Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean (17.2005(2007))

TELL EL-LARKHA

EGYPT

By the end of the season, five chambers
had been explored [Fig. 9}. An almost
square space was set off by walls 2.50 m
thick and four compartments, mostly 3 by
7 m in size, adjoined it on the east and south
(more compartments should be expected to
the west and north, either destroyed or still
concealed under later settlement remains).
These chambers were all filled with bricks
mixed with soil or with ashes as in one of
the compartments where a mud brick oven
had been constructed. The fill was evidently
intentional, not a destruction layer. Also the
finds were surprisingly poor for such an
elaborate structure: a few pots and
numerous potsherds of mainly rough ware,
an occasional flint blade and animal bones.

Some fragments of human bones mixed
with earth were found in the southwestern
chamber.
Inside the main chamber, more or less in
the middle, traces of a wooden frame were
discovered. Beneath it, there was a wide
wall, forming what appears to be a shaft.
The space outside it was filled in with
bricks mixed with soil.
The construction can be dated to the
turn of Naqada IIIA/IIIB and is the biggest
Naqada building known to date. While
further research should answer questions
about the function of this building, a few
ideas can be put forward concerning the
relations between Lower and Upper Egypt
in the Naqada III period.


Fig. 9. Eastern Kom. Chambers of a monumental brick structure, state at the end of the season in
2005 (Photo A. Biel)

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