In the years 1996-2010 the Archaeological Museum in Gdansk conducted excavations in the Fourth Nile Cataract region. Pottery samples from neighboring settlements and cemeteries were selected for laboratory tests to compare the vessels used in everyday life with those deposited in graves with the dead.
The primary aim of laboratory analysis carried out on these pottery fragments was to verify the hypothesis that the suite of ceramic vessels found in graves were made from different raw materials and based on a different technology to the pottery produced for use at settlements. Furthermore, the fact that the samples selected for analysis represented pottery from settlements and associated cemeteries, each set of settlement-and-cemetery sherds attributable to a different period, made it feasible to investigate the theory that there had been a discontinuity in pottery technology traditions as well as a discontinuity in raw material use from the Old Kush to the Meroitic period in the Fourth Nile Cataract region.
68 pottery sherds were subjected to various laboratory analyses. These included: estimation of physical ceramic properties, chemical analysis by WD-XRF, K-H analysis and MGR-analysis. These analyses were conducted as part of the project carried out at the FU Berlin, Excellence Cluster 264 TOPOI.

Life after life? Comparison of pottery from settlements and cemeteries in the Fourth Nile Cataract region, Sudan