valuable source for our understanding of the procurement, use, and circulation of goods within ancient Egyptian society. With the advancement of scientific methods their analysis has become part of the wider development of archaeometallurgy, which aims to shed light on the entire production chain of metals in their historical and social contexts. Indeed, Egyptology, archaeology, and archaeometallurgy are complementary and can benefit from the same research questions.

Recent progress in the realm of imaging technologies has swiftly disseminated fresh methodologies for representing objects, broadening the horizons for scholars such as art historians, archaeologists, conservators, and conservation scientists. Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) and three-dimensional (3D) modeling via Structure from Motion (SfM) have rapidly gained popularity and are being employed by a wide range of users, expanding the possibilities for understanding objects of material cultural heritage from different perspectives. This paper explores the outcomes achieved through the application of these techniques to gain deeper insights into the surface of a bas-relief within a confined space. This methodology enhanced our understanding of the original sandstone surfaces of the bas-relief by integrating RTI and 3D visualization, thereby acquiring a novel investigative tool with enhanced illumination possibilities. A data fusion approach is proposed using photogrammetry to produce a Virtual RTI (V-RTI). In the case study reported in this paper, focusing on one inner wall of the chapel of Ellesiya at the Museo Egizio of Turin, V-RTI was employed to obtain useful surface information in a context where conventional RTI would have been impossible to achieve. Finally, the study compares the different techniques through direct qualitative and quantitative analysis, highlighting possible future developments from both instrumental and methodological points of view.

A small wooden bar inscribed with a sequence of well-known titles is discussed in terms of prosopography and its possible contextualization. The artefact of unknown provenance is currently kept at the Egyptian Museum of Bonn University. Since no name is preserved, the titles are first discussed in order to identify a potential owner and determine a general date. While no definite owner can be presented, the dating can be narrowed down to the late Old Kingdom. In a second step, potential parallels for the wooden strip are discussed, focusing mainly on the evidence from Elephantine and the Qubbet el-Hawa. It is eventually argued that the wooden strut was part of a small shrine for the use in ritual contexts. Since no unambiguous relationship to the First Cataract can be established, the wooden element seems to represent an additional piece of evidence for the existence of such shrines in other parts of Egypt during the Old Kingdom.