Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean (18.2006(2008))

NAQLUN

EGYPT

a domestic kind, like the kitchen in unit
10. Technically, they are poorly made of
stone debris, the thickness varying from
about 40 to 65 cm. The stone wall facings
also varied in thickness, from about 20 to
55 cm. Since the stone walls and facings
have not been preserved to any great
height, it is not clear whether they were
made entirely of stone. Indeed, there are
indications in places that bricks were used
for the upper parts.
The ground was relatively hard
throughout the hermitage — geologically
referred to as 'packed brown sand'1 — and it
is on it, either directly on the floor level or
minimally below it, that the walls and
facings were raised. The only walls to be
given a kind of footing were the ones in the
kitchen (no. 10) and in the oratory (no. 1).
This rock-cut foundation was left sticking
above the floor a dozen plus centimeters.
The sun-dried bricks used in the walls
and facings of the hermitage were of a pale
gray-to-beige color (with a yellowish and
more seldom cream cast), produced from
clay of desert origin. The matrix had a lot
of chaff mixed in. In a few cases, finely
crushed potsherds were also noted. Two
brick sizes have been distinguished. The
bigger bricks (25-27 x 12-14 x 7-8.5 cm)
were used for the lower parts of walls and
facings (fragmentarily preserved), while
the smaller ones (20.5-23 x 10-12 x 6.5-
8.5 cm) were found mostly in the debris
and fill inside the chambers, indicating
their original position in the upper parts of
walls and facings.
The gray and dark gray mud bricks
(25.5-26 x 12-12.5 x 6.5-8 cm) with
sizable chaff content were found solely in

the fill of the chambers and in some of the
smaller features, like thresholds etc., but
never in existing parts of walls.
The third kind of brick, a grayish
variety made of clay of desert origin (24 x
11.5-12 x 7-7.5 m) with some chaff and
crushed pottery, was also found mostly in
the fill.
Baked brick is sporadic, most of the
recorded examples (measuring 22 x 10.5 x
5 cm, 22.5 x 11 x 7.5 cm, 23-24 x 11-12
x 7-8 cm) being single bricks found in the
fill inside the units. The only exception is
the apse and southern pastophory in Room
6, where a sizable number of these bricks
(including the size 23 x 10.5 x 8 cm), as
well as brick fragments, was discovered in
the layers on the floor. These bricks bore
traces of fine gray plaster of clay of desert
origin and very little plant temper. It is
highly probable that this material is the
only surviving evidence of a dismantled
altar mens a.
The stone used in the hermitage was
a local white- and cream-colored conglo-
merate. It took on the form of small and
medium-sized, carelessly dressed chunks.
The principal mortar used in the
hermitage was a pale gray-beige (yellow-
ish) mortar of raw material of desert origin
containing limited quantities of chaff.
Stone and brick were both bonded with it.
Horizontal joints in brickwork used to be
7-12 mm thick. The only case of the use of
a different mortar (gray mud with chaff)
were the baked bricks from the fill in the
apse and southern pastophory in Room 6.
The different kinds of plaster from the
hermitage testify to the attention given the
internal decoration of the complex. The

1 This is a fairly hard, but easily eroded formation, overlying the much harder, typical Naqlun gebel rock of yellow color,
which comes to the surface in a few of the chambers.

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