Turah – Centre or Periphery?

Re-investigating graves of the Turah cemetery

To better understand the formation of the ancient Egyptian state at the end of the 4th millennium BC the 1910 excavated graves of the Turah cemetery in Cairo are being re-investigated in this project funded by the FWF.

The cemetery located in Maadi, a suburb south of modern Cairo, is one of the few examples where all discovered tombs were fully excavated and comprehensively published (H. Juncker 1912). Each tomb will be illustrated with its respective content in drawings, photographs and detailed descriptions. The objects will be analysed with modern scientific methods, such as petrography and neutron-activation-analysis for ceramic or lead-isotopic analysis for metal objects.

As a cooperation partner, the ACDH-CH will be involved in the planning, creation and hosting of an online database and accompanying vocabularies that will contain documentation of all objects worked on in this project. It is planned that this material will be openly accessible.