DOI issue:
Sudan
DOI article:Żurawski, Bogdan: Fourth cataract: survey and excavations in Shemkhiya, Dar el-Arab and Saffi island
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42091#0333
FOURTH CATARACT
SUDAN
EXCAVATIONS ON SAFFI ISFAND
The present fieldwork was a continuation of
survey and excavations already done on the
island in 2004.10 Another 31 sites were
added to the 72 recorded already. Ten burial
sites were now fully explored and another
eight tested. Seventeen, mostly modern
religious structures, were drawn, photo-
graphed and sampled. The main chantier
was again the post-Meroitic tumulus
cemetery coded as Saffi 56.
SAFFI 56
The excavations of 12 graves [Fig. 6]
produced evidence similar to that obtained
in 2004. The cemetery sits in the wadi bed
and the connection with water (the wadi
being definitely the spot of flash floods on
occasion) is apparent. The reason for this
should be searched for in the eschatology of
the post-Meroitic population.11 The grave
goods represented a typical inventory of
vessels [Fig. 7], arrowheads, basketry etc.
DAM CONSTRUCTIONS
The surprising nearly total absence of qadus
jars from all the surface pottery collections
from the island led the excavators to
consider drystone structures that have been
found blocking various wadis. Apparently,
the dams served to catch water, rainfall
being once much more abundant in the area
as even the reports of 19th century travelers
prove. The water was stored behind the
dams and later released for irrigation as
needed. Indeed, the high banks of the island
would have rendered useless water-lifting
devices like the shaduf and saqiyah.
Unfortunately the Saffi dams were not
contexted by any substantial ceramic
assemblages that could give evidence for
dating. The only hints at a possible date of
the dam on site Saffi 77 are 234 fragments
of a huge relief-decorated Kerma cooking
bowl of 50 cm in diameter found on the
nearby site of Saffi 79 [Fig. 8].
EGYPTIAN POTTERY IMPORTS
The Kerma horizon was a time when the
island was in its cultural and economical
ascendancy, a fact convincingly demonstrat-
ed by site statistics and abundant ceramic
imports. Trade contacts flourished with
regions as far north as Fayum Oasis or even
the Mediterranean. There is no doubt that
at least three complete vessels of Egyptian
origin were found on Saffi 23, a site
dominated by Kerma Moyen ceramics and
vessels of plausible early Napatan (?) origin
(such as the curious bag-shaped vessels
found in Grave 10, Fig. 9).12 One of these
was a piece of Marl Cl or C2, handmade jar
probably brought from Fayum Oasis no
later that the Late Middle Kingdom (1750-
1650 BC) and probably deposited in a grave
soon after [Fig. 70}. A pot from another
grave in the same cemetery proved to be an
10 B. Zurawski "The Archaeology of Saffi Island (2004 Season)", GAMAR IV, (2005), 199-218; PAM XVI, op. cit., 325-337.
11 Interesting study on beliefs associated with the aquatic complex, C. Vandersleyen, "Le sens symbolique des puits
funeraires dans l'Egypte ancienne", Chronique d'Egypte 50 (99-100) (1975), 151-157, esp. 153. Sepulchral customs of
the Tijaha Bedouins connected with the presence of water, I.A. Jaussen, Coutumes des arabes an pays de Moab (Pans
1908), 99; cf. Goldzieher, Wasser, 29. The Sinai Bedouins' habit ol burying the dead of a tribe beside the tomb of
a well that is almost always near a water-source and the Awlad All burying their dead near wells "to save the dead the
trouble of fetching water", G.W. Murray, Sons of Ishmael: A Study of the Egyptian Bedouin (London 1935), 154 and
192.
12 The ceramic datings are based on the expertise of the team's pottery' specialists Mrs. Edyta Klimaszewska-Drabot
and Ms Mariola Orzechowska. Dr. Teodozja Rzeuska of the Polish Academy of Sciences kindly consulted the Egyptian
imports.
329
SUDAN
EXCAVATIONS ON SAFFI ISFAND
The present fieldwork was a continuation of
survey and excavations already done on the
island in 2004.10 Another 31 sites were
added to the 72 recorded already. Ten burial
sites were now fully explored and another
eight tested. Seventeen, mostly modern
religious structures, were drawn, photo-
graphed and sampled. The main chantier
was again the post-Meroitic tumulus
cemetery coded as Saffi 56.
SAFFI 56
The excavations of 12 graves [Fig. 6]
produced evidence similar to that obtained
in 2004. The cemetery sits in the wadi bed
and the connection with water (the wadi
being definitely the spot of flash floods on
occasion) is apparent. The reason for this
should be searched for in the eschatology of
the post-Meroitic population.11 The grave
goods represented a typical inventory of
vessels [Fig. 7], arrowheads, basketry etc.
DAM CONSTRUCTIONS
The surprising nearly total absence of qadus
jars from all the surface pottery collections
from the island led the excavators to
consider drystone structures that have been
found blocking various wadis. Apparently,
the dams served to catch water, rainfall
being once much more abundant in the area
as even the reports of 19th century travelers
prove. The water was stored behind the
dams and later released for irrigation as
needed. Indeed, the high banks of the island
would have rendered useless water-lifting
devices like the shaduf and saqiyah.
Unfortunately the Saffi dams were not
contexted by any substantial ceramic
assemblages that could give evidence for
dating. The only hints at a possible date of
the dam on site Saffi 77 are 234 fragments
of a huge relief-decorated Kerma cooking
bowl of 50 cm in diameter found on the
nearby site of Saffi 79 [Fig. 8].
EGYPTIAN POTTERY IMPORTS
The Kerma horizon was a time when the
island was in its cultural and economical
ascendancy, a fact convincingly demonstrat-
ed by site statistics and abundant ceramic
imports. Trade contacts flourished with
regions as far north as Fayum Oasis or even
the Mediterranean. There is no doubt that
at least three complete vessels of Egyptian
origin were found on Saffi 23, a site
dominated by Kerma Moyen ceramics and
vessels of plausible early Napatan (?) origin
(such as the curious bag-shaped vessels
found in Grave 10, Fig. 9).12 One of these
was a piece of Marl Cl or C2, handmade jar
probably brought from Fayum Oasis no
later that the Late Middle Kingdom (1750-
1650 BC) and probably deposited in a grave
soon after [Fig. 70}. A pot from another
grave in the same cemetery proved to be an
10 B. Zurawski "The Archaeology of Saffi Island (2004 Season)", GAMAR IV, (2005), 199-218; PAM XVI, op. cit., 325-337.
11 Interesting study on beliefs associated with the aquatic complex, C. Vandersleyen, "Le sens symbolique des puits
funeraires dans l'Egypte ancienne", Chronique d'Egypte 50 (99-100) (1975), 151-157, esp. 153. Sepulchral customs of
the Tijaha Bedouins connected with the presence of water, I.A. Jaussen, Coutumes des arabes an pays de Moab (Pans
1908), 99; cf. Goldzieher, Wasser, 29. The Sinai Bedouins' habit ol burying the dead of a tribe beside the tomb of
a well that is almost always near a water-source and the Awlad All burying their dead near wells "to save the dead the
trouble of fetching water", G.W. Murray, Sons of Ishmael: A Study of the Egyptian Bedouin (London 1935), 154 and
192.
12 The ceramic datings are based on the expertise of the team's pottery' specialists Mrs. Edyta Klimaszewska-Drabot
and Ms Mariola Orzechowska. Dr. Teodozja Rzeuska of the Polish Academy of Sciences kindly consulted the Egyptian
imports.
329