3 - 9 January 2002
Issue No.567
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 3 - 9 January 2002 Issue No.567 |
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The treasures of Umm Al-Rakham
A chapel dedicated to Ramses II, who ruled over Egypt for more than 60 years during the 19th dynasty, has been discovered in Marsa Matrouh governorate. Nevine EL-Aref reports
Twenty five kilometres west of Marsa Matrouh, in Zawiyet Umm Al-Rakham, a limestone chapel belonging to the famous Pharaoh Ramses II has been recently discovered by a British-Egyptian excavation team. The area was an important part of the eastern Mediterranean trading network in the late Bronze Age.
"The funerary chapel is comprised of three rooms made of unfired brick and a door frame of hard limestone," according to Gaballa Ali Gaballa, general secretary of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA). He explained that the shrine had hieroglyphic inscriptions bearing the name of Ramses II and was also used as a place for sacrifices to the lion-headed war goddess Sekhmet and her consort Ptah.
The team also found a limestone model of a fortress from the reign of Ramses II. It was in the shape of a Naohs, a religious structure that houses Sekhmet and Ptah.
Mohamed Abdel-Maqsoud, head of antiquities inspectorates in lower Egypt, told the Weekly that there was also a military garrison and a complete kitchen at the southern side of the chapel. The kitchen was used to prepare food for the chapel's priests and was kept separate from the much larger one that fed the garrison. A number of grain grinders, ovens and items of pottery have also been unearthed. In addition, a 6.5-metre-deep rock-hewn water well, originally used to provide the military garrison with water, was found next to the kitchen.
Adel El-Saeed, general director of Marsa Matrouh antiquities, told Al-Ahram weekly that a major limestone wall, some 70 metres high and 250 metres long, has also been excavated. The wall includes the remains of four military towers.
Saeed said that the excavation work was carried out in collaboration with a mission from the UK's Liverpool University, which has worked at the site for more than 20 years.
Umm Al-Rakham is much larger than had been previously thought, he added. Its large internal area adds to the impression that the area was a major settlement with major defensive structures, rather than a small and poorly defended outpost at the western end of Egypt's Mediterranean zone of control.
A number of other major archaeological discoveries have been made over the last year. The first was the fortress-town of Ramses II, which is considered to be among the most significant defence structures to be built by the Pharaohs of the 19th dynasty. Its mud brick silos, used for grain storage, were covered with a layer of gypsum containing a variety of imported pottery form Cyprus, Greece, Crete and Palestine. "This collection of imported pottery is one of the most important to be found in Egypt, and provides the best evidence yet that foreign trade was important in Egypt during the reign of Ramses II," said Gaballa.
Eight such storehouses have been found at the northern side of the temple dedicated to Ramses. Each has a separate entrance, clearly identifiable by a limestone doorway set into the mud-brick of the store house itself. Each doorway had a threshold, inscribed jambs and an inscribed lintel. Not all the doorways were complete, but there was enough evidence to give archaeologists a good idea of how they must have looked. The titles of Ramses II are inscribed as part of the text over the doorways.
The second discovery came last summer, when a life size statue of Neb-Re, a military commander in Ramses II's army, was unearthed. Neb-Re was in charge of protecting Egypt's western borders and controlling Bedouin attacks.
This statue has dispelled the myth that life- size statues were only sculpted for royalty in Ancient Egypt. It was earlier believed that statues were only commissioned to celebrate the glory of kings, queens and deities.
The 124cm-high limestone statue, which is now stored in Umm Al-Rakham storehouse, is very well preserved and was erected on a large stand. It features the commander wearing his military costume and holding a standard in his right hand.
Two inscribed limestone stela were also found among the collection. One of them shows Neb-Re offering the sacred Lotus flower to both goddess Sekhmet and to Hathor. The second features the commander with Sekhmet, holding a Lotus stick in one hand and the Ankh sign in the other hand. Other items of pottery were also unearthed, as was an unidentified limestone head wearing a dark head-dress and a courage necklace.
Culture Minister Farouk Hosni has allotted a special excavation and restoration fund for the site, due to its unusual importance.
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