DOI issue:
Egypt
DOI article:Chłodnicki, Marek; Ciałowicz, Krzysztof M.: Tell el-Farkha (Ghazala): season 2004
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42090#0136
TELL EL-LARKHA
EGYPT
Historically, beer played a significant
role both as a drink and as one of the
principal gifts included among burial
offerings. The structures discovered at Tell
el-Farkha represent the oldest breweries
ever to be found in the Nile Delta, and are
probably contemporary with the brewery
found several years ago in Hierakonpolis.
These are probably the oldest breweries in
the world and the excavated series of suc-
cessive breweries suggests that the site of
Tell el-Farkha must have been an im-
portant center of beer production during
the second half of the 4th millennium BC.
LOWER EGYPTIAN CULTURE
FEATURES
Discoveries made over the past few seasons,
relating to the earliest phase of the West-
ern Kom, are equally surprising and un-
paralleled on other Egyptian sites. Beneath
the monumental building associated with
Naqada culture3 and in the immediate vic-
inity of the breweries, evidence was dis-
covered across virtually the entire excavated
area (35 x 25 m) of a complex of features
undoubtedly linked to the Lower Egyptian
culture. The thick layer of Nile silt
covering everything testified yet again to
Fig. 2. Western Kom. Complex of features of Lower Egyptian Culture
(Photo R. Slabonski)
3 Cf. expedition reports for respective seasons in PAM XII, Reports 2000 (2001), 86-95; PAM XV, op. cit., 102 104.
134
EGYPT
Historically, beer played a significant
role both as a drink and as one of the
principal gifts included among burial
offerings. The structures discovered at Tell
el-Farkha represent the oldest breweries
ever to be found in the Nile Delta, and are
probably contemporary with the brewery
found several years ago in Hierakonpolis.
These are probably the oldest breweries in
the world and the excavated series of suc-
cessive breweries suggests that the site of
Tell el-Farkha must have been an im-
portant center of beer production during
the second half of the 4th millennium BC.
LOWER EGYPTIAN CULTURE
FEATURES
Discoveries made over the past few seasons,
relating to the earliest phase of the West-
ern Kom, are equally surprising and un-
paralleled on other Egyptian sites. Beneath
the monumental building associated with
Naqada culture3 and in the immediate vic-
inity of the breweries, evidence was dis-
covered across virtually the entire excavated
area (35 x 25 m) of a complex of features
undoubtedly linked to the Lower Egyptian
culture. The thick layer of Nile silt
covering everything testified yet again to
Fig. 2. Western Kom. Complex of features of Lower Egyptian Culture
(Photo R. Slabonski)
3 Cf. expedition reports for respective seasons in PAM XII, Reports 2000 (2001), 86-95; PAM XV, op. cit., 102 104.
134