Sedment, background information

"At this site (Gebel Sedment), seventy miles south of Cairo, there lay a cemetery continuous for three or four miles, as far as Mayana, the burial ground of ancient Henen-nesut (later known as Herakleopolis) which stands about five miles away in the plain. The desert here forms a narrow neck between the Nile valley and the Fayum, only two and a half miles from one cultivation to the other."

Excavation:

• 1893 E. Naville
  
• 1904 C. Curelly, M. Loat for Flinders Petrie
  
• 17 December 1920 to 25 April 1921 by Flinders Petrie
  the excavation team: Major H.G.C. Hynes, Mr. Montgomerie Neilson, M. Henri Bach, Mr. Miller; Mr. and Mrs. Brunton
  
• 1992-1993 Ahmed Galal Abdel Fatah

Publication:

• Naville 1894: 11-14 (short summary of Naville's work at Sedment)
• Petrie 1904: 32-33 (very short report on the excavations in 1904)
• Petrie/Brunton 1924 (in two volumes)
  

Petrie and Brunton published most of the tombs in registers (Petrie/Brunton 1924: pl.XXXVI-XXXIX, LXVII). Only special finds are described in greater detail. Most of the coffins, masks and wooden models are only marked in the tomb register. For the pottery only the types, not the number found are given.

The pottery types given in Digital Egypt follow Petrie/Brunton 1924: pl. XXIX-XXXV.

Not all tombs are marked on the maps. There are many tombs on the published maps without any number.

Datings: The datings of single tombs follows mainly Seidlmayer 1990: 259, 395

Further reading:

• Seidlmayer 1990: 247-341 (dating of the tombs of the Old Kingdom and the First Intermediate Period by seriation of the pottery and other small finds, with an 'updated' tomb register using the tomb cards; the tomb register is in English)
• Reeves 1995 (publication of different fragments of a sarcophagus found at Sedment)
• Abdel Fatah/Bickel 2000 (report on three early Middle Kingdom coffins found 1992-1993)

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