Bitumen from the Dead Sea in Early Iron Age Nubia

Abstract

Bitumen has been identified for the first time in Egyptian occupied Nubia, from within the town of Amara West, occupied from around 1300 to 1050 BC. The bitumen can be sourced to the Dead Sea using biomarkers, evidencing a trade in this material from the eastern Mediterranean to Nubia in the New Kingdom or its immediate aftermath. Two different end uses for bitumen were determined at the site. Ground bitumen was identified in several paint palettes, and in one case can be shown to have been mixed with plant gum, which indicates the use of bitumen as a ground pigment. Bitumen was also identified as a component of a friable black solid excavated from a tomb, and a black substance applied to the surface of a painted and plastered coffin fragment. Both contained plant resin, indicating that this substance was probably applied as a ritual funerary liquid, a practice identified from this time period in Egypt. The use of this ritual, at a far remove from the royal Egyptian burial sites at Thebes, indicates the importance of this ritual as a component of the funeral, and the value attributed to the material components of the black liquid. Black materials were excavated from different contexts in the pharaonic town of Amara West in Upper Nubia, dating from around 1300 to 1050 BC (19th-20th dynasties), and its cemeteries (1250-800 BC). The materials were of three types: black paints on ceramic sherds used as palettes; a black coating on a coffin plaster fragment; and a black friable material excavated from a tomb. Considering a group of contextually different black materials from a single site together offers an opportunity to understand the cultural and practical preferences for the choice of materials used to make black substances, and in which contexts they might be applied. Molecular analysis using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) was used to identify the components of the different materials using three separate methods. Identifying the components allows the ingredients of the black substances to be connected to their end uses both in practical and symbolic terms. Amara West. Amara West lies between the Second and Third Nile Cataracts, in the heart of Nubia, a region that stretched from Aswan in southern Egypt southwards to the Sixth Nile Cataract 1 (Fig. 1). This region was intermittently occupied by pharaonic Egypt in the third and second millennium BC; during the New Kingdom (c. 1548-1086 BC), pharaonic towns were founded to control and administer resource extraction 2. First excavated by the Egypt Exploration Society between 1939 and 1950 3 , fieldwork was then undertaken at Amara West by the British Museum from 2008 to 2019 4-6. The town, founded around 1300BC (on the basis of inscriptional evidence), comprised a sandstone temple, a governor's residence, storage facilities, and housing, set within a 108 m square enclosure wall 2 (Fig. 1). From the late 19th Dynasty residents of the town began to build larger and more spacious houses outside the town wall, an area designated by the excavators as the "w...

Comprehensive two‐dimensional gas chromatography‐high resolution mass spectrometry with complementary ionization methods in the study of 5000‐year‐old mummy

“…However, as that ratio in the studied samples was in the range 0.8–1.35, it was not possible to reliably consider the origin of the bitumen. Nevertheless, the pristane/phytane ratio of Dead Sea bitumen is ~0.2, 38 while that of Gebel Zeit bitumen is 1.3 27 . The latter value is much closer to our results, being exactly the same as that obtained for sample #3.…”

“…These were even numbered esters of palmitic acid with 2-30 carbon atoms in the alcohol chain. 38,48,49 Their nature as beeswax constituents was described in detail by Heron et al 48 The mass spectra of these compounds are unique (for details, see Figure S5, supporting information). The NIST17 library contains spectra of these esters only up to eicosanyl (C20).…”

“…Obtaining reliable proof of the presence of bitumen in the mummies involves the detection of triterpanes and steranes as biomarkers. 4,27,28,[31][32][33]38,39 They are the most persistent petroleum hydrocarbons that are not characteristic of other embalming products.…”

“…26,28,40 The sensitivity of the instrument used in the present study allowed full mass spectra to be recorded and selecting steranes and triterpanes in mass chromatography mode even when they were present at trace levels. The mass chromatograms were reconstructed using the m/z 217.1587 (steranes) and m/z 191.1794 (triterpanes) ions, providing maximal detection reliability 41 Comparing the profiles with those of the available sources of bitumen in the ancient Egypt 26,27,38 allows it to be concluded that they are much closer to Gebel Zei bitumen, than to the other sources available at that time-in the Dead Sea or Abu Durba. That issue once again supports the hypothesis of the Gebel Zeit bitumen being used in the studied mummy embalming procedure.…”

Molecular analysis of black coatings and anointing fluids from ancient Egyptian coffins, mummy cases, and funerary objects

“…Previous research on similar materials has been limited and varied in terms of analytical techniques, covering multiple time periods and considering ritual applications alongside mummification balms ( 15 , 16 ) or considering a small subset of samples ( 5 , 17 – 19 ). * By focusing on burial goods of the 22nd Dynasty, this research is a more targeted examination of funerary ritual residues than has been previously undertaken.…”