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Mahasna and Bet Khallaf
[Published in 1903 for the Egyptian Research Account by Bernard Quaritch in London.]
CHAPTER I.
Introduction 1-4
Sections 5-8:
1. The season and site of work.
2. Boundaries to the district explored.
3. Special indications; Alawniyeh.
4.The necropolis of Mahasna.
5. Main results of its excavation.
6. One elaborately furnished tomb.
7. Exploration continued northward; the Der at Bet Khallaf.
8. Real nature of the structure; a great tomb of the Illrd Dynasty.
9. Architectural features; the earliest arch.
10. Other neighbouring tombs.
11. The step-pyramid at Saqqara.
12. The traditional burial-place of Neter-Khet.
13. The tomb of Neter-Rhet.—Bibliography.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION [with plates 1 and 2].
1.
The present volume deals with the results of excavations made for the
Egyptian Research Account during the season 1900-1901, from the end of
November to the beginning of May. It had been arranged by the Director
that the exploration should proceed from near the scene of the previous
season's work at Abydos over the desert lying immediately to the north.
The camp was fixed in the open desert south of the village of Mahasna,
not far from a walled village (originally a large garden enclosure)
called the Maslahet-Harun, at a point where some partly cleared tombs
of the Old Kingdom disclosed the presence of a cemetery not completely
plundered.
Fig.1: Map of Egypt, showing the location of Abydos in Upper Egypt..
2. The scene of work was marked off on the south by
the northern boundary to the bay of Abydos—a great headland which
reaches down almost to the cultivation near the village of Alawniyeh.
From here, after trending north-west, the hills again break away
westward so sharply that above the village of Mahasna the lower desert
is nearly six miles wide. The surface is not all even, being broken in
its western half by a series of foothills fringing a small plateau.
North of Mahasna, above the village called Ilg, the conformation
becomes more regular; and the Libyan hills, curving inwards, narrow the
desert to three or four miles (some six kilometres). At this point the
surface lies unbroken, and the stretch of waste sand is wide and
impressive. Just to the north, however, above the village of Bet
Khallaf, where the hills again fall westward behind a still wider bay,
the desert assumes a new character. It is caused by a series of
sand-dunes and pebbly mounds, for the most part unconnected yet lying
in curious symmetry, which reach down to within two miles of the
cultivated land. It is here that the northern limit to the season's
work was reached.
The region examined was thus some ten miles
in length, embracing the villages of Alawniyeh on the one hand and of
Bet Khallaf on the other, with El Mahasna about its centre, and with
the smaller settlements at Bet Allam, the Maslahet Harun, Bet and Ilg,
intervening along its edge. The more accessible portions of this
stretch of desert, where it abuts upon the cultivation, or is of level
or merely undulating surface, were examined with some care; but the
portions of it on the west that are broken by low hills were not
explored systematically. The wildness and isolation of the district
would have required more time for its exploration than could have been
spared from the work in hand. A cave-tomb, found half way up the face
of the further cliffs above the village of Alawniyeh, apparently of
Roman date, was the only result of following up many stories brought by
local people.
Plate 1: Map showing survey area in 1900-1901.
Near to Alawniyeh, just above the houses
clustered together as Bet Allam, were traces of a prehistoric cemetery
already much disturbed. It proved to be a small site, almost completely
plundered; nevertheless some interesting objects of pottery and flint
were found in the few tombs that remained, with a sufficient quantity
of the more ordinary types to enable its character and date to be
determined. Meanwhile, in the middle of the site first fixed upon
between El Mahasna and the Maslahet Harun, great numbers of worked
flints and some domestic pottery indicated the presence of a Settlement
also of the prehistoric period. A great downpour of rain helped
materially to define its area and suggest the lines for its excavation.
It was almost in the centre of the cemetery, between (and for the most
part avoided by) tombs of the IVth and Vlth Dynasties. Its houses had
been constructed of wicker, or, more probably, of "wattle and daub,"
and in a few cases their stouter piles remained in position to show how
they had been arranged. The spot they covered was small; but the
flint-strewn area was much larger, reaching southward along the
desert-edge, in a strip (p.2) two to three hundred feet wide, beyond
the confines of the cemetery, and thus partly disturbed by the tombs
placed there in the early dynasties. For the purpose of defining these
better preserved portions of the settlement they have been accorded
different letters according to their positions in the general plan of
the site on Pl.2.
