Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean (12.2000(2001))

MARINA EL-ALAMEIN

EGYPT

TOMB 25

A pillar-type tomb with two loculi in the
central box and another two loculi, added
later to the south and north sides
respectively, had been uncovered in the
previous season (Fig. 2).4) At the time, its
architecture had been recorded pro-
visionally, leaving the loculi unopened
pending anthropological examination of
the human relics in the current campaign.
In the central box, both loculi proved
nearly empty, the bones having disin-
tegrated almost completely due to the
humidity. There were no relics in the
southern loculus, while in the northern one
minor pieces of tibia bones and the parietal
parts of the skull were uncovered, pushed
far back to the rear of the tomb, indicating

that this burial must have been disturbed
(plundered?) in antiquity. In the loculus
added to the central box on the south only
three fragments of the femoral bones of an
adult were uncovered.
The loculus added on the north proved
more promising. Several successive burials
were identified. Some 20 cm below the top
of the sand fill, a fairly damaged skeleton
of a woman in her twenties was found,
superimposed on 40 cm of sand fill, below
which there were four other skeletons, one
of a woman, the remaining of men. Next to
the lowermost male skeleton, two glass
bottles (Fig. 3), of a type frequent in
Marina tombs dating from the 1st century
AD, were discovered by the head. The


Fig. 2. Tomb 23. Altars for offerings in front of the central and northern loculi, view from the
east (Photo W.A. Daszewski)

4) Daszewski, PAM XI, op. cit., 41-45.

49