House of Ranefer 2004
Barry Kemp
The investigation of the house of Ranefer, under the supervision of John MacGinnis, was concluded. The house was chosen for study because, when first excavated in 1921, it was noted that it had been built over the remains of a smaller house, and that archaeological deposits lay trapped between the two floor levels. We have called the two periods of building Phase I and Phase II. Last year the floor of the Phae II house was taken up over part of the Phase I house; this year the task was completed over almost the entire surface of the latter. In general, the walls of the earlier house were preserved up to two or three courses of brickwork, and the brick floors and several fo the limestone door thresholds remained in good condition. As a result it has been possible to obtain an almost complete plan of the earlier house and to see how it was enlarged to approximately twice its original size.
The house of Ranefer: the outer transverse hall. The entrance to the first house, its limestone threshold still in place, has been preserved by rubble thrown in to raise the level of the floor of the later house. Facing east.
The limestone threshold of the entrance to the phase 1 house.
The Phase I house was relatively modest in size, and was one of those where the central living room had low brick benches running along the base of two of the walls. It probably had a single column to support the roof. When it was demolished some of the rubble must have been heaped in the side and rear rooms, leaving the builders to work in the central and front rooms, where they churned up the floor with the use of much water, perhaps in the course of mixing mortar. As was the custom of the day, larger house stood on low platforms, and in order to increase the floor height of the second house, the heaped rubble was eventually spread in an even layer across the area to be occupied by the later house. Over this the brick floor of the second d house was laid. Contained within the rubble were many pieces from the ceiling of the earlier house. This had been plastered with mud on the underside and where it was crossed by wooden beams, there were also encased in mud plaster. The whole was then painted white, the beam casings being picked out in brownish-orange. The paint had been hastily applied. A few pieces were also found from painted mud-plaster surfaces where several colours had been applied. Where design elements were visible, they seemed to represent floral patterns. Based on the parallel of other houses studied in the past, these fragments are likely to have come from a narrow band of design at the top of the walls. In many places the original mud-plaster surface of the walls of the earlier house survived in good condition, and showed no trace of colour, even of white. The only exception was the mud-plastered sides of the front door, where white had been applied. This would have been beside the inserted doorjambs, which were probably of wood and painted red, the judge from red staining on the limestone threshold where they would have stood. A few small fragments of painted mud-plaster were also found in one of the small rear rooms of the earlier house. These bear hieroglyphs and traces probably form figures, and perhaps derive from a painted panel depicting the owner and his family. The principle group shows part of the head of a male figure behind which is the name Tutu, though no title is preserved.
Group of fragments of painted mud plaster, one with the name Tutu behind the head of a male figure. From unit (10395). Object 34588.
Amongst the small finds from the rubble layer were many small pieces of thin gypsum plaster containing a layer of linen cloth, and thus belonging to the category of ‘gesso’. The fragments bear hieroglyphs in paint, in some cases also incised into the gypsum surface. Many seem to belong to cartouches. It is possible that the empty spaces between the cartouches were originally covered with gold leaf. On the backs of some of the pieces are traces of wood. The provisional interpretation is that they derive from a wooden object which had been coated with gesso and decorated with the cartouches of the Aten and of the king and queen. It is not possible to tell from what kind of object they came.
Group of gesso fragments preserving parts of cartouches, probably from a wooden item. From unit (10355). Object 34152.
In 2002 many pieces of a limestone door fragment from Ranefer’s house were recovered from an old excavation dump of the EES near the expedition house, where they had been buried after their discovery in 1921. Most were published in the volume City of Akhenaten I, 8, fig. 1. This year a few additional fragments were found. One of them (no. 34147, fig. 2) contains part of the name of the ruler whose prenomen was Ankh-kheperura, whom many see as Akhenaten’s short-lived successor Smenkhkara. This means that the Phase II house on the Ranefer site was built at the very end of the Amarna Peirod. Marc Gabolde has commented that fragment 34147.60 indisputably belongs to the (female) successor of Akhenaten, Ankh(et)kheperu(re). As it is followed by the element ‘Mery(t)’, this means that there were ‘Neferkheperue’ or ‘Waenre’ underneath, and on the basis of the other fragments we have the likely full reading Ankh(et)kheperure beloved of Neferkheperure, a name already attesated, for example, in paintings from the North Riverside Palace.
At the end of the work several loads of sand were brought in from the adjacent desert and used to bury the walls and floors of the Phase I house in order to protect them.