Plate 2: Maps showing areas of tombs excavated in 1900-1901.
4. The tombs of this cemetery were for the
most part of the period between the Old and Middle Kingdoms; yet the
earlier dynasties were also represented. The excavation when completed
showed remarkably how the cemetery had spread slowly and consistently
northward through a long sequence of years. Its earliest tombs must
date back to the early Ilnd or perhaps the 1st Dynasty. These had been
already excavated (it was said by De Morgan), but they were re-opened
to verify their dates and character. It was found that they formed the
southern limit to the cemetery. A few uninstructive and plundered
pit-tombs led on to some characteristic graves of the IVth-VIth
Dynasties, bordering upon the knoll on which the prehistoric settlement
had formerly stood. There were found in them some stone bowls and small
objects of art characteristic of the period. The knoll itself was
devoid of tombs: possibly the character of its sand had been unsuitable
for sinking shafts, or perhaps the ruins of the former habitations had
still remained conspicuous obstacles, and so caused it to be avoided.
Beyond, in a small valley to the north, tombs of the Vlth and later
Dynasties were plentiful, and spread over the farther rise to the
number of several hundred, all undisturbed. With the Xlth Dynasty they
came to an end. It does not appear that this was the necropolis of any
large or important town, but rather the burying place of some small
village or villages, which then, as now, rose here and there in the
cultivation, built and rebuilt upon the ruins of the past.
5.
The tombs of the later period yielded little, though they were numerous
and undisturbed. The same feature has been noticeable in other sites of
the same date wherever they have been examined. This general poverty
and rudeness of the known works of this period between the Vlth and
Xlth Dynasties, while it provides a marked contrast, is seemingly not
to be attributed to any real change of burial custom. The reason must
rather be seen in a general depression of art and artistic sense, the
products of which in those brighter ages found their way into the
graves of the time. Thus the excavation of these tombs, following upon
those of the Old Kingdom, was useful in supplying further evidence of
local detail, shewing how a small and presumably average rural district
of the ancient country was beset by the same depression and decline as
seem to have prevailed in general during this period throughout the
whole of Egypt. Archaeologically, too, this period provides a unique
interest, in the small "button seals," glazed or of worked stone, which
(with the increasing number of preserved specimens) are attracting a
corresponding increase of attention. Twenty-eight were found in this
excavation in their original position upon the bodies. With women, they
were mere pendants, attached to a necklet of beads or other trinkets
that adorned them; but with men they always occurred singly, suspended
from the neck or attached to a finger of the left hand. The designs
upon them are always symmetric, often geometric and conventional; yet
no two from this site were alike, nor are any strictly the same as
those existing in private collections with which they have been
compared. They were almost certainly signets.
6. Apart from
these objects, the period yields nothing comparable in interest to the
small objects of art, jewels, and pendants, that characterise the IVth,
Vth and Vlth Dynasties. The furniture of one rich burial of the Old
Kingdom from Mahasna (No. 104) was chosen entire by the Government for
exhibition in the Museum at Cairo. It comprises, among its larger
objects, thirteen vessels of alabaster and hard stones, finely wrought
and of delicate finish, an alabaster head-rest, with fluted column upon
a plain base and square abacus, and a mirror of copper. Its beads are
chiefly carnelian, glaze and gold, with a pendent carnelian centre. But
the chief feature of the deposit is a long chain necklet of gold, of
remarkable fineness and finish, each link delicately welded, in the
manner in which each link is doubled through the two loops of that
which precedes it in the chain. Other objects of good quality were
found, and are pictured in the plates. They do not, for the most part,
establish any new archaeological types. In the village of Mahasna
itself were found some traces of a former burying place. A tomb in the
road, revealed by the falling in of the surface, yielded some good
pieces of red polished pottery of the Old Kingdom. A few other tombs
were either difficult of access or unsafe to dig; many must have been
built over by an arm of the village; the search in other accessible
places around was devoid of result.
