Amarna Project

27/12/2025

Season’s Greetings from the Amarna Project, and thank you to everyone who has supported us during 2025. We have just completed a successful six-week season of fieldwork, with excavations and reconstruction at the Great Aten Temple and among Amarna’s ancient houses; a varied program of post-excavation study; glass-production experiments; and a program of community engagement that culminated in an Open Day attended by over 200 children and families. Thank you to the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, and funding bodies that include the The American Research Center in Egypt - ARCE, the Corning Museum of Glass, the Institute for Bioarchaeology, the Archaeological Institute of America, the Amarna Verein and the Amarna Research Foundation. Thanks also to our team of researchers, excavators and support staff.

If you would like to play a part in supporting research and heritage protection at Amarna in 2026 and beyond, please visit our Future Fund campaign – where there is still the chance to double the impact of your gift through our matched-funding scheme: https://www.amarnatrust.com/supporting-the-trust/a-future-fund-for-amarna/

23/12/2025

08/11/2025

Just published: our preliminary report on fieldwork at Amarna from autumn 2024 to spring 2025, online and open-access in the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology

Fieldwork at Amarna from autumn 2024 to spring 2025 involved excavation and survey in Amarna’s housing areas, including the house of the vizier Nakht, and the c...

18/09/2025

In the latest issue of the American Journal of Archaeology, Gretchen Dabbs and Anna Stevens review the long-standing question of whether Akhetaten was affected by an epidemic, centring the bio/archaeological evidence from Amarna’s cemeteries. The paper is available open-access through the link below:

The October 2025 issue of the AJA is now available online at https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/aja! In this issue, readers will find:
-an analysis of mortuary practices and other evidence from Aššur indicating that increases in urban density during the Neo-Assyrian period were a result of intentional resettlement programs;
-a reassessment of the Hellenization model of Sagalassos, comparing the architectural cross-dating and recent stratigraphic datasets from the site’s Late Achaemenid and Early and Middle Hellenistic periods;
-an exploration of the significance of censers with Egyptian forms or featuring Egyptian-looking motifs found in the houses of Pompeii and Herculaneum;
-and a study of Early Byzantine marble finds from the southwestern Levant suggesting factors beyond simple transport costs influenced the distribution of marble objects.
Open access content includes:
-an examination of cemetery and settlement data from Amarna assessing whether there is evidence of epidemic disease at ancient Akhetaten,
-a review of the First Kings of Europe exhibition;
-and necrologies for Colin Renfrew and T. Leslie Shear, Jr.

On the cover: View across the excavations at the South Tombs Cemetery of Amarna (Akhetaten), Egypt (courtesy Gwil Owen and the Amarna Project).

02/09/2025

New publication: M. Langley, A. Stevens and C. Stimpson. 2025. First Identification of Bone Whistle-Use in Dynastic Egypt. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology.

Despite over 200 years of intensive academic interest in Pharaonic Egypt, little focus has been given to understanding the production, use, and diversity of the osseous material culture created by th...

09/07/2025

We are very pleased to announce that the Amarna Project website has recently been relaunched. Keep an eye on the site for updates on our research, outputs and the variety of resources we offer on Amarna, its history and archaeology!

Promoting research at the ancient city of Tell el-Amarna, Egypt, and its conservation and protection. Explore the ancient city of Amarna.

26/05/2025

New publication! Many congratulations to Dr Anna Hodgkinson on the publication of her new monograph ‘Working in the Suburbs: The Archaeological Remains from Amarna Site M50.14–16’ – just out though the Egypt Exploration Society. The volume presents the excavation, architecture, and evidence for craft activity at a workshop in Amarna’s Main City – and situates the complex against the backdrop of urban industry at Akhetaten. Follow the link for more:

Anna Hodgkinson confirms this site’s role as a workshop and reconstructs the inhabitants’ daily lives in the city.

20/02/2025

Just announced: A fantastic job opportunity for an archaeologist/materials scientist interested in the industrial landscape of ancient Amarna – 'The AHRC/DFG funded project “Craft Interactions in a New Kingdom industrial landscape (Egypt, 1550–1069 BCE)”, which is led by Dr. Frederik Rademakers (British Museum) and Dr. Anna Hodgkinson (Freie Universität Berlin), is seeking to employ a post-doctoral research fellow for a period of 2,5 years, starting in June 2025. This project examines cross-craft interactions at the Egyptian site of Amarna in Middle Egypt, focussing on metals and vitreous materials, by means of materials analysis, excavation and experimentation. We are searching for a candidate with a strong background in Egyptian archaeology and a focus on material science.' https://www.fu-berlin.de/universitaet/beruf-karriere/jobs/english/GK-PostDoc_2025_Craft-Interactions_E.html

09/01/2025

The Amarna Project was among the invitees to a thought-provoking workshop on climate change and heritage adaptation organised by the Egypt Exploration Society in Cairo last year. Great to now see this new research portal on the EES’s webpage with a series of resources on this important and challenging topic:

Exploring challenges and solutions in North and East Africa.

25/09/2024

Now online: a preliminary report on the 2023 field season at the Great Aten Temple. To download, please visit: https://www.amarnaproject.com/pages/recent_projects/excavation/great_aten_temple/

08/09/2024

Coming up on September 17: Dr Stephanie Boonstra will be presenting her work on faience inlays from the Great Aten Temple at a free online lecture for the Egypt Exploration Society. Booking details at the link!

Stephanie Boonstra reports on her EES-affiliate project on the faience inlays at the Amarna Great Aten Temple, a project within the larger Amarna Project. Start time: 13:00 (UK) / 15:00 (Egypt)