DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49516#0038
18
HARVARD AFRICAN STUDIES
The omdeh, however, lives mostly in his house at Borgeig. Directly east of the settlement,
stands the great ruined mud structure called by the natives “the Lower Deffufa” (i. e., the
lower fortress). This ruin is visible from the rest-house, and on setting out the first morn-
ing for my preliminary inspection of the site, I headed directly for the ruin.
On reaching the top of the embankment built to retain the water in the Kerma Basin,
I saw that this embankment was an artificial interruption of a flat plain which stretched
away eastward to far distant low hills. The plain sloped very gently from the river to a
north-south depression about half a kilometer from the river. Through this depression
ran the road from Abu Fatma to Argo, and it was clearly destined to be the deepest part
of this end of the irrigation basin. From this depression the plain rose gently again with a
slight northward trend to a low eminence four or five kilometers from where I stood on the
embankment. On this eminence, the “Upper Deffufa” was clearly visible with slightly
rising ground to the left of it.
In accordance with the information which I had received from Colonel Jackson1 and
with the visual evidence of the relief of the ground, it was the western part of the plain and
the Lower Deffufa itself which were in the greatest danger of being flooded. It was there-
fore the western part of the plain that demanded immediate investigation.
1 Sir H. W. Jackson.
HARVARD AFRICAN STUDIES
The omdeh, however, lives mostly in his house at Borgeig. Directly east of the settlement,
stands the great ruined mud structure called by the natives “the Lower Deffufa” (i. e., the
lower fortress). This ruin is visible from the rest-house, and on setting out the first morn-
ing for my preliminary inspection of the site, I headed directly for the ruin.
On reaching the top of the embankment built to retain the water in the Kerma Basin,
I saw that this embankment was an artificial interruption of a flat plain which stretched
away eastward to far distant low hills. The plain sloped very gently from the river to a
north-south depression about half a kilometer from the river. Through this depression
ran the road from Abu Fatma to Argo, and it was clearly destined to be the deepest part
of this end of the irrigation basin. From this depression the plain rose gently again with a
slight northward trend to a low eminence four or five kilometers from where I stood on the
embankment. On this eminence, the “Upper Deffufa” was clearly visible with slightly
rising ground to the left of it.
In accordance with the information which I had received from Colonel Jackson1 and
with the visual evidence of the relief of the ground, it was the western part of the plain and
the Lower Deffufa itself which were in the greatest danger of being flooded. It was there-
fore the western part of the plain that demanded immediate investigation.
1 Sir H. W. Jackson.