7. Work having reached this
stage by the end of (p.3) January, it was decided after consultation
with the Director to make an examination of a large brick structure
standing prominently in the desert above the village of Bet Khallaf. It
was already a feature well known, conspicuous for miles around: it had
been thought by some to be a fortress of the Old Kingdom; by others to
be of Greek date; the Arabs themselves had sanctified it with the name
of a Der. It had thus escaped plunder and serious attention. From
above, it might well have been taken for a walled enclosure full of
rubbish. But the filling was by no means of the nature of blown sand:
it was desert gravel mixed with large stones, themselves evidence that
the filling was not the work of nature.
8. A few days' work
sufficed to show that it was not a building of known kind, but it was
some weeks before its unique character became finally apparent.
Meanwhile the clearing away of some accumulated rubbish on the eastern
side had revealed a stairway, which had been anciently filled up and
bricked over to conceal its existence. Following this down somewhat
laboriously through hardened Nile-mud, the steps were found one after
another laden with alabaster vessels and tables of offerings, wine-jars
and pottery, all of an early date. The usual caps of mud on these jars
were found to be sealed with the royal name of Neter-Khet, and bore the
names of his officials, vineyards, palaces, etc.
It then became evident
that at last it was possible to identify a royal tomb of the IIIrd
Dynasty—a discovery which dates the beginning of any definite
archaeological history of that period. The prevailing motive of the
time was soon made plain; it is what might have been looked for at the
beginning of the Pyramid Age. The striving after great size and
massive, even ponderous, effect, was to be seen alike in the
construction of the tomb as in the nature of the offerings and
monuments in general. The cylindrical vases of alabaster, for example,
which were found upon the steps, were solid, weighty, and roughly (but
not rudely) made. Their mere numbers were astonishing; each step had
been piled up until it could contain no more. On successive steps were
seventeen, eleven, thirteen, and so on, as well as alabaster tables in
similar profusion. The total removed from the whole stairway was nearly
eight hundred. Towards the bottom the numbers decreased, while the
quality improved. The fragmentary condition in which the objects were
found, however, suggested that here they had been crushed by the
settling down of a great slab of stone, which, though not remaining in
its place, was shown to have been one of a series of doors designed to
guard the approach to the burial chamber.
9. Turning at the
foot of this stairway southward under an arch, the passage began to
descend steeply below the desert. It was stopped at intervals by
massive stones of increasing heights, and from eight to thirteen tons
in weight. The shafts by which these had been anciently dropped into
position were dug out in succession. The last of all gave access to the
chambers. It was eighty-seven feet deep from the surface of the
Mastaba; and for fifty-four feet its sides were unprotected by brick,
being sunk through the desert gravel. The stone at the bottom of the
shaft which covered the chamber door was seventeen feet in height; and
fortunately of width sufficient to allow a small hole to be made below
its centre to get access to the chambers within. A short passage still
descending led down to them, at a total depth of ninety-one feet below
the summit of the tomb. There were eighteen chambers leading out from
the central passage in somewhat bewildering fashion. A large
stone-walled room in the centre had been the burial place. Its walls
had been broken and its floor torn up: some bones of a man lay broken
and scattered-. Vessels of offerings by hundreds, and pottery, lay
piled in heaps or strewn about in confusion. Two Roman Amphorae above
the debris revealed the plunderers. After making trial attempts in
every likely place, these, most skilful of all tomb robbers, had
descended by means of a hole so small that the workmen had declared it
to be the work of a jackal.
10. Meanwhile, examination of the
tract around had disclosed the existence of other tombs similar in
character and design. The largest of these, a little way to the north,
disclosed another royal name, as yet unidentified, which may be read
variously, Hen- Nekht, Hen-Khet, or with Professor Sethe, Sa-Nekht; a
fragment, which may be part of a cartouche oval (the earliest
recorded), is unhappily not capable of restoration. Other tombs proved
to be those of servants of Neter-Khet: and a fifth one of some size and
magnificence, lying to the east, was that of a Ha-Prince during the
same reign.
