DOI issue:
Sudan
DOI article:Klimaszewska-Drabot, Edyta: Early Makuria research project: the pottery
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42092#0486
MtoM - MEROWE SHERIQ, TANQASI, ZUMA
SUDAN
of rather poor quality, intended for kitchen
use. Evidence of use is clear with many pots
showing burning and soot as a result of
frequent cooking. Better quality pots are
imitations of wheel-made products. Dating
of these vessels is difficult for lack of more
detailed studies of handmade products from
the Christian and Islamic periods.
Bowls [Fig. 8:1-4] frequently imitate
wheel-made counterparts. The thin walls,
red-slipped inside and outside, are often
additionally burnished and decorated with
painted bands near the rim or incised
ornaments on it.
Cooking pots are very common, burned
secondarily and with traces of soot, which
indicate intensive use. These are most often
pots with small lug handles [Fig. 8:5, 8] or
doki at [Fig. 9], with incised decoration on
the rims and a polished inside surface. Some
pots have impressed ornaments on the outer
surface. The bottoms have an additional
layer of clay applied either with fingers or
some tool on the outside. This feature is
presumed to improve the vessel's heat-
containing properties.
A few fragments of handmade domestic
pots were found, decorated with stamped or
engraved motifs, more seldom painted
decoration.
DISCUSSION
An analysis of the pottery material from the
sites at Merowe Sheriq shows that the fort
and settlement went back to the
Transitional / Early Christian period and
continued to exist through the end of this
period. No occupational layers were
identified in the test pit, the fill was very
mixed and the pottery represented a very
broad chronological horizon. There is much
less material from the Classical period, as if
the character of the settlement had changed.
It surely existed, because the burial ground
is most likely from this period. The later
material is represented even more poorly,
mainly cooking pots. The ruins of the fort
may have been used for habitational
purposes; a house was built there as late as
the Shajqija times (see above, report by
W. Godlewski in this volume).
While the pottery dates the fort to the
Transitional / Early Christian period, the
material used in its construction, as well as
the existence of a well, testifies to longer
occupation, reaching the Kushite period. In
the entire collection there are only two
sherds from a period earlier than Christian,
but they are too fragmentary for more
precise dating. Answers obviously lie in
further excavations of the site.
POTTERY FROM TANQASI
What little pottery material was picked up
from the surface at Tanqasi consisted of
mostly severely eroded nondiagnostic body
sherds. The case was different with the
tumulus Tnq.87 excavated by the mission,
which yielded a disturbed but still
interesting assemblage (for this work and
a general introduction to the Tanqasi site,
see above, report by W. Godlewski in this
volume). The tomb had been plundered in
antiquity and more damage was done
clandestinely during the present work.
However, one of two chambers on the west
side remained intact and in this case we are
dealing with pottery vessels in situ (see
Fig. 8 on p. 472).
483
SUDAN
of rather poor quality, intended for kitchen
use. Evidence of use is clear with many pots
showing burning and soot as a result of
frequent cooking. Better quality pots are
imitations of wheel-made products. Dating
of these vessels is difficult for lack of more
detailed studies of handmade products from
the Christian and Islamic periods.
Bowls [Fig. 8:1-4] frequently imitate
wheel-made counterparts. The thin walls,
red-slipped inside and outside, are often
additionally burnished and decorated with
painted bands near the rim or incised
ornaments on it.
Cooking pots are very common, burned
secondarily and with traces of soot, which
indicate intensive use. These are most often
pots with small lug handles [Fig. 8:5, 8] or
doki at [Fig. 9], with incised decoration on
the rims and a polished inside surface. Some
pots have impressed ornaments on the outer
surface. The bottoms have an additional
layer of clay applied either with fingers or
some tool on the outside. This feature is
presumed to improve the vessel's heat-
containing properties.
A few fragments of handmade domestic
pots were found, decorated with stamped or
engraved motifs, more seldom painted
decoration.
DISCUSSION
An analysis of the pottery material from the
sites at Merowe Sheriq shows that the fort
and settlement went back to the
Transitional / Early Christian period and
continued to exist through the end of this
period. No occupational layers were
identified in the test pit, the fill was very
mixed and the pottery represented a very
broad chronological horizon. There is much
less material from the Classical period, as if
the character of the settlement had changed.
It surely existed, because the burial ground
is most likely from this period. The later
material is represented even more poorly,
mainly cooking pots. The ruins of the fort
may have been used for habitational
purposes; a house was built there as late as
the Shajqija times (see above, report by
W. Godlewski in this volume).
While the pottery dates the fort to the
Transitional / Early Christian period, the
material used in its construction, as well as
the existence of a well, testifies to longer
occupation, reaching the Kushite period. In
the entire collection there are only two
sherds from a period earlier than Christian,
but they are too fragmentary for more
precise dating. Answers obviously lie in
further excavations of the site.
POTTERY FROM TANQASI
What little pottery material was picked up
from the surface at Tanqasi consisted of
mostly severely eroded nondiagnostic body
sherds. The case was different with the
tumulus Tnq.87 excavated by the mission,
which yielded a disturbed but still
interesting assemblage (for this work and
a general introduction to the Tanqasi site,
see above, report by W. Godlewski in this
volume). The tomb had been plundered in
antiquity and more damage was done
clandestinely during the present work.
However, one of two chambers on the west
side remained intact and in this case we are
dealing with pottery vessels in situ (see
Fig. 8 on p. 472).
483