Expedition in Egypt – the world built of bricks
MúzeumCafé 9.
The area where the archaeological research of the Museum of Fine Arts expedition began in autumn 2008 is situated at the opening of the fertile Fajjum Oasis, south of Cairo, by the village of el-Lahun. The burial complex crowned with a brick pyramid was established by Pharaoh Sesostris II (1880-1878 BC) and was constructed on the local rock plateau. The first archaeologist to excavate el-Lahun was W.M.F. Petrie, who explored the area of the pyramid in just two seasons. Although Petrie was ahead of his time, the documentation is rather superficial due to haste. The imprecision and deficiencies of Petrie’s urban groundplan were confirmed by the excavations of a Canadian expedition lead by N.B. Millet between 1992 and 1997. The Hungarian mission has had to reckon with the fact that the site was rapidly decaying in the past decade and is falling victim to the sun, the destructive effect of the constant wind and seasonal rain and, in addition, some of the remaining bricks are being taken away by local villagers to fertilise their land. The cartographic panel replacing Petrie’s draft map of 1923 is central to the field work. The other pillars of the programme are the architectural survey and 3D modelling of the surface and newly explored structures, the systematic collection of ceramics, the objects which are known from sources but unidentified on the site, and a comprehensive archaeological data bank encompassing the finds of both early and modern excavations. The project has involved the participation of the following institutions: the Ybl Miklós Faculty of Architecture at the Saint Stephen University, the Research Institute for Visualization, Architecture and Archaeology, and the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology – University College London.