11. The step-pyramid at Saqqara having long been
reputed to be the burial place of Neter-Khet, it may be well to look
briefly into the origin of this tradition. It will probably be
sufficient to recite briefly a few facts, some new, and some old but
forgotten.
In the first place the Pyramid was entered by (p.4)
Minutoli, who recorded his observations in 1824. After lamenting the
loss of some fragments of alabaster and hard-stone, amongst other
objects observed, he related that he secured a small portion of the
broken pieces of a valuable mummy, " doubtless the remains of the
prince who was buried there " (ohne Zweifel die Reste des hier
beigesetzten Fiirsten). In this one sentence, as it will be seen, lies
the foundation of the tradition. Its quotation is sufficient for the
present purpose; but it is of interest to notice that the burial
described in the ensuing context, with its gilded head and feet-soles,
which he regarded as that of the prince, was probably of the later
dynastic or even Ptolemaic period; and that there is neither evidence
nor indication of a burial of the early dynasties.
In the
second place, there exists a doorway of glazed tiles, bearing a name
identified with Neter- Khet. It came from within the pyramid, and is
now at Berlin. Opinion is divided as to its date. Dr. Borchardt, after
a detailed examination, drawing his evidences from the material, its
construction, fixing, the characters upon it, and the forms of the
hieroglyphs, decided that it was certainly of the XXVIth Dynasty. Yet
in view of recent discoveries in early tombs, it is to be admitted (as
did Dr. Borchardt at the time he wrote) that the point is at least open
to reconsideration. Some archaeologists believe that the door-frame in
the main is of date contemporary, or nearly so, with the inception of
the Pyramid; while some who have examined it see signs of restoration
on the lintel upon which the name is inscribed.
12. However
that may be, sufficient has been made clear to account for the
tradition. It is embodied in these two facts, stripped clean of their
later growths; the one, that the first observer believed he had seen
signs of a royal burial within the Pyramid; the other, that later
observers believed they had found evidence that Neter-Khet was builder
of the Pyramid. It was perhaps not unnatural, without other evidences,
for still later observers to think as a result that Neter-Khet was
buried at Saqqara; and so the tradition grew until it was believed, and
mythlike assumed to itself, with time and neglect, the similitude of a
fact. It is needless to recall the many theories that have been built
and rebuilt upon this slender foundation. All that is proved in this
respect with regard to the step-pyramid at Saqqara, upon actual
evidence, is that its origin was traditionally ascribed to a king now
reasonably identified with Neter-Khet, and that this tradition was at
least as old as the XXVIth Dynasty: and further, that when the pyramid
was entered a number of burials were found within, all of which seem to
have been later than the XXVIth Dynasty. Archaeology agrees readily
that the date of the pyramid may well have been of the IIIrd Dynasty;
but it cannot admit, however much the literature on the subject be
sifted and searched, that there exists at the present time any real
evidence to show that an early royal burial was placed within the
pyramid. There is sufficient analogy to show that a king was by no
means necessarily buried in the pyramid he had constructed.
13.
On the other hand, at Bet Khallaf this great tomb of the IIIrd Dynasty
stands unique in character and size, not far from the royal burial
place of the earlier dynasties and from the site of ancient This. It is
attended by tombs, also large and imposing, of the chief officials of
this king, while the tomb of another king of the same age is close by
it to the north. A great necropolis of the same period, as it appears
from more recent excavations, is separated from it by a short distance
only. Its stairways were concealed and its passages guarded by enormous
stones. Its superstructure stands thirty feet or more clear of the
desert, and its burial chamber lay nearly a hundred feet below the top.
