Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean (17.2005(2007))

FOURTH CATARACT

SUDAN

FOURTH CATARACT
SURVEY AND EXCAVATIONS IN SHEMKHIYA,
DAR EL-ARAB AND SAFFI ISLAND
Bogdan Zurawski

The preliminary report from the work carried out by the Polish Joint Expedition to the
Fourth Cataract in the winter of 2004/2005 has already been made known to the
participants of the Berlin Conference on the Fourth Cataract that took place on 4-6 August
2005 and was duly submitted for publication in the conference papers. The following is a brief
note aimed at providing readers with a full picture of the work being carried out in the Polish
concession as part of the Merowe Dam Archaeological Salvage Project.
The mission was in the field from 2 December 2004 until 20 March 2005. The second
season of the expedition with its various subunits was organized by the Polish Centre of
Mediterranean Archaeology of Warsaw University in association with the Research Centre
for Mediterranean Archaeology of the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Poznan
Archaeological Museum.1 Topmost on the agenda were:
1. Survey and excavation on the left bayik: Shemkhiya, Gamamiya, Kehellia, Hagar el-
Beida and Fs-Sadda (= Polish concession within the framework of the AID ASP project);2
2. Measurements and excavations in Dar el-Arab (Swueqi el-Gharb);
3. Excavations on Saffi Island.
1 Dr. Marek Chlodnicki directed the unit working on the Polish concession between Es-Sadda and Shemkhiya. For details
of the fieldwork and staff members, see the following report in this volume.
The Dar el-Arab unit was established as a joint Polish-British project, the Polish team continuing the recording and
excavation of the site that the SARS team directed by Dr. Derek A. Welsby had started earlier. The unit was headed
by Dr. Bogdan Zurawski and included: Prof. Dr. Karol Piasecki, physical anthropologist; Mr. Piotr Osypinski,
archaeologist; Mrs. Marta Osypinska, archaeozoologist and archaeologist; Ms Anna Blaszczyk, archaeologist and
documentalist; Mrs. Edyta Klimaszewska-Drabot, archaeologist and pottery documentalist; Ms Marta Momot,
documentalist; Mr. Roman topaciuk, geodesist; Mrs. Hanna Kozinska-Sowa, Mr. Artur Obluski, archaeologists.
Dr. Marcin Wiewiora lent his expertise, having already studied (on behalf of the GAME expedition) the fortress of
Suegi esch-Sherek (that sits on the opposite bank of the river) in 2004. The fieldwork, which ran tor six weeks in
January and February 2005, was sponsored by Heidelberg Poland.
The same team moved to Saffi Island on January 14 and worked until February 20, part of the time commuting by
a custom-built boat between the two sites. The second season on Saffi was a continuation of previous work reported on
in the previous volume of PAAl, the focus now being on site 56.
2 For a map of the Polish concession, see PAAl XVI, Reports 2004 (2005), Fig. 1 on p. 370.

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