Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean (12.2000(2001))

NAQLUN

EGYPT

THE POTTERY

Tomasz Gorecki

In the course of archaeological work
carried out on the kom in Naqlun in
2000, an assemblage of earlier pottery
was discovered in the general area of what
has been designated as passage E.9,
interspersed with ceramics typical of the
late 9th to 11th centuries. ^ This
assemblage is of a nature that justifies
a separate, albeit still preliminary
discussion of the material.
The pottery constitutes a deposit of
a few hundred pieces, making up part of
a leveling or rubbish layer. The original
structure of this layer seems to have been

heavily disturbed and partly destroyed in
the 10th-12th centuries, when numerous
burial pits were dug in it. In consequence,
it survives over an area of but 3 m2,
having a thickness of c. 0.5 m.
The deposit includes tableware,
domestic vessels (mostly painted),
cooking pots and amphorae. Storage
vessels are entirely absent, as are glazed
pots in the tableware class. During
previous research in 1988, 1989 and
1992, typologically similar pottery had
come to light in room D. 1 (lowest layer)
in sector B (leveling layers).1 2)

LATE ROMAN POTTERY

Four shapes (Fig. la-d) are in clear
domination, constituting some 90% of the
Late Roman potsherds. Late Upper
Egyptian variants of these shapes are known
from the excavations on Elephantine
(T 222; 261; 279; 325),3)) among others,
while the vessels representing these variants
refer to imported shapes known in Egypt
since the 5th century. The ones found at
Naqlun are for the most part made of Nile
silt covered with red or light slip; some are

made of clay that, to judge by the color in
the break and the structure, should be
considered as intermediate between Nile
silt and Upper Egyptian marl clay. It has
been suggested that this kind of clay
originated from somewhere in the vicinity
of Dendera.
Many of the plates are decorated on the
floor with stamped decoration, which is
quite simple in comparison with the
decoration of early variants of this type of

1) Cf. reports: T. Gorecki, “The Pottery from Naqlun”, PAM V, Reports 1993 (1994), 63-78; W. Godlewski, T. Derda, 1.
Gorecki, “Deir el Naqlun (Nekloni), 1988-1989, Second Preliminary Report”, in: Nubica III/1 (1994), 226-231, especially
figs. 17.1, 17.5-10, 19.1-3, 19.35-36.
2) Godlewski, Derda, Gorecki, Nubica III/1, op. cit., figs. 18.1-8 (room D.l); T. Gorecki, “Deir el-Naqlun 1992: The
Pottery”, PAM IV, Reports 1992 (1993), 61, figs. 5 b, c (sector B).
3) R. D. Gempeler, Elephantine X. Die Keramik romischer bis friiharabischer Zeit (Mainz am Rhein 1992).

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