Issue No. 594
Heritage
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11 - 17 July 2002 Issue No. 594 Heritage |
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Late Period town comes to light
An archaeological team led by Gregory Mumford from Toronto University has been reconstructing life in an Ancient Egyptian town in the north-eastern Delta, reports Jill Kamil.
The Canadians finished off the 2001/02 season by uncovering evidence that the site at Tebilla, just north of Mendes, was once an active trading centre with connections throughout the Delta and with Upper Egypt and abroad. It appears to have suffered massive destruction in the fourth century BC.
Making the first scientific study of the site -- which was partly excavated back in 1908 -- has presented something of a challenge. Here on the wind-swept flats there was once a flourishing town which covered an area of some 1,100 by 800 metres. Yet all that remains is a 400-metre-square area on which a water filtration plant is under construction. Indeed, while excavations were in progress trenches were being simultaneously dug by the municipality for the placement of water pipes.
This is just one example of the difficulties faced by archaeologists in the Delta, where excavation and conservation run parallel with urban development. Some indication of the complexity of the task can be gauged if it is considered that mastabas -- with burials one on top of another up to ground level -- were found at Tebilla, together with five sarcophagi for élite burials, while work on the water plant was in progress. Fortunately the archaeologists were allowed to dig in the trenches before the pipes were laid. All they found here, however, was part of an anthropoid sarcophagus.
The aim of the mission is to find out how the town functioned in its place in the 16th Lower Egyptian nome; what role it played in ancient history; and why it was destroyed.
Pottery and miscellaneous fragments show the site was occupied in various periods of Pharaonic history up to Ptolemaic times. There is evidence that the so-called Mendesian branch of the Nile bypassed Mendes and then flowed to Tebilla, where the coastline lay in the 21st dynasty, about 1070 BC. It appears that as this branch of the Nile gradually silted up other branches were formed, thus enabling a strategically-important trading centre to develop. The discovery of an anchor suggests a nearby harbour.
The 357 blocks excavated in the area indicate that the main temple, which was probably located where the water plant stands today, was a large one. Among the finds were column bases, a small capital of a column, and some granite blocks which, in the words of Mumford, "might have been from a gateway in the enclosure wall".
"In 1908 evidence came to light that it was dedicated to Osiris," he added.
There is evidence that there may have been a massive conflagration in the town when the Persian king Ataxerxes III swept into Egypt with his army, destroying everything in its path.
Research will continue after the summer.
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