Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean (15.2003(2004))

BANGANARTI

SUDAN

INSCRIPTIONS FROM BANGANARTI
SEASON 2003

Adam Laj tar

The excavations carried out in the 2003
season by the Polish Joint Expedition to
the Middle Nile (known also as Southern
Dongola Reach Survey) on the site of
Banganarti,^ c. 10 km south of Old
Dongola, brought to light important
epigraphic material. It consists largely

of inscriptions on the walls of the upper
of two churches. Over 400 inscriptions
were identified in the course of the
present season. Together with those dis-
covered in 2001 and 2002, they form
a considerable collection of around 650
items.

THE UPPER CHURCH

Few of these inscriptions actually belong to
the original church interior. Those that do
— legends to wall paintings and dedications
— are painted in black and their authors
were most likely the painters of the murals
themselves. All the remaining inscriptions
are the consequence of visits of a religious
nature made to the church and are thus
a secondary element with regard to its
interior appearance.
The inscriptions appear mostly on the
undecorated part of the walls and pillars,
although they do occasionally encroach
upon the paintings. They occur all over the
church interior, but a special concentration
is to be observed on the pillars in the
entrances to the chapels of the eastern row,
the pillars in the entrances to the chapels of
the southern row, on the central buttresses
and in the chapels of-the western row. In
these places, they appear next to one

another and are occasionally superimposed,
giving the extraordinary impression of
large surfaces covered with writing
(Fig. 1).
All the inscriptions with the exception
of one painted in black were scratched with
a sharp instrument in the soft mud plaster
coating the interior walls of the church. In
many cases, it is possible to observe
a certain “stratigraphy” of the inscriptions.
Writing started at the top on the left and
continued to the right and down. Once the
space intended for writing was exhausted,
the wall was whitewashed and writing
started anew. Traces of inscriptions from
the earlier coat of limewash were observed
here and there, under the first layer of
inscriptions.
In paleographical terms, the inscrip-
tions represent round inclined majuscules
in the Nubian variant commonly used in

1) Cf. report by B. Zurawski in this volume.
2) For a more detailed overview, cf. A. Lajtar, “Wall inscriptions in the Banganarti churches. A general note after three
seasons of work" JJP 33 (2003), 137-159.

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