Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean (11.1999(2000))

TELL ATRIB

EGYPT

representations. Dated by two coins of
Ptolemy II, this terracotta resembles a fig-
urine that was found attached face-down to
a mudbrick that had been laid in an early
3rd century BC wall, next to a private bath
discovered last year in the abutting square
HHH.2)
A narrow passage, oriented E-W, cuts
through this cellar. It is visible in the two
walls closing the cellar, where the mudbrick
courses had been broken to form a free space
that was later blocked with soil.
A big, well-preserved jar was set in
one of the Middle Ptolemaic walls. It is
painted with a typical 2nd century BC
floral ornament. Coming from this layer
are two beautifully executed terracotta
heads of dwarfs that were issued from the

same mold, as well as a figurine of
a naked man holding a Dionysiac lagy-
nos, the figurine entirely Greek in style.
Another object of high quality is a terra-
cotta head of another dwarf — a good
example of Alexandrian grotesque {Fig. 2).
The stratigraphy revealed in the two
other cellars turned out to be very strange
indeed. Room 269, recorded at the depth
of 1.35 m below the top of a Middle
Ptolemaic wall, was well dated by coins of
Ptolemy II and corresponded to an early
3rd century BC level. The other cellar,
room 270, found at the same depth (1.40
m), yielded a large deposit of fragmentary
terracotta figurines, which were dated by a
coin of Ptolemy V to the beginning of the
2nd century BC.


Fig. 2. Head of a dwarf (front and tide view), TA 99/57
(Photo M. Jawornicki)

2> Cf. H. Szymanska, PAM X, Reports 1998 (1999), 75.

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