The Northern Cemetery:2001 Season:Grid across northern end of mound (2001 season)
|
East Delta (Tell Tebilla) |
||||
| At the western end of the grid, C. Gilbert excavated Unit
H-3, which initially displayed a rectangular surface patch of limestone debris. He
discovered a body below the surface, associated with a Late Period chamber in a mud brick
complex. The body was encased in mud with an outer, thin, white coating. This was
decorated with a blue, black, and red-painted floral collar. It had a partially preserved,
yellow-painted face, and a blue-striped headdress (resembling a similarly decorated Saite
period coffin in the Cairo Museum). The chamber yielded Late Period pottery, other
skeletal remains, and a partially preserved wooden coffin (re-buried for future
conservation and excavation). The decorated mummy casing had been disturbed in antiquity
and was partly removed from the chamber. The northeast part of the grid revealed
disturbed mastaba-tombs.
L. Chinery and C. Gilbert excavating mummy case in Unit H-3. (Photo: P. Carstens). |
|||||
Detail view of mummy case
|
 Burial within mud-casing articulated by C. Gilbert and L. Chinery. (Photo: P. Carstens) |
||||
Northeastern cemetery area at TebillaThe 2001 and 2003 seasons at Tell Tebilla focused on excavating portions of structures and streets at the northeast end of the mound. This part of the site contained more Late Period mastaba-tombs, including four well-preserved, multi-story structures (A-D) with subterranean cellars. These structures had subsequently been plundered and suffered conflagrations of various intensities at some point after Artaxerxes III's 343 BC invasion of Egypt. |
|||||
|
|
|||||
Unit H-15: Reconstruction of Mastaba-tomb A with its subterranean cellar, superstructure, and a possible southern (right-hand) extension (Drawing: G. Mumford). |
|||||
 |
Left: East end of grid. (Plan by G. Mumford)Below: South view of buildings "C" (left) and "A" (right). (Photo: P. Carstens)
|
||||
Street burials between Mastaba-tombs A and D:Unit G-14 contained part of a street between Late Period mastaba-tombs A and D. The walls on either side of the street had a distinct batter, which almost joined at 3 metres depth below the modern surface. |
|||||
|
|
|
||||
Unit G-14: West baulk of the street between mastaba-tombs A and D (Photo: P. Carstens and Drawing: G. Mumford). |
|||||
| L. Chinery excavated the street, assisted by Mohammed Abdalleh, uncovering 27 bodies with 17 intact burials of infants, children, and adults. Some bodies had amulets, bracelets, and necklaces. There were also traces of white and blue painted decoration on fragments of mummy casings along the southeast side of the street. | |||||
|
|
|
||||
Left: Unit G-14: East Baulk of the street between
mastaba-tombs A and D (Photo: P. Carstens).
|
|||||
Mastaba-Tomb A:Structure A consisted of a large rectangular building of gray mud brick. It measured at least 20 metres long by 12 metres wide, and enclosed at least nine chambers. The western half of the structure yielded two rows of small chambers (A.1-3 and A.5-7), the southern part of which opened into a large, open room (A.4). The eastern side of this structure contained a northeast chamber (A.8). Room 8 was delineated in the 2003 season and was separated by a wall from Room A.9 (unexcavated), which joined Room A.4 in an L-shaped configuration. |
|||||
Above: South section of Room A.8 in a destroyed three storey building. (Field drawing: G. Mumford)Right: String grid placed over south section in Room A.8, Unit H-15. (Photo: P. Carstens) |
|
||||
| In 2001 and 2003, S. Parcak, Z. McQuinn, L. Chinery, and A. Burridge excavated portions of this structure in Units H-14 (Rooms A.1-3, 5-7), H-15 (Room A.8), and I-14 (Room A.4), respectively. In 2001, Z. McQuinn supervised the excavation of a sondage placed at the northern end of Room A.8, extending to a depth of 5.40 metres without reaching the floor. The room displayed evidence of intense burning near the presumed floor (indicated by the leveling out of debris layers and other evidence), with loose, fire-baked bricks and reddened walls. Above this floor area, in the second storey (ground floor), the walls bore some fire reddening and black soot; segments of the inner wall face had collapsed onto a pile of debris that had accumulated within the room. A western doorway lay at this level, probably marking the second floor; carbonized ceiling beams lay in-situ near the preserved tops of Rooms A.8 and A.7. Room A.1 was excavated to a depth of 2.80 metres, revealing a lower eastern doorway (second floor), a vertical niche (window?) in the northern exterior wall, and a southern, higher doorway (third floor) leading to Room A.2. The lowest part of other third floor doorways appeared between Rooms A.5 and A.6, where a deposit of over 50 Late Period vessels lay strewn across the floor surface of Room A.5. | |||||
|
|
|||||
| Chamber 8 in Building A (Unit H-15) had been excavated partly in 2001 (Z. McQuinn), and was continued in the 2003 season by A. Burridge. Although this building was initially believed to represent a burnt down house, the continued excavations this season revealed further interior cross-walls and more evidence that its initial and final use had been as a mastaba tomb for burials. | |||||
|
|
|
||||
Top Left: Unit H-15: G. Mumford excavating debris slopes in the southern
half of Room 8 in Mastaba-tomb D (Photo: P. Carstens).
