Thesis (PhD)--Macquarie University, Division of Humanities, Dept. of Ancient History, 2000. / Bibliography: p. 475-498. / PART I -- Thesis introduction -- Location, environment and routes of the Western Desert -- Cultural, historical and archaeological setting of Dakhleh Oasis -- Introduction to the vessel typology -- Introduction to the site catalogue -- Technology of pottery manufacture -- Fabrics and wares -- Conclusion -- PART II -- The vessel typology -- The site catalogue. / This thesis analyses a body of largely unpublished ceramic material from Dakhleh Oasis in the Western Desert of Egypt. The material is primarily from the survey of Dakhleh Oasis and the testing of sites by members of the Dakhleh Oasis Project and, except for some Phase 4 material recovered from excavations at Ismant el-Kharab, is unstratified. It covers a thousand years of Egyptian pottery-making from the eighth century BC to the late second century AD. -- A comprehensive survey of published and unpublished material from other sites in Egypt and adjacent regions has been undertaken to acquire comparative material for the pottery from Dakhleh Oasis. In addition, a study of the technical characteristics of the vessels that have remained accessible has been undertaken to describe and explain ancient pottery practices and to build up a framework for comparative purposes. -- With this body of information, a vessel typology divided into two series, each of which are further divided into two phases, has been devised and the chronology of the vessels determined. This ceramic typology has been used to compare surveyed sites of different utilisation - cemetery, settlement and temple sites - and to establish a dating system for these sites. The resulting chronology will be a guide to the determination of future excavations in the oasis and will assist in the on-going study of the socio-economic development of the oasis. The typology also provides a corpus of pottery for the processing of material from future excavations in Dakhleh Oasis and information for other ceramicists working in Egypt and elsewhere. -- The comparative survey of ceramic material from other sites demonstrates that Dakhleh Oasis, although a remote region in the Western Desert of Egypt, maintained contact with the Nile Valley and more distant areas. It also shows that, while this interaction influenced local pottery styles, the oasis retained and developed its own pottery traditions. -- In addition, a preliminary analysis has been made of fabrics and clays for descriptive purposes and to increase knowledge of the ancient ceramics from the oasis. -- A database has also been built to store and manipulate the information on this extensive body of ceramic material from Dakhleh Oasis. The pottery drawings have been produced in a format readily accessible for electronic transfer to researchers in the field of Egyptian ceramics. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / 498, [199] p. ill. (some col.), maps

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- McMaster University, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 303-319). Also available via World Wide Web.

