Objective "Indigenous and imported wood species were extensively used in Ancient Egypt for manufacturing objects of daily life and equipment for the afterlife, notably statuary and coffins. Despite the abundance and use throughout Pharaonic history, no global study has been carried out on this material. Indeed, in stark contrast to stone or metal objects whose material identification is always specified, research publications and museum displays most often accept a simple identification “wood”. When the type of wood used is specified, identification is rarely based on botanical analysis. As a result the entire history and archaeology of an art and medium are lost. With an innovative double methodology combining archaeometric and theoretical approaches, the TRACER project will analyze woodcraft as a societal ""tracer"" in Ancient Egypt during a key period of its history: the Middle Bronze Age (MBA). Analyze of woodcraft during this period which covers politically centralized (Middle Kingdom-MK) and decentralized period (Second Intermediate Period-SIP), will identify the impact of societal changes on wood crafts, closely linked with the political and religious development of the country. Two specific wood corpora will be investigated: 1) burial equipment from Upper and Middle Egypt, mainly coffins and statues; 2) settlement site finds from the largest town site with good preservation of organic material, Lahun, in Lower Egypt. Thus, the 2-years project TRACER will constitute the first move toward a previously unseen global project dedicated to wood in Ancient Egypt. The main objective of the TRACER project is to highlight how the specialized production in one material, carpentry, correlates with the other dimensions of its historical context (religious, political, cultural). The TRACER project will target woodworking as a test-case for assessing relations between social components in one archaeological well documented period of lower Nile Valley between 2050 and 1550 BC." Fields of science engineering and technologymaterials engineeringwoodworkingagricultural sciencesagriculture, forestry, and fisheriesforestry Programme(s) H2020-EU.1.3. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Main Programme H2020-EU.1.3.2. - Nurturing excellence by means of cross-border and cross-sector mobility Topic(s) MSCA-IF-2015-EF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF-EF) Call for proposal H2020-MSCA-IF-2015 See other projects for this call Funding Scheme MSCA-IF-EF-ST - Standard EF Coordinator UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON Net EU contribution € 195 454,80 Address Gower street WC1E 6BT London United Kingdom See on map Region London Inner London — West Camden and City of London Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Other funding € 0,00
