Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean (10.1998(1999))

_DONGOLA REACH_

SUDAN

sebbakh diggers? Had it been a Christian
cult place long after the collapse of the
Christian monarchy in Dongola? More
plausibly, the sebbakhin knew that the
kenisat were never inhabited and the mea-
ger layer of natural fertilizer was not worth
their effort.5 6•*
The Christian cemetery of Helleila,
built of huge well-baked bricks and locat-
ed on hills overlooking the fortress, was
totally dismantled in 1988. Soon after the
catastrophic flood of that year, the local
residents turned to the ancient structures
for badly needed building material to
reconstruct their homes.
Compared to the Helleila structure, the
Magal church located nearby, right on the
riverbank, looked quite grandiose. An
embankment directly opposite the church
had a set of stairs leading down to the
water. When Lepsius visited it (on the
same 7th of June), one of the six granite
columns that today are scattered about the
site was still standing. It was topped by


Fig. 2. Fallen granite columns and capital of the
Magal church (Photo B. Zurawski)

a granite capital now half buried in the soil
(Fig- 2).
The church was much destroyed by the
sakia installed within its walls. Nothing
can be said of the church layout and con-
struction, but the sakia pit contains much
red brick and lime plaster. Potsherds are
scarce, as on other church sites. The date of
the Magal church seems to correspond
with the earliest ceramics from Helleila,
that is, the 7th century.
The location pattern of the Middle Nile
strongholds seems to be uniform. Whatever
their present position with respect to the
Nile, originally they had all stood close to
the river. This is certainly true of the Deiga
fortress, for example, as its lower section
has been destroyed by flooding.
The ceramic dating of the Deiga
fortress is much later than in the case of
Helleila. In size (60x80 m) and general lay-
out, it resembles the fortress of El Kab
(situated 180 km upstream). The strong-
hold's five meter thick outer walls, made of
mud-bonded stone, are masterly executed
and remarkably well preserved (Fig. 3).
Similarly to Helleila, the gates visible
in the ruins are simple, unflanked open-
ings in the walls (there is no trace of any
entrance pillars, spur or shield walls etc.).
However, the pace of modern deterioration
is alarming. The mud-brick church, which
Lepsius saw inside the fortress, has all but
disappeared now, as have the fragments of
granite capitals and columns.
The region around the fortress had been
inhabited densely in Christian times.
There is another church-site inland from
the fortress. On top of the Jebel Deiga,

5) Lepsius visited Helleila on June 7, 1844. The heat was apparently responsible for an embarrassing mistake made by the
Prussian measuring team. While the spans between the towers were exact to a centimeter, the length of the fortress extend-
ing along the Nile was estimated scores of meters short (Denkmaler aus Aegypten und Aethiopien, Text V (Leipzig 1913),
p. 252 (Fol. IV,4 194° 195, the perfect rectangle published there is in reality a trapezium).
6) Denkmaler, op.cit.,V, p. 251.

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