Egyptology is a part of archaeology, to be clear and simple it’s the archaeology of the ancient Egypt. I join Egyptology with ancient Egyptian history because a convention names in this way the field of historical and archaeological research in relation with that civilization.

One of the most fundamental points in the whole science of archaeology, then of Egyptology, is the definition and the examination of the context.

The context is the environment which surrounds an archaeological site, regarding the archaeological site itself, and the archaeological site regarding any single find.

Example:

Excavating you find a Roman sword under the wall of a temple of the New Kingdom. To record that find you need to define two contexts: the site and the environment which surrounds the site. If the site is a temple, made by the material and with the architecture of a common temple of the New Kingdom, and if around that temple you see other ruins from the New Kingdom, even if you don’t find writings on the walls of the temple, you can make the initial hypothesis that it’s a temple of the New Kingdom and if under it or in its structure you detect the presence of fragment of older structures, with some writings or signs, you will be able to determine a minor date for the construction of the structure. If you find biological rests in the temple of offers to the deity you will have to date them using proper chemical and radioactive techs and you will know at least the period of usage of the temple as place of worshipping. If all these parameters say “New Kingdom” you have to accept that the structure is from the New Kingdom. Then if you find writings in other structures which make reference to that one, you will have a complete context to date your structure. Case of comparison: Nubian pyramids are late structures comparing them with the Egyptian pyramids. So the cultural transmission doesn’t mean a temporal connection. In Roman period it was possible that a temple had built following the architecture of the New Kingdom.

The general context says that it’s a site of the New Kingdom. What about the Roman sword? The particular context?

The fact that the Roman sword is under the wall of the temple can be a great trouble from an historical perspective. Did Romans invade Egypt during the New Kingdom? No, we know they didn’t.

The sword is “out of context”.

We don’t know how the sword arrived there, if a legionary buried it under the wall of that temple not to make it fall in the hands of an enemy, if an Egyptian got it from a Roman and decided to hide that booty … we don’t know and we cannot know. But we can take that sword off of that context.

yes, that sort of things happen in archaeology. when the later objects get into the older layer. it may happen deliberately (as you were giving an example of a roman soldier hiding his sword so the enemy wouldn`t get it) or not deliberetely, which in fact is very common! (when for instance the order of soil deposits and the objects in them are being messed by the agricultural/building or similar activities).

so yes, the context is VITALLY important in archaeology.

I can think also to animals who excavate. Probably it's not the most common case in Egypt, but in continental Europe, dogs, wolves, moles can "pollute" a lot a potential archeological site.

oh yes wolves and especially moles! don`t forget earth-worms:) these little creatures have a significant ability to move things on their way:)

Eh, eh, worms can be really terrible.

So we do need to take into considerations all the possible factors which can have modified the original condition of the site. Activity of modern humans have also hidden a lot of archeological sites. In Rome for example everytime the municipality orders works of excavation under the city to make a new acqueduct, a sewerage, an underground line ... wroks are often stopped because they find something. I do guess that at El Cairo the situation is quite the same [the city has surrounded Giza!].

Context can also help in facing forgeries and hoaxes. Just remember the "man of Piltdown": it was a hoax made by parts of a human skull and the skull of a monkey, but for years scientists considered it the missing link between apes and humans in the evolution of the species. The totally absence of other finds of that kind in the enlarged context of that territory had to generate some suspects. Reality was that a member of the team of research made the hoax and found the finds by himself ...

i agree with all you say
in fact, the context is really important, because, it helps us to understand, what was going on , on the site which is explored.But do not forget that, some events can be strangers to the context and then be an obstacle to the comprehension and the quest of history which is going on on the site. it is why , my point of view , is that, it isn"t the context which helps to explain the sources, and the wonders founded in a search, but it is all the objects found which helps to construct, and understand the context.because, they can confirm or give an opposite idea, of the hypothetic theories mentionned

Ok, you're focusing your attention on the particular context, not on the general one.

A place full of objects out of contexts could be a museum, a depot or the treasure of a city who has sacked other cities ... for example.