KMT 7:3, Fall 1996 © KMT Communications
This Past Summer in Alexandria, the Polish-Egyptian Preservation and Archaeological Project, directed by Drs. W. Koltaji and G. Majcherek, focused on conserving the theatre-and-bath complex, as well as the cisterns. The team is hoping to restore enough of the area to open the southern part of the site to visitors.
The archaeological work of the season centered on excavating the remains of domestic architecture of early-Roman date. This year the team explored a Roman house situated in the central part of the site, which featured a central pseudo-peristyled courtyard with a set of rooms around it. A statue of Alexander the great was recovered from the structure, which was richly decorated with mosaic and marble pavements and probably was constructed in the First Century A.D. and occupied until the Third Century. Under the house-foundations evidence of an earlier Ptolemaic structure was discovered, possibly another house. In the course of excavating this site and surrounding areas, the Polish team located side-streets and evidence of shops.
In Marina al Alamein, another Polish mission, directed by Dr. A. Daszewski, concentrated on three sites within the necropolis of the marina. Two huge (twenty-four meters long) underground tombs were uncovered, one of which contained a large funerary-chamber with eighteen loculi along three sides and an offering table cut along the rear wall, under the lower row of loculi. The second sepulcher is more complicated, with a portico, as well as a funerary-chamber with four loculi and a horned altar placed in the middle of the space. Also at Marina al Alamein, Dr. Medeksza worked on preservation and reconstruction anastylosis of the residential house Number 9, excavated in 1985 by Egyptian archaeologists. The project hopes to continue its work on preserving the original Graeco-Roman city, a well as exploring more of its areas.
The Delta has been a hive of activity this past spring and summer. As usual Manfred Bietak has been at Tell el Dabaca, working on his excavations and a continuing program of study and conservation of the Minoan-style painted fragments found at the site in past seasons.
In Buto the Deutsches Archologisches Institut (DAI) excavation headed by Dina Faltings had a very exciting summer season, the first part of which concentrated on the early-Predynastic periods (c. 4500 B.C.), with the second half moving abruptly to the late-Ptolemaic. The work started initially in the Predynastic trench, which yielded many fine examples of domestic pottery, postholes and, possibly, a type of kiln-site. Unfortunately, due to the extreme depth of the trench below ground-water level - and the consequent decreased efficiency of the pumps - it suffered a rather spectacular collapse! Luckily no one was injured and the excavators already had reached virgin soil - or rather, beach-quality sand. After the great avalanche, the focus of the DAI work moved to a different area of the site, well above water level.
Excavations there proved the area to be late-Ptolemaic in date, yielding a fine watercourse constructed of reused amphorae, and an unusual example of a crude Ptolemaic mosaic floor, possibly part of a bath-complex. Two of the amphorae were inscribed, and two others showed evidence of having been used for wine or beer storage before reemployment as a sewer.
The Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) and the University of Tanta were also active at Buto this year, working in the temple-area. Most of their activity concentrated on the Graeco-Roman period strata, with some very fine Roman terra-cotta figurines and a domestic-site with a midden being discovered. Some further exploration of the so-called well first examined by V. Seton-Williams is also under way, with conservation work continuing on some of the statues and stelae still in situ in the temple.
At Mendes Donald Redford and his ATP team spent their summer season examining the temple-area. An interesting and unusual number of fish-offerings were discovered, placed (in jars) in and around the temple, and dedicated to Hat-Mehit, the fish-goddess of Mendes.
Further east, at Tell el Mokkdam, Rene Friedman and her U.C. Berkeley team had a very successful summer season. They finished excavations at the so-called "camel station," thus designated because of the constant presence of those beasts and their droppings in the area. In the course of this season's work, a bronze lion and three lion-amulets were recovered from the Saite levels - very appropriate, as in antiquity Mokkdam was known as Leontopolis, the City of the Lions. Friedman and her diggers found an unusual example of a foundation-deposit in a transitional Persian-Saite wall: an entire goat skeleton, lying on its side. During the latter-half of the season the U.C. Berkeley team drew, analyzed and catalogued the fruits of their labor. In late-June Carol Redmount (also U.C. Berkeley) and her team likewise worked at Mokkdam.
Also in the Delta, the SCA, working at Kafr Hassan Daoud, reported findings of Predynastic burials, some of which were intact. At the other end of the archaeological spectrum, the SCA has been excavating the Roman period at Ibshan.
In Cairo the Italian Institute, sponsored by the European Union, hosted a conference and exhibition on conservation and preservation. This gathering not only was useful in publicizing various hitherto little-known projects in Egypt, but provided a forum for discussion regarding priorities in conservation of Egyptian monuments and artifacts. The preservation of sites and structures of all periods is the most pressing issue of the moment, and the SCA, as well as foreign missions, are concentrating on projects focusing on this rather than on just the usual excavation.
In the Memphis area, the French have finished this year's work at the Pyramid of Pepi I at Sakkara and are pleased with the season+s results. At Abusir SCA excavators under the direction of Zahi Hawass have started Phase II of their program to ready the pyramids-site for visitors. Phase I's work revealed several decorated blocks from the Causeway of Sahure, and we can only hope that more of the same (and perhaps other objects, as well) will be found during the current clearances. Hawass and the SCA have also been excavating around the Pyramid of Queen Iput I in the Pepi II mortuary-complex at South Sakkara. Thus far a few New Kingdom stelae and several ushabti have been found, and Hawass believes that continued work in the area (planned for October) will reveal another pyramid of one of Pepi's many wives (or female dependent of some sort).
At the Giza Plateau, Hawass is about to undertake clearance work around the Pyramid of Menkaure, only a small portion of the southern side having previously been excavated (by George A. Reisner early this century). He expects to find boat-pits and a ramp. The SCA is also planning to restore the subsidiary pyramids accompanying Menkaure+s edifice, and hopes to make a photogrametric map of the area.
