| 2005-2006 Field Season ReportA Brief Report to the SSEAThe following report was presented at the Annual General Meeting of the SSEA on November 3, 2006.We remind you that the SSEA still holds the concession from the Supreme Council of Antiquities to work in the Dakhleh Oasis, even though most funding now comes from abroad. The 28th field season of the Dakhleh Oasis Project was conducted from mid November, 2005 to late March, 2006. The following is a very brief summary of activities. Professor C. S. Churcher and Prof. M. R. Kleindienst continued mapping locations of Pleistocene lakes and "Dakhleh Glass", using the differential global positioning system (DGPS), which records elevations as well as 2 dimensional mapping. This is part of their investigation of the hypothesis that the "Dakhleh Glass" was caused by a meteorite impact or some other catastrophic event that greatly affected the lives of the Middle Stone Age humans in the region. The team from Poland studied rock art ranging through Neolithic, Dynastic and recent times in an area called the "Painted Wadi". Prof. Tony Mills continued work at the Old Kingdom site of Ain el-Gazzareen, where he found a round tower at the comer of walls 3.3 metres thick, suggesting the presence of fortification. At the Romano-Byzantine town of Kellis, Dr. Colin Hope excavated in a building called "The Villa" and found painted plaster walls, ceramics and jar dockets dating from the first to third centuries C.E. In a nearby columbarium he collected 1,442 kg of potsherds, mostly of pigeon nesting jars, through which he estimated they were producing 500 pigeons per month. At Mut el-Kharab, Dr. Hope's excavations uncovered various artifacts dating from the Early Dynastic, Old Kingdom, New Kingdom and 27th Dynasty, confIrming the long history of Mut. Prof. Roger Bagnall continued work at the town of Amheida, ancient Trimithis. Artifacts from the Old Kingdom, Ramesside and Roman periods were found. About 1OO Greek ostraca gave further evidence that the oasis had a significant wine production. On the walls of one room he found extensive writing, apparently by a teacher who was teaching poetry composition. Botanical samples from Amheida showed the presence of bread wheat, hard wheat, barley, emmer wheat, grape, olive, date, fig, peach, lentil, flax, cotton, safflower and herbs. At the Roman temple of Amun-Nakht at Ain Birbiyeh, excavations at the east gateway revealed limestone flooring and walls preserved to about 3 metres, as well as the holes for the massive doors. Work in the sanctuary and contra-temple was mainly conservatory, but bronze objects and 4th century C.E. ceramics were found. The physical anthropologists studied previously excavated subadult skeletons from the Kellis 2 cemetery. A high incidence of trauma adds evidence for child abuse in this population. Professor Fred Leemhuis continued conservation work in the town of al-Qasr. Study of the material from the rubble has produced the first typology of local, domestic pottery, ranging from the Ottoman period to the 1930's. Prof. Rudolf Peters has identified about 170 complete legal and financial documents, such as contracts, tax receipts and even some fatwas. In June 2006, the 5th Dakhleh Oasis Project Symposium was held in Cairo. About 35 papers were presented as a means to communicate our findings to one another and stimulate exchanges of ideas.
Respectfully submitted |