Cette recherche de doctorat concerne l’étude des fragments céramiques utilisés comme supports pour l’écriture dans l'Égypte gréco-romaine, c'est-à-dire les ostraca. Les deux groupes d'ostraca, objet de cette analyse, proviennent des fouilles archéologiques modernes effectuées dans deux sites qui se trouvent dans le désert occidental égyptien : Dime es-Seba/Soknopaiou Nesos (Fayoum) et Amheida/Trimithis (Dakhla). Le deux sites sont respectivement fouillés par la Mission archéologique du Centro di Studi Papirologici dell'Universita del Salento-Lecce (2003-2012) et de l’Université de New York -ISAW (2004-2013). Les aspects liés à la matérialité des ostraca (des fragments de récipients en céramique utilisés généralement pour écrire des textes en grec et démotique) ont été complètement ignorés par le passé en faveur de l’étude du texte. La raison principale de cette négligence est liée à la qualité médiocre du matériel céramique, considéré sans valeur. Par ailleurs, les études de céramologie en Égypte ainsi que l’étude des circuits économiques dans lesquels la poterie était utilisée sont très récents. En outre, il est communément admis que les scribes ramassait les fragments de céramique au hasard dans des dépotoirs et que n’y avait pas de sélection dans le choix des supports. Notre recherche démontre que ce concept est une fausse supposition, au moins pour ce qui concerne les deux groupes d'ostraca examinés. En revanche, il est clair que les scribes faisaient un choix sélectif des tessons selon leurs besoins et que, dans certains cas, il y avait une fragmentation ultérieure des morceaux. Rien a été laissé au hasard: le contenu des textes était strictement adapté à la nature de tessons utilisés comme support. De plus, la classification de la céramique des deux sites a été un point essentiel pour mettre en rapport la culture matérielle et l’organisation de la société égyptienne qui l’a produite entre le IIIe siècle av. J.-C. et le IVe siècle apr. J.-C. / This doctoral dissertation focuses on the study of the pottery sherds that were used as writing surfaces for painted texts in Greco-Roman Egypt, called ostraka. Two groups of ostraka found in two modern excavations, Dime es-Seba/Soknopaiou Nesos (Fayyum), and Amheida/Trimithis (Dakhla Oasis) are the main subjects of the investigation. The two archaeological sites are under excavation by, respectively, the Centro di Studi Papirologici dell’Università del Salento-Lecce (2003-2012), and New York University-ISAW (2004-2013).Both settlements are located in the Western Desert of Egypt, in areas far from the Nile Valley and the main centers of power. The ostraka, which are re-used broken fragments of ceramic vessels with texts in Greek and Demotic, have been in the past seldom considered as archaeological objects because of the predominant importance of their texts. The material part of the ostraka being made from pottery vessels generally unrefined and of poor quality, have deterred most scholars from studying them accurately. Moreover, ceramological studies in Egypt and the interest towards the economy of the pottery manufacture and re-use are very recent. Finally, it is commonly believed that scribes collected the ceramic fragments to be used as ostraka randomly from open-air dumps. This research proved that this concept has to be considered as a wrong assumption, at least for the two groups of ostraka examined. On the contrary, it is very clear that the ancient scribes made a proper selection of the sherds they needed for specific purposes and that in some cases they reworked the sherds. It seems clear that nothing was left to the chance: the content of the texts and their use is strictly related to the kind of potsherds used to hold it. Additionally, the study of the ceramic types used in both settlements, analyzed as signifiers of the cultural environments for which they were produced, has shed light to the complex society of Egypt between the third century BCE and the fourth century CE.

The Kellis 2 cemetery site within the Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt provides a unique study opportunity due to the large number of infant, perinatal, and fetal individuals that have been recovered. Several of the infant and fetal remains have undiagnosed circular defects on the temporal bone, and others have undiagnosed lesions on the zygomatic bone. Of the 268 individuals under one year of age that have been analyzed from the Kellis 2 cemetery, twentysix individuals have the temporal bone defect and six have the zygomatic bone lesions. A survey of clinical and paleopathological research provided possible pathological conditions that could cause abnormalities such as defects or lesions on the temporal bones or zygomatic bones in the fetal and infant population. For this study, the temporal bone defects and zygomatic bone lesions were macroscopically observed and a descriptive analysis was created. The information garnered from the literature survey was then compared to the individuals from the Kellis 2 cemetery that had the temporal bone defects and zygomatic bone lesions to create a differential diagnosis. A differential diagnosis of the temporal bone defects includes mastoid emissary vein defects and petrosquamous sinus anomalies. A differential diagnosis of the zygomatic bone lesions includes scurvy. Contributing factors may also have been present in order for these defects and lesions to occur. Creating a differential diagnosis of the defects and lesions can provide information on the health, growth, and morbidity of the youngest members of the society related to the Kellis 2 cemetery.

