Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean (10.1998(1999))

DONGOLA REACH_

SUDAN

nearby produced an alluvium continuum
going down at least 8 m. Abandoned fields
some 900 m east of the temple were irri-
gated once by a rectilinear channel system
seen on a Sudan Survey Department Air
Photograph (taken in 1994). Nothing can
be said at the moment about when these
fields were deserted.
The surface potsherds include a con-
spicuous amount of Early Christian wares,
some with scratched monograms. In the
subsurface layers, Kushite wares strongly
predominate.
Near the passageway linking the
pronaos with the hypostyle, a total of over
140 bizarre-shaped stones were recovered
(in 1997 and in 1998).
The hermeneutics of this extraordinary
find are ambiguous. At first glance, the
stones (together with the celt) resemble
"rain stones" used in rain magic by the
Nilotes of Southern Sudan. However, the
more plausible reason for the gathering of
these stones is the ease with which they
could be tied with a string or rope. Most
have one or more natural "waistings" to
prevent a rope tied around it from slipping
off. Thus, it seems logical to me that they
are simply fishnet sinkers, the more so
since some Soniyat stones imitate the
Egyptian sinkers published by Oric Bates
in Harvard African Studies I.n) At some
unspecified time the temple ruin standing
on the river bank started serving local fish-
ermen as a place to store equipment (hence
the deposit in question would be addi-
tional proof that the temple had once stood
closer to the river).
Roofing at the southern end of the tem-
ple was supported mostly on columns, of
which four have been located. The columns

were raised on round flat bases placed
directly on the mudbrick floor. The other-
wise regular pattern of this flooring is dis-
turbed in some places as a result of multi-
ple repairs. (The paving was recorded in
a test trench dug this year by Ciaiowicz in
the middle section of the hypostyle.)
The surviving columns (only the lowest
drums preserved) have an average diameter
of c. 70 cm (badly eroded surfaces have
made measurement inadequate). The col-
umn base unearthed further south, which
had been covered by a layer of sand mixed
with Nile silt, survived in quite good
shape. It preserved some interesting
details, namely the graffiti which covered
its upper surface. Multiple unintelligible
designs resembling Meroitic script are
dominated by a Meroitic hieroglyph
repeated at least six times. The same sign
was found painted on the shoulder of
a fragmentary wheel-made jar from the
Temple of Taharka at Kawa.12) It is worth
noting that both graffiti and hieroglyphs
were scratched on the base after the col-
umn shaft standing on it had been over-
turned. It provides strong grounds for
thinking that the building had been dam-
aged severely well in the Meroitic period.
The Soniyat temenos is located at the north
end of the Tergis mantiqa (the border
between the mantiqas of Abkur and Tergis
lies halfway between the temple and the
Istabel fortress). The archaeological evi-
dence gathered so far, augmented by the
literary sources, strongly suggests that the
Soniyat temenos is the religious nucleus of
a bigger urban center located southwest of
the Istabel fortress, west of the cultivable
lands of Tergis and Affad basins and oppo-
site the agricultural district on the left

10 O. Bates, Ancient Egyptian fishing, Varta Africana I (1917), PI- XXII, nos. 193-197, 202-204.
12) M.F.L. Macadam, The Temples of Kawa. II: History and Archaeology of the Site (London 1955), pp. 77, 73, 161 (fig. 53)-

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