One of the biggest challenges facing the Society in 2013 remains the publication of research undertaken in years gone by. We have redoubled our efforts on this front in recent years: as the Director explained at the AGM, the number of memoirs produced in the last five years was double the number produced in the previous five. However, our fieldwork has, in the past, produced such an enormous amount of material (people often ask us if there is anything left to find in Egypt now; the answer has been an emphatic 'yes!') that there is still a backlog which has yet to be fully published.
We are delighted now to have the opportunity to bring, with your help, another long-awaited volume to publication:
The Old Kingdom Town at Buhen. By David O’Connor. EES Excavation Memoir 104
EES excavations underway at the Old Kingdom Town at Buhen
The impressive Middle and New Kingdom fortresses at Buhen in Lower Nubia are well-known, as are the remains of the associated town and temples of the New Kingdom. However much less is known of the importance of the Old Kingdom settlement which was excavated by the EES during two campaigns led by W. B. Emery. This was in fact the earliest Egyptian urban centre founded as part of the expansionist Egyptian policy which began in the Fourth Dynasty, if not earlier, and ended with the abandonment of the intensive work at the quarries of Toshka after the late Fifth Dynasty.The site was excavated by the EES as part of the UNESCO Nubian Rescue Campaign and is now entirely lost under the waters of Lake Nasser. This publication will make the fundamentally important record of this now vanished ancient town into the public domain for the first time.
We hope to be able to publish this volume during 2013-14. Donations of any size will be of great assistance in helping us to bring this about. All contributions will be warmly welcomed; anyone who donates over £50 will be thanked in the published volume and donors who give over £300 will also receive a complimentary copy.
To make a contribution please visit http://www.ees.ac.uk/support/index.html
If you would like to discuss making a donation, please contact the Society’s Director, Dr Chris Naunton: chris.naunton@ees.ac.uk or phone: +44 (0)207 242 2268.
Already published with your help
In 2011 we asked you to help provide the support we needed to produce three volumes: the fourth edition of Who Was Who in Egyptology, Geoffrey Martin's long awaited publication of the lavish decoration in the tomb of Tutankhamun’s Treasurer, Maya (The Tomb of Maya and Meryt I) at Saqqara, and a special 'Olympic volume' in the Oxyrhynchus Papryri series dealing with chariot racing and other sports.
Geoffrey Martin signs copies of The Tomb of Maya & Meryt I at the launch of the book in June 2012. The volume is devoted to the exquisite relief decoration in the tomb, and thanks to your generous contributions we were able to ensure that the wonderful photographs and line drawings produced during Professor Martin's excavations could be reproduced to the highest standard.
Thanks to your generosity the first two of these appeared in 2012 (the third will be with us in the coming months). They were produced to appropriately high standards but thanks to your contributions we were also able to increase the number of copies available and to keep the prices lower than would have been the case otherwise. We are determined to ensure that our books are as accessible as possible and making them affordable is an important part of that.