No Lions in the Delta: Tell el-Muqdam 1995

Carol A. Redmount
Renee F. Friedman

The Tell el-Muqdam Project/Leontopolis Expedition continued its work in the Egyptian Delta between March 18 and July 7, 1995. The project is co-directed by Drs. Redmount and Friedman; funding was provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Irving and Gladys Stahl Foundation, and private donations. The 1995 season at Tell el-Muqdam was our most successful to date, thanks mostly due to the foundations laid by our prior research at the site in 1992 and 1993.

Excavations at Camel Station this season were able to resolve many of our questions about the history of the area. Four major architectural and chronological phases, along with several sub-phases, of a wealthy domestic complex were discerned ranging over about 350 years (Saite, Persian and early Ptolemaic periods, or approximately 6th to 3rd centuries B.C.). The degree of architectural preservation was surprisingly good. This year we were also rewarded with a large number of well-preserved artifacts which are of particular importance because their archaeological context is secure. Finds included several faience amulets of gods such as Taweret, Mihos (the first lion find to come from the site, despite its Greek name of Leontopolis, or 'City of the Lions'), Bes and Nefertum, many terra-cotta figurines, faience pilgrims' flasks, dozens of complete pots and three imported Greek vessels, one of which bears the red-figure decoration of a female sphinx sitting in front of a tree.

The latest phase of occupation at Camel Station consisted of a metal-smelting complex, apparently Ptolemaic in date (early 3rd century B.C.). The earliest excavated material included over a meter of destruction debris extending down to (and below) the water table, 3.30m below surface. This destruction dates to the early Saite period (early 6th century B.C.). The earlier of the intermediate phases dated to the 5th century B.C. and consisted of a thick, purposeful fill used to level off the area for rebuilding. This fill consisted of masses of pottery, ash, animal carcasses, and other occupational debris. Particularly puzzling was the remarkable degree of organic preservation: butchered portions of goat carcasses were found with their bones still articulated and flesh and skin still adhering; one goat head was so well preserved that the lips and eyelids were still visible. Equally surprising was the large number of reconstructible vessels, dating to the 5th century B.C., in the fill, including the Greek red-figured sphinx juglet mentioned above. The later intermediate phase was composed of more mundane domestic deposits, specifically a series of rooms and adjacent courtyards, at least one of which functioned as a kitchen (first excavated in 1992). Two small, possibly subterranean rooms appear to have been used as storage closets; these were filled with dozens of complete and reconstructible pots which were found lining the edges of the room. Beneath the mudbrick paving of a larger room were found a number of items, such as wadjet eye amulets and erotic figurines. The latter included eight terra-cotta figurines of nude men playing tambourines, all clearly made from the same mold. Interestingly, at least other two erotic figurines, one horse and rider figurine, several amulets and other terra-cotta figurines were found within walls, often near the corners in the lowest courses of bricks, and may have served as foundation deposits. Other finds from this phase included two imported black-glazed juglets from Greece, datable to the 4th century B.C. and a jug perhaps imported from the Levant.

The 1995 excavations at Qasr Station concentrated on exposing as much architecture as possible in order to figure out exactly what type of building we had first uncovered during the 1993 excavation season. This structure had been initially (and, as it turned out, very wrongly) identified as a monumental structure on the basis of its thick walls and the minimal, solidly-filled, interior spaces that we first thought were casemates. In order to maintain vertical control over the area, we complemented our broad horizontal exposure with an adjacent test trench cut down to the water table, some 4.5m below surface level.

A total of thirteen 5mx5m squares were investigated at Qasr Station, and what we found in the end was a fragment of a neighborhood dating to the late fifth century B.C. (Persian Period). Portions of at least seven houses were exposed, including part of an ancient "fourplex". All the structures had thick walls and tiny rooms that were filled up with very solid, bricky debris and little else (which is why we originally thought they were casemates). These houses are not unlike those present today in the modern village of Kafr Muqdam and probably belonged to people from a similar socio-economic stratum. We also found parts of the streets and alleyways that separated the various structures. Very little was found in the houses themselves, which appear to have been cleaned out before being abandoned, but the streets and alleys produced an enormous amount of cultural material, including partially reconstructible pots and faience vessels, bone and charcoal, a series of three small terra-cotta snake plaques, an occasional erotic figurine, both male and female, beads, and a series of amulets.

It is interesting at this point to compare and contrast the quantity and quality of finds at Camel and Qasr Stations dating to the fifth century B.C. Camel Station produced large quantities of "goodies"-over 100 reconstructible or whole pots, including many imports; small bronze figurines; numerous terra-cotta figurines; many amulets and beads; and so forth- all from what appears to be one large domestic structure. Qasr Station, on the other hand, consisted of a series of smaller domestic structures which contained very little in the way of objects. Clearly we are in two very different economic zones of the ancient city.

At the end of excavations, only a 1m wide balk separated Qasr Station Test Trench B from the main Qasr Station excavation area. The test trench was a 2mx2m "telephone booth" excavated down to the water table approximately 4.5m below the surface. This trench with its vertical stratigraphy gave us a window into changes in the area over time. These can be summarized as follows: the bottom portion of the test trench consisted of an approximately 2.6m deep deposit of a continuous cultural sequence dating from the late Third Intermediate and early Saite Periods (7th to early 6th centuries B.C.), with over a meter of material from each time period preserved. There was then an occupational hiatus for the remainder of the 6th century B.C., after which occupation resumed in the area during the 5th century B.C. The 5th century B.C. material, which consisted of almost 2m of deposit, spanned the entire century and was the latest occupation preserved at Qasr Station.

During the 1995 season we also continued our geoarchaeological research into the site, reprising our program of augur coring and developing a preliminary mudbrick classification for the site. The coring program is providing us with a variety of basic information about the tell, including early landform data. Cores were taken at both Camel and Qasr Stations and elsewhere to see what lay beneath the water table. Thus far we have found no evidence of occupation earlier than the Third Intermediate Period, and all but one of the core have indicated that the current tell was founded on top of water-related sediments, either reflecting fast-water accumulations (sand and gravel deposits), or slow or still water deposits (mud and muck). It thus appears that if there was an earlier occupation at the site it lies elsewhere, and the site appears to have moved over time with the shifting water courses of the area.
Conclusions

The Tell el-Muqdam Project has been breaking new ground and making major contributions in Egyptian archaeology on several fronts. First, the project has brought about new understanding, both culturally and geoarchaeologically, of a neglected and endangered major site, about which virtually nothing was known previously, located in an under explored region of Egypt (the central Delta). Second, the site has well preserved archaeological deposits dating to a time period-mid-first millennium B.C.-that is poorly understood and has been consistently under investigated in Egyptian archaeology. For the first time, various objects (such as the erotic figurines) previously known primarily from museum displays or tomb or problematic archaeological contexts can be related back securely to their living cultural setting. The settlement plans uncovered to date represent a fundamental addition to the extremely limited corpus of Persian period architecture known from Egypt. Specifically, the combination of houses and streets will help provide badly needed information on the layout and organization of domestic structures in Dynasty 27. And the stratified ceramic sequence for the site will provide an unparalleled reference corpus for Delta sites for the inadequately understood 7th to 4th centuries B.C. Indeed, our corpus will most likely be the standard reference collection for the relevant time periods for many years to come. Finally, our geoarchaeological investigations are contributing to a holistic understanding of the tell and its development, an approach very rarely employed previously in Egyptian archaeology. The pilot coring program is helping us understand the environmental development of the tell over time and its relationship to cultural activities.