Precautions more extensive and more elaborate than in any earlier royal
tomb had been taken to guard against robbery and to preserve the
security of the remains. The bones found within attested the burial of
one man; there was no suggestion of a second or a later burial, the
character of the tomb almost precluded the possibility. The thousand
offerings, many of them sealed with the royal and official names of
Neter- Khet, bore out in detail the analogy afforded as to the
tomb-furniture of the early kings by the royal cemetery at Abydos. The
absence of some particular object familiar in the earlier tombs is to
be attributed to a possible change of custom rather than to other
causes: there is here the unique instance of the tomb of a king with
its contents almost complete, unmixed with later offerings.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
1824. Minutoli: Reise zum Tenipel des Jupiter Ammon (p.298, etc.).
1829. Perring: The Pyramids of Gizek, III. (PI. XII.).
1839. Valeriani and Segato: Atlante Monumentale del Basso e delP Alto Egitto, Torao I. (PI. 37 A-D).
1849. Lepsius: Denkmaler, II. (i. and text).
1891-2. Borchardt: Zeitschrift (p. 83). Also 1898.
CHAPTER II.
THE PRE-DYNASTIC SITES,
(a) The Cemetery at Alawniyeh.
14.
It has already been mentioned in the opening chapter that near the
village of Alawniyeh, some two miles to the south of the site selected
for the camp, the remains of a ransacked prehistoric burying place were
found. The graves had been placed somewhat thickly on the northern
slope of a slight incline that stretches out from Bet Allam to the
desert. They may have numbered originally some two or three hundred,
but there remained to be examined only about forty-five of them, hidden
for the most part by the sand thrown out from those which had been
plundered. Of these the half were uninstructive, but about twenty were
recorded in detail. With so small a number it would have been difficult
to have established any new conclusion, had the graves been unusual;
but they proved to be characteristic of an early period in the
prehistoric scale, without marked deviation from the established types.
The importance of this little site, as it appears, is its proximity and
relation to the prehistoric settlement lying amid the tombs of nearer
Mahasna.
The burials lay in contracted positions, with
heads to the south, and, with two exceptions, on the left side. The
arrangement of surrounding objects presented no features unusual to the
period, which has been profusely illustrated by the excavations of
Professor Petrie, Mr. Quibell, Mr. Mace and Mr. Randall-Maclver.
15.
Some few objects found in these graves, however, from special causes,
are worthy of separate mention, and are pictured on Pls.3 and 4.
Chief among them is a four-legged dish, of which side and top views are
given in the upper photographs of Pl.3-1 and -2. The dish itself is oval in
outline ; the legs seem to have been separately made and attached, and
the whole then baked together. The pottery is dark and of good surface,
the interior decoration being in light yellow. It is a design of human
figures and animals, with other portions which may be merely
ornamental. It may be compared with that numbered 24A on Pl.25 of
Professor Petrie's Naqada and Ballas. This object was found in a grave
which had already been partly robbed, the burial itself being broken
and disturbed. There remained, however, a pot of type 22A, Class B,
which is accredited with a range of 31-52 in the scale of Sequence
Dates.
Of more importance was the deposit of fragile clay
models, pictured lower down on this same plate (pl.3-4). Though in some cases
broken, and in others scattered, it was fortunately possible to recover
the forms of some of these models of flint implements and human
figures. By comparing the models of doubly-barbed flint arrows with the
actual weapons from the neighbouring settlement, shown in the adjoining
photograph, any doubt that may have existed as to the real prehistoric
character of these implements is finally removed. The other object
found in the remains of this interesting tomb, was the slate marked N.
209 on Pl. IV, possibly a shuttle.
16. In view of the
few graves left for examination in this small cemetery at Alawniyeh, it
was a matter for satisfaction that its relative position in the
predynastic date scale could be fixed with some certainty. From a
number of graves, pots and groups of pottery were recovered, which,
when tabulated on the system of Professor Petrie, gave the following
results, selecting for tabulation here, however, only those tombs
containing large groups :
Tomb 200 S.D. 36-38
Tomb 202 S.D. 33-46
Tomb 204 S.D. 32-44
Tomb 210 S.D. 34-40
Tomb 212 S.D. 33-47
Tomb 219 S.D 34-56
Tomb 229 S.D. 36-43
Central date . 36-38
(b) The Pre-dynastic Settlement near Mahasna.
17.