|
|||||
| Mastaba A contained a subterranean chamber laid on thick mud brick walls with a vault roofing the cellar. The overlying, above-ground chambers probably contained non-brick roofing since no traces of brick vaulting remained in these floors and the bases of doorways were found near the top of the preserved walls in Building A. | |||||
|
|
 |
||||
Left: Unit H-15: South side of the cellar in Room 8 with part of
the brick vault and overlying burnt brick walls (Photo: P. Carstens).
|
|||||
| Building A had undergone several phases of use. (1) In the initial, Dynasty 26 phase, the structure's six metre deep chambers had been filled with burials over time. (2) The upper portions of the grey mud brick structure underwent modifications with the addition of yellow mud brick walls subdividing existing chambers. | |||||
|
Above Left: Unit H-15: L. Pavlish and A. Burridge augering to 7 metres depth below the cellar floor of Mastaba-tomb A (Photo: P. Carstens). |
 |
||||
Above Right: Unit H-15: 2001 and 2003 cross-section of Room 8 in Mastaba-tomb A (Drawing: G. Mumford). |
|||||
| (3) At some point during the Roman period, people excavated the various chambers in Building A to different depths, chopping up and burning mummies, plundering burial goods, and possibly removing and selecting human bones for the extraction of calcium for use in glass production. Three nearby pits, which cut into the grey and yellow brick walls of Building A, contained ash, glass, and other byproducts from glass production. | |||||
|
|
|
||||
Left: Unit H-15: Glass mixed with fragmentary human bones from the
cellar debris in Room 8 of Mastaba-tomb A (Photo: P. Carstens).
|
|||||
| (4) The variously plundered chambers had been re-filled with debris from their plundering, including chopped-up fragments of mummies and bones, two large lumps of glass mixed with bone fragments, and other Late Period and Roman debris and pottery. Of note, the discovery of numerous rodent and bird bones near the base of Chamber A, suggests that this chamber lay open sufficiently long for mice to fall in (which also occurred whilst we were excavating this chamber). A. Burridge observed that the bird bones included a cluster of young and adult birds, suggesting that some nesting had begun in the ancient chamber excavation. | |||||
Mastabas B, C, and D:Mastaba-tombs B, C, and D displayed similar signs of intense burning. Piles of sloping, fire-reddened soil and fire-baked bricks lay in piles in the roof-top? courtyard (Room B.4) of Building B (partly excavated by G. Mumford and M. Bontty). Patches and piles of burnt debris occurred in the streets surrounding these buildings, and were observed westward and eastward across the 174 metre long survey grid. Other areas surrounding Buildings A-D yielded Bes jars and other intact Late Period pottery vessels scattered across the preserved, exposed upper portions of the rooms. L. Chinery excavated part of Building C, uncovering disarticulated human bones in the debris of chamber C.5. Two small chambers (C.2-3) yielded a bronze Osiris figurine, a crook, and a flail, items consistent with the mortuary reuse of this area. |
|||||
 |
 |
||||
Left: S. Parcak preparing section in Room
A.1, Unit H-14. (Photo: P. Carstens)
|
|||||
The environs of the northeast cemetery:A comparison of the magnetometer survey of the eastern side of Tebilla with the 26 by 27 metres of architecture exposed in Units G-I nos.13-15, showed that the eastern part of the site contained large, north-south blocks of buildings separated by streets. These structures (mastaba tombs) had apparently suffered from much burning that distinguishes the period of interment from the subsequent, differential Roman period plundering of the mastaba chambers and burials. In contrast, the temple appears to have continued in use into the Ptolemaic period (attested through archaeological and inscriptional evidence), before the site was abandoned at some point in the Roman period.
South section in Room A.1 in Unit H-14. (Photo: P. Carstens) |
|||||
Duration of burials in the northeast cemetery:The appearance of human burials stacked 6-7 metres in depth inside chambers A.2 and A.6, and the lowest levels of A.1, indicated that Mastaba A had continued in use as a mortuary complex to the end of the Late Period, and possibly into the Ptolemaic period, before the burials were looted. Some of the burials had been cleared out at some point during or at the end of the Roman period. In Room A.1 a few Roman period potsherds lay amongst the disarticulated, fragmentary human bones. These remains lay throughout alternating layers of water laid clays (eroded from the brick walls) and thinner layers of wind laid silts. |
|||||
Above: Section drawing of strata in upper part of Room A.1, H-14. (Field drawing by S. Parcak; inked by G. Mumford)Right: Unit H-14, Room A.1 debris layers peeled back stratigraphically by S. Parcak. (Photo: P. Carstens)
|
|
||||
Ptolemaic(?) wall and Roman period glass pits:The addition of a wall over these earlier structures, and the subsequent cutting of refuse pits for glass processing represent the final activities in this part of the site prior to the recent Islamic re-occupation of eastern Tebilla. One of the remaining questions is where did the Greco-Roman populace relocate their dwellings? Hopefully future seasons will answer this and other questions. |
|||||
|
Isometric reconstruction
sketch of Bulding A
|
|||||
 |
Left: G. Mumford and M. Bontty removing sloping burnt debris layer in part of Room R.b, Unit H-13. (Photo: P. Carstens).Right: Layer and jaw bone below burn debris layer in Room B.4, Unit H-13. (Photo: P. Carstens)
|
||||
|
Isometric reconstruction of Buildings A-D. (G. Mumford) |
|||||
Return to Tell Tebilla 3 | Go to Tell Tebilla 5