This thesis focuses on the use of geographic information systems (GIS) to examine mortuary practices in the Romano-Byzantine period Kellis 2 cemetery located in the Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt. The first research objective examines the relationship between age, sex and grave substructures of 701 burials in Kellis 2 cemetery. The aim of this research objective was to determine if the presence and style of grave substructures were influenced by sex or age. Although not statistically significant, GIS analysis revealed that most of the graves in the Kellis 2 cemetery have no associated substructures, but of those that did have associated substructures, adult male burials were more likely to have a substructure than adult females or juveniles. Moreover, males and females aged from 22 to 50 years were more likely to have an associated substructure than younger and older individuals. In the juvenile age categories, newborns and children aged 1 to 5 years were more likely to have an associated substructure than the other juvenile age categories. This may be related to the second research objective which focused on the spatial relationship between infant and adult burials in the Kellis 2 cemetery. The second objective was to determine if infants were more likely to be buried between two adults, perhaps representing family units. GIS and statistical analysis revealed that the infants in the Kellis 2 cemetery were more likely to be buried closer to each other or to adult females than to adult males. Of those 25 infants buried between two adults most of them were either buried between two adult females, or between an adult male and female. Only three infants were found buried between two males. Interestingly, many of the adult females buried in close proximity with an iv infant were of child-bearing age. GIS was a very useful tool for examining questions of mortuary practices, particularly in examining spatial relationships between variables recorded for the Kellis 2 cemetery.

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a degenerative pathological condition of the appendicular joints which affects the cartilage and underlying bone. OA is relatively common in both the archaeological and clinical context, and a significant amount of research has been conducted on this osteological condition. The purpose of this thesis is to assess the incidence, demographic prevalence, and general severity of hip and knee OA in a Roman-Christian period (50 A.D – 450 A.D) population sample from the Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt. The bioarchaeological sample originates from the Kellis 2 cemetery which is associated with the ancient town of Kellis. The town of Kellis is believed to have been a prosperous economic hub in Egypt, located in the Western Sahara Desert approximately 250 kilometers west of the Nile. The skeletal samples (n=135, 83 females and 51 males) was visually assessed for the osteological characteristics of OA in the hips and the knees. Joint surfaces of the hip include the acetabulum and femoral head. Joint surfaces of the knee include lateral/medial tibio-femoral compartments and the patellofemoral compartment. The ages of the individuals assessed in this study range from 19-72 years, and have been divided into five age categories which were then cross-tabulated with sex and OA incidence in order to determine demographic prevalence of OA. Findings indicate that age is a significant etiological factor of OA prevalence for both males and females. Males are afflicted by the disease significantly more than females in the hips (F: [L] 3.6%, [R] 5.9% and M: [L] 13.7%,[R] 13.7%) and also slightly more affected in the knees(F: [L] 17.5%,[R] 18.3% and M: [L] 22.9%,[R]21.3%). The acetabulum tends to be more arthritic than the femoral head for both males and females. Femoral condyles tend to be more arthritic than tibial condyles for both males and females. The patello-femoral compartment tends iv to be the most arthritic part of the knee while the medial condyles of both tibiae exhibit virtually no OA (with the exception of one individual). The joint surface observed with the highest OA prevalence is the femoral surface of the patella (F: [L] 17.5%,[R] 15.9% and M: [L] 21.3%,[R] 21.3%). The highest prevalence of OA by joint complex is observed on the left knee in males (22.9%), and the lowest prevalence of OA is observed on the left hip of females (3.6%). Both hip and knee joints have higher prevalence of unilateral OA manifestation than bilateral. Isotopic and archaeological evidence indicates that the individuals at Kellis maintained an agricultural subsistence regime, and that the males within the population may have been highly mobile migrating to and from the Dakhleh Oasis. Subsistence agriculture has its necessary physical demands which may have been a contributory factor to OA rates. Males show higher OA rates than females throughout the joints of the legs. Sexual dimorphism of OA for the hips is suggestive of sexual divisions of labor. OA of the knees lacks sexual dimorphism therefore the knee joint complex of males and females were likely subjected to similar levels of mechanical loading. It can be concluded based on the OA data that males and females exhibit similar activity, or biomechanical stress levels in the knee joint complexes. Males exhibit significantly higher pathological manifestation of OA in the hip joint complexes, indicative of higher levels of mechanical loading in the hip joint complex which can theoretically be attributed to sexual divisions of labor or perhaps terrestrial mobility