Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean (5.1993(1994))

THE POTTERY FROM NAQLUN, 1993
by Tomasz Gorecki
Most of the pottery recorded at Naqlun in 1993 came from
the debris filling rooms in the II.DB complex (rooms D18-D22) as
well as from the area of the courtyard D15 and the fill above
I.DB.1 2 Except for a group of damaged but relatively well pre-
served vessels from D21 and another group of smashed pots in the
fill above I.DB, the remaining pottery finds were scattered over the
entire area of DI8, D19 and D22.
Of the greatest importance for the chronology of the
assemblage is a group of vessels discovered lying in the lowermost
layers of the debris filling D21. It is also of the highest value from
the ceramographic point of view. The position in which the pots
were found indicate that they had all been thrown into the room
before the space was filled with debris. The group is made up of
6 wine containers, 2 qawwadis, 2 water bottles and the lower part
of a lamp or lantern stand.
The wine containers (Fig. 1) are bag-shaped vessels made
of Nile silt and decorated with one or two horizontal white-painted
bands.On four of the bottles there is a combed decoration on
the white band: a wavy line in between two horizontal lines. The

1 Report on the pottery finds from Korn D in 1992: T. Gorecki, Deir
el-Naqlun 1992: The pottery, PAM IV, 1992 (1993), pp.53-64.
2
Bottles of a similar shape were also found during archaeological
excavations at Fustat according to Prof. W. Kubiak who is preparing a
publication of the pottery from this site. The bottles from Fustat are dated to the
10^-early 11^ century.

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