Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean (18.2006(2008))

MARINA EL-ALAMEIN

EGYPT

REMOVAL OF THE DUMPS

Dumps, whatever their origins, can be
a terrible eyesore at any open archaeological
site. This was the case of Marina el-
Alamein. The original accidental discovery
of the site in the mid 1980s, during
earthworks carried out in preparation for
the construction of a tourist village, left
huge mounds of earth bulldozed through
archaeological layers along the course of
prospected streets cutting across the site
from northeast to southwest. The end
effect was an unnatural landscape, sug-
gesting streets where there were none, and
generally obscuring from view the
different parts of the site.
More recently, archaeological dumps
had accrued wherever excavations hade
been proceeding in the past two decades
and a variety of building works along the
modern coastal road had left building
debris dumped along the northern out-
skirts of the site.
Given the logistics of the undertaking
and budgetary constraints, as well as the
overall aesthetic objectives of the site
presentation plan, the project director
ultimately decided to landscape the area
[Fig. 1}, removing as much of the volume
of the dumps as possible and partly
backfilling the deep artificial wadis in an
effort to render the unexcavated parts of
the site more natural to the eye. This
decision required full-scale archaeological
recording of the bottom of these two cuts
prior to their backfilling.
Only the mounds left by the building
contractors of the mid-1980s held any
archaeological promise, hence attention
was concentrated on these. Early trials
with heavy equipment at this and other
sites have demonstrated these machines
entirely capable of carrying out under
strict supervision even very delicate work,

assuming there is access. Testing proved
this method to be satisfactory in most
places at Marina as well. The actual
removal was preceded by intensive field-
walking once more (these dumps had
already been field walked by archaeologists,
repeatedly over the past twenty years) of
the tops and sides of the dumps in search of
diagnostic material of archaeological value,
scrutiny of mound structure in an effort to
estimate actual extent and height, and
recording of architectural remains observed
in the sides of the bulldozed troughs.
The dumps in question, shaded gray in
Fig. 1, appear on either side of two 'cuts',
both some 25 m wide, traced under the
future streets. They run parallel to one
another, a few dozen meters apart. The
eastern sides of the cuts were more heavily
covered by sand and rubble excavated from
the bottom. These mounds were from 10-
12 m to 28.50 m wide at the base, rising
to a height of from 2 to 3 m. The western-
side dumps were smaller and less extensive
and actually nonexistent over long stretches,
the edges of the cuts being actually in
undisturbed ground. All of the dumps
presented a characteristic crescent-shaped
pattern of ridges, resulting from loaders
pushing particular scoops of material
before them without any further leveling.
Tests on a part of one dump demon-
strated a classic case of inverted stratig-
raphy. Ancient remains were dumped at
the very top and lying in the open for the
past twenty years. Everything underneath
was drifted sand, which had previously
buried the ruins under a layer one to two
meters thick. Loaders had lifted this
natural layer (destroying in the process
ancient walls and carrying with it modern
debris), stopping for whatever reason at
what proved to be Roman-age floor levels

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