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Building Dipinti Documentation Project in the area of Hatshepsut and Tuthmosis III Temples at Deir el-Bahari
Since 2005/2006 excavation season the Building Dipinti Documentation Project in the area of the Hatshepsut Temple at Deir el-Bahari has been continuing as part of a wider research program of the Polish-Egyptian Archaeological and Conservation Mission in the Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari.
As a result of the co-operation with the joint Polish Mission in the Temple of Tuthmosis III in 2011 the archaeological and epigraphic activity of the project has been extended to the remains of the adjacent temple of Tuthmosis III where analogical material has been recognized as well. The main task of the project is the photographic, drawing and descriptive documentation of building dipinti. The Building dipinti has been executed in red paint in hieratic script or hieroglyphic cursive and left by the ancient builders of the temples on roughly dressed faces of limestone and sandstone blocks (the latter in the Temple of Tuthmosis III). Plenty of them are fortunately preserved, up to now, in foundations, cores of walls, on covered or never completed portions of walls. Nevertheless, the majority of them have been erased, obliterated or simply removed in the course of the construction and decoration process of the temples. So far the documented epigraphic material contains 532 building dipinti coming from different areas of the Temple of Hatshepsut and 222 in the area of the Temple of Tuthmosis III. All of them are explicitly related to the four distinguished stages of the building process: (1.) extraction of the stone building material in a quarry, (2.) transportation, (3.) further dressing of stone blocks at the construction site and (4.) final construction phases on the site.
Bibliography:
Wieczorek, D., Tutmozydzkie dipinti budowlane a ostraka hieratyczne z tego samego okresu, Rocznik Archeologiczny Instytutu Archeologii UW Tom I (1), 2009, pp. 155-161.
Project supervisor: Dawid F. Wieczorek
Contact: dawidfwieczorek@wp.pl
The two-year research grant of the National Center for Science in the competition PRELUDIUM 2012, agreement no UMO-2012/05 / N / HS3 / 01391, carried out at the Department of Egyptology Institute of Mediterranean and Oriental Culture, Polish Academy of Science: 2013-2015
Foundation for Polish Sciene - scholarship START (2010)
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