Buildings M50.14–16: Excavations and findings
As published in 1922, the complex includes a domestic house (M50.16), a secondary building to the east (M50.15), and the probable surrounding courtyard (M50.14). The re-excavation was prompted by the discovery of vitrified mud-brick debris on the surface of M50.14, indicating high-temperature industries. Woolley had originally described the area as a workshop for the manufacture of glass and faience objects:
“At point X: remains of a glaze kiln: pit cut in sand 1.00m diam. by 0.50m deep, full of burnt brick, glass and glaze slag, and fragments of the pots used in the kiln for standing the vessels on: the bottoms and sides of these are covered with tricklings of glaze.” (Peet and Woolley 1923: 19).
The area around this feature marked the easternmost extent of Woolley’s excavation, while the westernmost edge extended to the western boundary wall of the main house (M50.16) and some adjacent walls, which were not depicted on the original plan and had not been excavated previously.
In 2011, the area of M50.14–16 was surveyed using magnetometry as part of the Amarna Geophysics Field School (see Horizon 9, 2–4). The survey revealed pronounced magnetic anomalies along the southern perimeter of the house, correlating with the location of vitrified material observed on the surface and with the household oven mentioned in Woolley’s report.
Excavation seasons: 2014 and 2017
The 2014 excavation season, funded by the G.A. Wainwright Fund, the Corning Museum of Glass (Rakow Grant), the Association for the History of Glass, and the Thames Valley Ancient Egypt Society, focused on M50.14. The second season of fieldwork took place in October 2017, funded by an EES Fieldwork and Research Grant, and concentrated on the eastern courtyard of M50.14, house M50.15, and the northern parts of M50.16.
While the 2014 work centred on the area of M50.14, much of house M50.16 was also excavated in order to clarify the spatial and functional relationship between the courtyard and the domestic complex. A series of pit features were excavated in the area south of M50.16, along with deposits of fired material, including vitrified mud brick and sandstone, and heat-affected ceramics, indicating the presence of high-temperature industries.
Additional oven pits and/or fireplaces were found in the south-eastern part of the courtyard. The northern boundary of both M50.16 and M50.15 was excavated up to a large spoil heap, which currently prevents further excavation in this area. It is assumed that the building complex extended further north.
House M50.15 was found to have been built upon a disused refuse pit from an earlier Amarna period when the city had not yet expanded southward. A deposit of charcoal and burnt material in the north-west part of the house yielded a stamped clay seal for a papyrus roll. The area to the east contained an oven pit with a piece of agate at its base, and a nearly intact blue-painted water jar was found sunk into the south-eastern corner of a narrow partition wall in the courtyard. Portions of the southern enclosure wall of the complex were also traced, allowing for corrections to the 1922 plan.
Post-excavation analysis and final publication
Post-excavation analysis took place between 2018 and 2023, supported by the EES and the German Research Foundation (DFG). A DFG-funded project entitled “Working in the Suburbs: the study of archaeological and material remains at domestic workshop site M50.14-16 at Amarna” (2020–2025; DFG project number 441869182), led by Anna K. Hodgkinson and based at Freie Universität Berlin, culminated in the final analysis and publication of site M50.14–16.
Production and industrial activities
Both excavation seasons yielded a large number of raw glass items, glass crucibles, beads, faience jewellery, moulds for faience objects, and crucibles used in metalworking. These findings suggest a vibrant domestic industry focused on the manufacture of jewellery and other small items.
Archaeological evidence points to a workshop for the production of beads in the courtyard, specializing in glass and faience beads and amulets, as well as beads carved from agate. The workshop may have also decorated some glass vessels. The data is being analysed to determine the role of the buildings within the industrially active area of Amarna’s Main City South, which includes the House of Ranefer and the Grid 12 excavations. These buildings operated on a domestic level, but the discovery of glass ingots suggests that their occupants had access to high-status materials, such as cobalt colourant, imported from the western desert.
While glass was a popular and desirable commodity throughout the New Kingdom, peaking during the reigns of Amenhotep III and Akhenaten, it largely disappears from the archaeological record after the Ramesside Period.
The use of cobalt across Amarna: on-site chemical analysis of glass objects by portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF)
Chemical analysis of glass objects from site M50.14–16, as well as from other sites at Amarna that yielded glass-working materials, was conducted in the spring of 2018. A pXRF device was brought to the site, enabling fast, efficient and non-destructive on-site analysis of approximately 600 objects. The primary aim was to determine whether the cobalt ore used to color the dark blue glass objects at these sites originated from a single geological source (in the western desert, near the oases of Dakhla and Kharga) or from multiple sources.
Despite the limitations with regard to detection limits, the results revealed that the cobalt ore used in the production of these glass objects did indeed come from the same general source in the western desert, with little variation in its chemical fingerprint across the individual workshops. This study was preceded by a pilot analysis of materials excavated at Amarna and housed in the collection of the Egyptian Museum in Berlin.
Anna Hodgkinson
Further reading
Excavation reports
The archaeology of Site M50.14–16
Hodgkinson, A.K. 2025. Working in the Suburbs: The Archaeological Remains from Amarna Site M50.14-16. London: The Egypt Exploration Society. Click here for further information on the publication and additional materials.
Barnard, H., J. Herrmann and S. Sullivan. 2011. A Field School in archaeological geophysics’. Horizon 9, 2–4.
Hodgkinson, A.K. 2015. Archaeological excavations of a bead workshop in the Main City at Tell el-Amarna. Journal of Glass Studies 57, 279–284.
Hodgkinson, A.K. 2015. The excavation of glass- and glazing workshop at Tell el-Amarna site M50.14-16, Egypt (Amarna Period, c. 1347-1332 BC). Glass News 37, 5–7.
Hodgkinson, A.K. 2015. Excavation of a bead workshop. Horizon 16, 8–9.
Hodgkinson, A.K. 2016. Excavation of a bead workshop M50.14-16, in: Kemp, B.J. Tell el-Amarna, 2014-15. Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 101, 1–5.
Hodgkinson, A.K. 2019. Preliminary Report on the work undertaken in the Main City South at Tell el-Amarna 7 October – 2 November 2017. Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 105:1.
Hodgkinson, A.K. and Bertram, M. 2020. Working with fire: making glass beads at Amarna using methods from metallurgical scenes. In: F.W. Rademakers, G. Verly, F. Téreygeol, J. Auenmüller (eds.). Contributions of Experimental Archaeology to Excavation and Material Studies; Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 33.
Peet, T.E., and C.L. Woolley. 1923. The City of Akhenaten. Part I: Excavations of 1921 and 1922 at El-Amarna. Excavation Memoir 38. London: The Egypt Exploration Society.
Chemical analysis of glass and faience from M50.14-16
Hodgkinson, A.K. 2016. Amarna glass: From Egypt through the ancient world. Egyptian Archaeology 48, 23–27.
Hodgkinson, A.K., Röhrs, S., Müller, I. and Reiche, I., 2019. The use of cobalt in 18th Dynasty blue glass from Amarna: The results from an on-site analysis using portable XRF technology. STAR: Science & Technology of Archaeological Research.
Hodgkinson, A.K., and D.A. Frick. 2020. Identification of co-coloured Egyptian glass objects by LA-ICP-MS: A case study from the 18th Dynasty workshops at Amarna, Egypt. Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry 20, no. 1: 45–57.
Hodgkinson, A.K., Q. Lemasson, M. Mäder, F. Munnik, L. Pichon, S. Röhrs and I. Reiche. 2024. A comparative compositional study of Egyptian Glass from Amarna with regard to cobalt sources and other colourants. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 54: 104412.