Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean (19.2007(2010))

MtoM - GHADDAR

SUDAN

the sole exception being Gh.2.9 with a base
surface of 164 m2. The highest of the tumuli
(Gh.2.5) rose 1.40 m above the ground.
Two of the tombs had already been
explored: Gh.2.1 in the northern part by the
Royal Ontario Museum expedition in 1985
(Phillips 1987: 35-41, Figs 1-3, Pis 8-9)
and Gh.2.9 by the Sudan Antiquities Service
in 1990 (El-Tayeb 1994: 73-79). Both were
undisturbed and featured rectangular shafts
drawn out latitudinally and a semicircular
burial chamber on the south side of the shaft
with an entrance blocked by a wall of rough
stone slabs. The dead were buried in
contracted position, on their right side with
the head pointing to the east. Tomb Gh 2.1
preserved some grave goods in the form of
pottery — three handmade bottles, three
wheel-made cups and two also wheel-made
bowls — metal items encompassing four
arrowheads and one knife, and finally,
personal adornments in the form of a silver
earring, a bronze loop and faience beads.
Phillips dated the tomb to the later post-
Meroitic period, rather more likely in the
5th century AD.
The other excavated tumulus, which
contained no grave goods, was surrounded
by Christian graves with their rectangular
mud-brick superstructures laid out in nicely
parallel arrangement (El-Tayeb 1994: 74-79;
Zurawski, El-Tayeb 1994: 297-317). Of the
55 identified graves 29 have now been

mapped. All follow an E-W alingment and
eight of them preserved on their western
sides small square boxes of red brick
intended for either bowls or lamps. In one of
the uncovered graves (no. 33) the body was
laid out at the bottom of a shaft going down
1.50 m, resting on its back and with the head
pointing to the west. The burial shaft had
been sealed with stone slabs from above and
covered with sand.
The Christian graves did not disturb the
integrity of the tumuli. Such manifest
respect for the dead buried in the mounds
testifies to a limited chronological diferen-
tiation in the cemetery and places it around
the time of Makuria’s conversion to Christia-
nity in the middle of the 6th century. The
cups and bowls from Gh.2.9 appear to be
later than the original dating proposed by
Grzymski and Phillips. They are near to
vessels discovered in the tombs at Zuma
(El-Tayeb 2007: 71-85) and FFammur
(Philips, El-Tayeb 2003: 458-462) and can
be attributed to the second half of the 5th or
early 6th century AD. Lamps and bowls
uncovered in the lamp-boxes of the
Christian graves around tumulus Gh.2.9
can be dated to the second half of the
6th century (small deep bowls) and the early
7th century (lamps and shallow bowls).
Analogous pottery material has been
recorded in deposits on the citadel of
Dongola.

EL-GHADDAR 1 — SOUTHERN CEMETERY

The southern burial field located to the
southeast of Gebel Ghaddar (Gh.l -
ROM 4) extends for over 800 m measured
from north to south and is 3.5 km away
from the citadel in Dongola. In 1985,
the tumuli count was estimated at 120-150,
in 1990 at no less than 200. In 2007,
158 tumuli could still be mapped and

recorded [Fig. 3]. The cemetery has been
damaged by encroaching architecture; some
of the tombs have already been cut by the
foundation trenches of modern houses and
bricks from the ancient structures are
regularly salvaged for modern building.
Dirt roads passing through the site have
caused additional damages.

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Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean 19, Reports 2007