Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean (9.1997(1998))

courtyard (A. 102). The house, which was actually more of
a guardhouse, was constructed as part of a general rebuilding of the
northwestern comer of the fortifications. It is noteworthy that the
soldiers stationed in the building still used wheel-made pottery,
both tableware and storage vessels, that can be linked with the
Terminal Christian Period. A similar house was discovered on the
top of the northeastern bastion.6 The foundation fill of House A. 101
(deposits above the mined staircase of House A. 105) yielded an
ostracon with a Greek text which Dr. Adam Lajtar7 has been able to
identify as the beginning of Psalm 26. The paleography of the text
and its dependence on Old Nubian corresponds to the chronology
of the layer in which it was found, and permits a date at the turn of
the 13th century and perhaps even the beginning of the 14th century.
It is, thus, one of the latest Greek texts to be found in Dongola and
indeed in all of Nubia. It should be remembered that the Tower
Church,8 which was uncovered in 1995 superimposed on top of one
of the central bastions of the northern line of the fortifications, was
undoubtedly still in use in the 14th century.

6 W. Godlewski, Old Dongola Town Fortifications , 1993, PAM V, 1994 (1995), 131,
fig-2.
A. Lajtar, Psalm 22,1-2 nebst der invocatio Dei auf einem Ostracon aus Alt-Dongola
(Sudan), JJP XXVII, 1997, in press.
8 W. Godlewski, Old Dongola. Kom A 1995, PAM VII, 1996 (1997), pp. 114-117.

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