House of Ranefer 1921
The house of Ranefer (N49.18) was excavated in the Egypt Exploration Society's first season at Amarna in 1921, under the direction of T.E. Peet, and published in T.E. Peet and C.L. Woolley, The City of Akhenaten I (London, Egypt Exploration Fund 1923), in more detail than was often the case with individual houses. The relevant pages from the excavation report can be downloaded from the link below (and for a preliminary report see also T.E. Peet, ‘Excavations at Tell el-Amarna: a preliminary report.’ Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 7 (1921), 169-185.)
The house was planned as part of an overall survey of the excavated neighbourhood by the architect, F.G. Newton. It is reasonably accurate but made and reproduced at rather a small scale. Parts of it have been incorporated into the new survey of the house, which is still only partially finished.
The archaeologist mainly responsible for supervising the excavation of the house was A.G.K. Hayter. His original field notebook is part of the archives of the Egypt Exploration Society. They contain several observations which did not find their way into the published report. T.E. Peet, in City of Akhenaten I, p. vii, footnote 1, paid tribute to Hayter’s notebook. ‘To few of us is it given to produce, in spite of wind, sand, heat and flies, note-books so neat that they can be referred to as easily as a printed volume.’ An account of Hayter’s life by T.E. Peet is in the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 14 (1928), 323-4. Pages from Hayter’s and Peet’s notebooks can be downloaded below.
Hayter noted material of interest as it was uncovered by his workmen. Mostly he groups his observations by room number. Unfortunately no published plan or manuscript source identifies which numbers were used for which rooms, except in the case of room 6 which he refers to as the ‘Central Hall’ on p. 104 of his notebook. We can also tell that his room 2 was the front hall on account of his notes on the painted plaster around the two niches which are known from photographs and statements in the published report to have been here.
The most interesting material in Hayter’s notes of this particular house are the annotated sketches of fragments of painted plaster, which are recorded only from this room (notebook pages 100, 102, 104, 114, 116). They probably derive from a painted frieze with birds and garlands on the upper part of the wall and perhaps from the ceiling. One of the pieces on p. 116 (the one at the bottom) seems to be the surface of a curved layer of plaster which had probably covered the surface of a rounded roofing beam. A further fragment showing a bird, beautifully delineated, was found in a patch of rubble examined during the cleaning of March 2002.
As the excavation proceeded, photographs were taken on half-plate glass negatives which have survived in reasonably good condition and still produce fine prints. A set of these, some not used in the original volume, are included here.
Downloads
Pdf facsimile of the original report, with Newton’s plan, published in T.E. Peet and C.L. Woolley, The City of Akhenaten I (London, Egypt Exploration Fund 1923)Pdf facsimile of pages from Hayter’s 1921 field notebook
A pdf facsimile of pages from Peet’s 1921 field notebook
Images from the 1921 excavations