Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean (14.2002(2003))

MAREA

EGYPT

there was the floor of a basin made of fired
bricks in waterproof mortar, presently
weathered to a dome-like shape. The basin
(1.10 x 1.50 m), which was filled with
water from the well, was reinforced on the
south with a few layers of stone blocks. In
the bottom row there was a small clay pipe
draining water from the basin to
a presumed washstand (?) of which nothing
has survived.
The space between the well and the
stone ring-wall was filled with regular
layers of alternately clay and stone debris
{Fig. 9). This formed an appropriate surface
for the animals turning the saqiyah wheel.
No potsherds were found in these layers.
The clay in the second layer from the top,
some 30 cm thick, was compacted by the
water overflowing from the qawadis-pots.
The installation can be reconstructed on the
grounds of parallels with surviving saqiyah
constructions from Upper Egypt, e.g.
Dendera.2) Remains of two other instal-
lations of this type can be seen in Marea, in

the area west of the bath explored by the
Polish team.
Natural rooms (G1 to G7) were formed
between the buttresses and also between the
walls added later; these were used pre-
sumably for various purposes while the well
was in operation. Room G4a resulted from
the extension of the sides of the western
buttress. A small channel was discovered
between the rooms (G4 and G4a). Two
water troughs were located in G4 proper,
one in the northwestern corner, the other in
the western one. This room screened
a furnace, traces of which, in the form of
a layer of burnt soil and ashes 20 cm thick,
filled the southwestern end at a depth of 50
cm, counting from the wall between G4 and
G3. In G4a, there was a small rectangular
furnace (03), measuring 75 by 80 cm, built
of stone-lined bricks; it is the same kind of
structure as in F3. In all these sections the
fill consisted substantially of potsherds from
the 6th and 7th centuries with merely a few
that could be attributed to the 8th century.

BATH

The season also saw the end of the
excavations in the bath itself. Below room C,
which had a secondary floor of two layers of
stone blocks, another furnace was uncovered
(Ol). Access to it was made through the
cellar under chamber B and it was serviced
from the service area below the apodyterium
(A2). The heat it produced warmed the
hypocaust cellar under the caldarium (F) in
THE
In similarity to previous years, the
assemblage of small finds from this year's
excavation was mixed and could not be
assigned to specific archaeological layers.
The coins are a case in point; 136 were
discovered in various loci, but even after

the women's part of the bath. Removal of
the blocking closing off part of the cellar
made it possible to explore another furnace
(O), the top parts of which had been
uncovered during the first campaign in
2000. At the bottom of the hearth there was
a small pottery bowl with magic signs
painted in black on it and inside it an askos
used as an oil-lamp filler {Fig. 10).
FINDS
cleaning by the team's conservator only 51
of these could be identified. The biggest
group is constituted by dodekanoumia of the
6th-7th century (cf. Fig. 5). This could
have been the price of entering the bath.
The coins were found in the area around

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