Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean (8.1996(1997))

ALEXANDRIA

KOM EL-DIKKA
ISLAMIC FINDS - STOREHOUSES SURVEY 1995/96
Wladysiaw B. Kubiak
with contribution of Malgorzata Redlak
The first stage of a new project aimed at publishing the
medieval finds from Alexandria contrives to assess the artifacts and
the records made in the course of the Polish excavations on Kom
el-Dikka, that is, since 1960, and generally prepare the material for
further study and eventual publication. The team worked within
the Polish Mission in Alexandria from November 1995 through
January 1996.1
The medieval artifacts from the site have never been
systematically studied nor considered in a broader historical context.
Material has remained imperfectly classified and recorded mainly in
the site's registers, photographic files, field diaries, architectural
drawings (the most satisfactory of all) and occasional additional
notes and accounts. Except for the anthropological material from
three superimposed Muslim cemeteries (which has been studied
successively and professionally published), few other categories of
finds have received similar methodical treatment. This was certainly
due not to a lack of interest or appreciation of their value but rather
to absence of qualified staff of Islamic archaeologists.
At Kom el-Dikka in the Islamic period, the site served
alternately as a burial ground and a dump for urban refuse. Whether

1 The team was made up of Malgorzata Redlak, specialist in Islamic art,
staff member of the National Museum in Warsaw Gallery of Oriental Art, and
Dr. Wladysiaw Kubiak, professor of Islamic archaeology at Warsaw University.
Both are well acquainted with the site through frequent visits, while Kubiak was
also head of the Polish mission to Kom el-Dikka in 1963-1966 and had
supervised the Islamic material excavated at other sites for some years before
that.

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