DOI issue:
Sudan
DOI article:Gazda, Daniel: The monastery church on Kom H in old Dongola after two seasons of excavations in 2006
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42092#0352
OLD DONGOLA
SUDAN
THE MONASTERY CHURCH ON KOM H
IN OLD DONGOLA AFTER TWO SEASONS
OF EXCAVATIONS IN 2006
Daniel Gazda
Fieldwork in the Monastery Church on
Kom H in Old Dongola during two
successive seasons in 20061 concentrated
on clearing the entire length of the
southern aisle of the building and the
chambers in the western end (for earlier
work, cf. Gazda 2003; 2005a; 2005b).
Excavations outside of the building
covered the structure east of the east end of
the church, the graveyard to the southeast
of the church, the courtyard south of the
south entrance to the church and the
passage between the church and the so-
called Central Building (CB) (for this
work, see above, pp. 337 ff.) just north of
the north church entrance [Fig. 1}.
EXCAVATIONS
INSIDE THE CHURCH BUILDING
The southern aisle measured 12.85 by
2.55 m. The south wall, despite extensive
robbing especially in the central section,
could be traced partly as remnants of a foun-
dation and partly as a trench cut in bedrock.
The east wall was sufficiently well preserved
to bear remains of wall painting on mud
plaster - a figure of Christ flanked by
inscriptions of a school character, dated to
the 11th/12th century. The floor of the aisle
was paved with ceramic tiles, much
destroyed and missing in the eastern end; in
the western end the floor showed extensive
evidence of repairs with handy material like
stone slabs, brick and broken tiles.
Otherwise the aisle was completely devoid
of any architectural interior furnishings.
This was not the case of the rooms in the
western end of the church. The north-
western corner room, 3.50 by 3.25 m, was
entered from the northern aisle through
a doorway 0.80 m wide provided with
a stone threshold. The floor in the second
phase consisted of ceramic tiles of the same
kind as elsewhere in the church with
numerous traces of repairs.
From this phase also comes the
exceptional furnishing of this room, not
recorded in any other known Nubian
church. Just inside the entrance on the
right, there was a structure of red brick (the
bricks averaging 34x16x7.5 cm), 0.60 m
deep, 1.50 m long and c. 0.65 m high,
thickly coated (layer up to 2 cm thick) with
waterproof gravel-lime plaster. It was empty
inside with two arched openings at floor
level from the front [Fig. 2}. Traces of
burning lamps once standing on the top
were observed. A red-brick masonry bench,
1 January and November-December 2006, the fifth and sixth season of fieldwork in this structure, supervised by the
present author. The excavations were part of the program of, respectively, the 4lst and 42nd season of the Dongola
excavation project carried out by the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology of the University of VCarsaw (for
a full report of the year's work in the Dongola Monastery, see S. Jakobielski and M. Martens Czarnecka in this volume.
349
SUDAN
THE MONASTERY CHURCH ON KOM H
IN OLD DONGOLA AFTER TWO SEASONS
OF EXCAVATIONS IN 2006
Daniel Gazda
Fieldwork in the Monastery Church on
Kom H in Old Dongola during two
successive seasons in 20061 concentrated
on clearing the entire length of the
southern aisle of the building and the
chambers in the western end (for earlier
work, cf. Gazda 2003; 2005a; 2005b).
Excavations outside of the building
covered the structure east of the east end of
the church, the graveyard to the southeast
of the church, the courtyard south of the
south entrance to the church and the
passage between the church and the so-
called Central Building (CB) (for this
work, see above, pp. 337 ff.) just north of
the north church entrance [Fig. 1}.
EXCAVATIONS
INSIDE THE CHURCH BUILDING
The southern aisle measured 12.85 by
2.55 m. The south wall, despite extensive
robbing especially in the central section,
could be traced partly as remnants of a foun-
dation and partly as a trench cut in bedrock.
The east wall was sufficiently well preserved
to bear remains of wall painting on mud
plaster - a figure of Christ flanked by
inscriptions of a school character, dated to
the 11th/12th century. The floor of the aisle
was paved with ceramic tiles, much
destroyed and missing in the eastern end; in
the western end the floor showed extensive
evidence of repairs with handy material like
stone slabs, brick and broken tiles.
Otherwise the aisle was completely devoid
of any architectural interior furnishings.
This was not the case of the rooms in the
western end of the church. The north-
western corner room, 3.50 by 3.25 m, was
entered from the northern aisle through
a doorway 0.80 m wide provided with
a stone threshold. The floor in the second
phase consisted of ceramic tiles of the same
kind as elsewhere in the church with
numerous traces of repairs.
From this phase also comes the
exceptional furnishing of this room, not
recorded in any other known Nubian
church. Just inside the entrance on the
right, there was a structure of red brick (the
bricks averaging 34x16x7.5 cm), 0.60 m
deep, 1.50 m long and c. 0.65 m high,
thickly coated (layer up to 2 cm thick) with
waterproof gravel-lime plaster. It was empty
inside with two arched openings at floor
level from the front [Fig. 2}. Traces of
burning lamps once standing on the top
were observed. A red-brick masonry bench,
1 January and November-December 2006, the fifth and sixth season of fieldwork in this structure, supervised by the
present author. The excavations were part of the program of, respectively, the 4lst and 42nd season of the Dongola
excavation project carried out by the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology of the University of VCarsaw (for
a full report of the year's work in the Dongola Monastery, see S. Jakobielski and M. Martens Czarnecka in this volume.
349