Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean (11.1999(2000))

TELL EL-LARKHA

EGYPT

area (c. 4.60 x 4 m) that joined the main
wall on the southeast. Groups of bricks
lying in different directions in the area to
the north of this wall may be evidence of
a pavement. The walls of this complex
have survived to a height of 40-50 cm; in
places the brick courses bonded in some
kind of lime mortar are quite well dis-
cernible. It is also apparent that the walls
were founded on a layer of destruction.
PHASE 4
The fourth occupational phase of the west-
ern kom was identified on the basis of
changes of the ceramic inventory, the pre-
dominant pottery now being Nagada IIIa2-
Illb. The settlement structures of this
phase include some that deserve special
attention. Coming from the middle period
of this phase are two fragments of parallel
walls built of clearly discernible yellowish
mudbrick (much sand temper) measuring
c. 30 x 15 cm. The walls were a brick and
a half in thickness and followed a NW-SE
pattern (preserved length c. 2.5 m) with no
transversal wall in evidence. The surviving
height of these walls is 20 cm, the distance
separating them 120 cm.
More of the wall, discovered in the last
season and identified then as 2A2, was
found this time. It turned out to be the
outer wall of a big house that was partly
uncovered in the previous season. This wall
was 0.95 cm thick and followed a NE-SW
orientation for a distance of 10 m, that is,
down the length of the explored section. It
was made of mudbrick without any sand
temper, very poorly preserved, measuring
like the bricks described earlier. East of it,
3-30 m away, there was a thinner wall
(c. 45 cm) that was parallel to it and built
of similar bricks. Between the two walls
ran a partition wall of similar thickness,

forming two rooms that were at least 5 m
wide. There were two ovens in the north-
ern of the two units. One of these, which
was not fully explored, because it was situ-
ated partly in the trench wall, had a vessel
standing inside it, the other one, in the
southwest corner was little more than an
open hearth. In the northwest corner of the
southern room there was yet another oven
with two vessels standing inside it. In its
vicinity there were two round, mud-lined
pits (c. 20 cm in diameter). One of these
contained some potsherds, all of them less
than characteristic unfortunately. West of
the thick outer wall and level with the
northern unit there were again two big
ovens and a hearth. The south oven, which
was almost square and had four vessels
standing inside it, was described in the
report from the previous campaign. The
other oven, which was explored this year,
was practically square and also had the
remains of four vessels standing inside it.
In all cases the vessels were missing the
bottoms and were placed in mud stands.
They all belong to one type, known from
Tell Ibrahim Awad, although they are
dated there to phase 7, which is contempo-
rary with Nagada IldlTheir preserved
height ranges from 40 to a dozen or so cen-
timeters, indicating that they had been
used over and over again and their bottoms
were broken off a few centimeters every
time they were emptied. (Fig. 3) It was pre-
sumably easier to remove their content (dry
grain?) in this way without having to take
the vessels out from the oven. Confirming
this observation is a series of layerets con-
sisting of mixed charcoal, ash, baked mud
and regular mud. It should be remembered
that the oven in question had been dug
into the corner of a brick wall originating
from settlement phase 3. A semicircular
pit (dia. c. 100 cm) with a single-brick
wall (10-15 cm thick) around it abuts the
southeastern part of the southern room.

3> E.C.M. van den Brink, Preliminary report on the Excavations at Tell Ibrahim Awad, Seasons 1988-1990, in: E.C.M.
van den Brink (ed.), The Nile Delta in Transition: 4th-3rd Millennium B.C. (Jerusalem 1992), 54.

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