Clearance and restoration work around the Sphinx and the Valley Temple of Khafre also continues (see article pp. 18-19). Zahi Hawass is very concerned about the misinformation currently rampant on the Internet and elsewhere about the Sphinx and supposed -secret+ passageways under, in and around it, including a mysterious so-called -Hall of Records+ somewhere under its front paws. To date there are only three known passages connected with the Sphinx, two of which might have been made by treasure-hunters or others long after the sculpting of the gigantic rock-cut figure. In 1881 a short, dead-end shaft was found behind the head of the Sphinx, and this was re-examined by Hawass and Mark Lehner in 1979. They also located a passageway next to the tail (a very logical place!), which when explored was found to extend for roughly nine meters into the bedrock under the sculpture. Hawass reports that all it contained was a pair of old shoes. In 1926 an aperture was photographed on the north side of the Sphinx and it was subsequently blocked up. Hawass is planning to reopen this and see what lies beyond sometime later this year. Hawass emphasizes that, other than these three "passageways," no other tunnels, shafts or chambers have been found in or under the Sphinx, contrary to what is being claimed.
Both the DAI team lead by G&uu;nter Dreyer and the University of Pennsylvania expedition under the direction of Stephen Harvey had successful summer seasons at Abydos. The Germans, working on the Early Dynastic funerary-complexes found, among other things, a very beautiful example of a large ceremonial flint-knife. Harvey located many more painted-relief fragments during the Penn excavations of the Ahmose I sites.
The National Remote Sensing Authority has resumed work on the Luxor Temple, many of the columns of which have suffered considerable salt and water damage over recent years. Some of these will be dismantled, re- inforced and repositioned.
On the West Bank at Luxor Ted Brock continues his work on the Valley of the Kings sarcophagi of the Ramesside kings, and is currently focusing on those of Rameses I and Siptah. He has suggested to the SCA a preservation scheme for the Rameses I sarcophagus, to protect it from tourists. This summer Kent and Susan Weeks conducted a study-season in KV5, as well as shored up the tomb for future work; they are planning to resume excavations in the tomb in September, and will continue working in KV5 through June 1997 (inshallah). During the summer study-season some of the drawings were collated, walls consolidated and the animal bones which have been discovered were examined.
Also in the Valley of the Kings, Adam Lukaszewicz has carried out his first survey of the Greek graffiti in the Tomb of Rameses VI (KV9). During the Graeco-Roman period this tomb was thought to have belonged to Memnon, hence the numerous graffiti on the walls.
Otto Schaden returned to the Valley in July for a short summer-season excavating in the lower chambers of the Tomb of Amenmesse (KV10), and it is reported that he found an interesting fragment from a calcite sarcophagus, as well as a canopic-jar, which suggest that the tomb had once contained a burial.
Three different Polish missions have been working simultaneously at the Eighteenth Dynasty temple-sites at Deir el Bahari. In Hatshepsut's mortuary temple, recent restoration work has concentrated on the main court of the upper or third terrace, and on the Solar-complex located there. Two more colossal Osiride figures of Hatshepsut are being restored to the upper-portico facade, which will give a better idea of how the temple looked in its heyday. Some of the extant painted-relief decoration of the third-terrace court has been preserved, repositioned and photographed. One of the restored scenes shows the early Thutmosid kings being led by a pleaiad of gods, receiving heb-sed, neh and other signs signifying eternal rulership.
Restoration work proceeds slowly on the rest of the Hatshepsut temple, with walls and loose blocks being consolidated by conservators. The epigraphic mission led by Januz Karkowski worked this summer on preparing and checking drawings of the Hathor shrine for publication, which will be in two volumes. The Polish-Egyptian Mission at the Temple of Thutmose III, led by Jadwiga Lipinska, spent its winter-spring 1996 season on further restoration and documentation. The team continued reassembling the many painted-relief fragments from the temple and soon hopes to be able to recreate at least a section of one wall of the temple, which will be put on public view.
After a hiatus of four years, the Hierakonpolis Expedition, under the co-direction of Rene Friedman and Barbara Adams, resumed its activities this past spring in the vast Predynastic and Early Dynastic site. A first priority of the team was to prepare and re-establish their headquarters at Beit Hoffman, the expedition field-house. The most-pressing (and unexpected) work undertaken by the expedition was "rescue" excavations in a Predynastic cemetery on the eastern edge of the concession. This cemetery (HK43) is an extension of the one that contained famous painted Tomb 100 (see article p. 46 this issue). A local land-reclamation project has cut the cemetery in half with a canal, and threatens to destroy an area containing possibly as many as 2,000 lower- and middle-status burials of Predynastic date (Nagada I-II). Only a small portion of the site could be explored this past season, but men women and children were found interred in mud-lined pits cut into the desert sand. Most of these burials contained only a single pot; but a more-elite area - now badly plundered - was found to contain a number of imported vessels from Maadi and other Delta sites, emphasizing the cosmopolitan nature of Hierakonpolis (ancient Nekhen) as a Predynastic capital.
Excavations in area HK64 were resumed by the expedition, as well. Here late-Old Kingdom superimposed campsites with Nubian pottery were found, together with several rock-paintings. HK64 is notable for being one of the few sites north of the First Cataract with a concentration of petrographs. Further work by the expedition consisted of the study and photographing of objects from the elite-status cemetery at HK6. These photos will be included in the publication currently being prepared by Adams. This past season the German mission (DAI) working at Elephantine under the direction of Cornelius von Pilgrim concentrated on the restoration and conservation of their site, and undertook some excavation, as well.