Late Period Bronze Casting at the First Cataract: The technological objects from the Qubbet el-Hawa necropolis

Auenmüller, Johannes

Abstract

The Qubbet el-Hawa necropolis to the north of the First Cataract across the Nile from modern Aswân is a well-known archaeological site in Egypt. It is the find-spot of a unique collection of objects that were discovered by Egyptologists from the University of Bonn in 1969 in the rock-cut tomb QH 207. These objects, housed at the Egyptian Museum of Bonn University today, are materials of a local bronze casting workshop that was active around 550–450 BC. They illustrate the conceptual design and workmanship of casting moulds as well as the complete casting process of small bronze figures in the lost-wax technique, starting with the preparation of the wax model through to the finished bronze. Modern scientific analyses undertaken on the completely preserved and therefore unique casting moulds has helped to understand the production and technology of these technological objects. This paper presents the basic data on these unparalleled objects and communicates the principal results of the materials research and of the imaging methods employed in the course of a scientific project undertaken in Bonn in 2014 and 2015.