In the plan shown on Pl.2, the site lying to the south of Mahasna is
arbitrarily divided into four portions, suggested by the contour of the
ground : these are marked M 1 . . . . 4. It was in the portion M 2 that
the remains of an early settlement were chiefly noticeable : hence it
is called S 2. Another portion lying to the south of the division M 1
is referred to separately as S 1, though, as will be seen, it was
probably attached to the former—indeed, the two portions may have been
part of a continuous village.
Between them, as was
mentioned in the opening chapter, lie tombs of the early dynastic ages.
In the vicinity of S 2 they become partly discontinuous, but whether
from unsuitability of the subsoil or from visible obstacle is not
clear. It seems certain, however, that the confines of the settlement
were (p.6)encroached upon, from objects found (apparently as they had
been left) in undisturbed patches lying between the tombs. But in most
places the further indications were unreliable, the traces having been
scattered by the constant turning over of the sand.
17b.
The ground itself was darker than the desert around, an appearance
caused by the mixing of the sand with dust of a dark colour. The same
effect can be secured experimentally by grinding to powder bricks or
hard pieces of Nile mud, and mixing with sand in sufficient quantity.
If the amount of dust is small, a greater contrast with pure sand can
be gained by sprinkling with water. It is a matter of common experience
that the presence of underground tombs, when built of brick, may often
be detected by the character and colour of the desert just below the
surface. This darker earth is well known to the natives, who find it
excellent ground from which to sift the sebakJi required for
agricultural purposes, as they do from ancient town mounds. On this
account it is difficult to secure for excavation the site of a
settlement that has not been more or less disturbed ; the examination
of such a spot would be in any case a minute process, but its
difficulties become extreme when the disturber has been at work. It is
like the attempt to trace the lines of a camp that has been moved in
fields turned over by the plough.
18. In the present case,
a mound that superficially looked promising was found to have been
thoroughly trenched and sifted by the sebakhin. A small flat area
adjoining it, however, remained in better condition. Pottery of the
pre-dynastic character was common; fragments lay strewn thickly about,
while more rarely was to be seen " black-topped " pottery, or an
occasional piece decorated with white lines of the kinds familiar in
the tombs. Among the cases in which these were found there was little
indication that this pottery had been in use ; on the contrary, it
seemed to have been carefully deposited, in some cases buried, where it
lay. In type it corresponded exactly with the period of the pots found
in the neighbouring cemetery at Alawniyeh. More interesting, and more
common, were the domestic pots, large and small, which were found in
the various places noted in the plan. Some of them had been used for
storing, but the black traces of fire clinging to the majority
indicated that they had been used for cooking purposes. The bones of
fish and small animals and pieces of crocodile hide were not uncommon.
In one place only a majur, or large earthenware vessel, was found,
inverted but empty. Among other small objects found are those shown in
the upper photograph on Pl. V. On the left hand is a small stone
vessel, of excellent work, fashioned in the form of a seated frog. The
limbs are faithfully delineated, but the photograph shows the effect
poorly. On the right are some mace-heads and fragments of them, pieces
of characteristic stone vases, a polished " celt," and some small round
objects (generally of pottery) pierced with a hole, hence probably
spinning-whorls.
It is thus seen that the indications of a
settlement were plentiful; but the main features of interest connected
with early village communities—their choice of site, their habitations,
their social relations and domestic conditions—are problems waiting to
be solved. It is only possible, in this instance, to illustrate one or
two features from a new point of view.
19. The position
chosen for the settlement was a prominent rise in the sandy desert at
the present edge of the cultivated lands. There can be no certainty
that this was also the ancient limit to the annual inundation, but the
steepness of the desert edge just at this point indicates the action of
water. Considering all things, it seems probable that there was at this
place some quantity of water, probably stagnant. Around the northern
side (Pl. II.) a considerable valley breaks through the sands. It has
presumably been formed by water, but at what age it is impossible to
say. It is at least older than the middle empire tombs built in it. A
similar valley bounds the southern limit to the portion S 1, while the
two portions called S 1 and S 2 are separated by a less marked
depression. To the west the situation is wholly exposed to the wide
desert, of which it commands a view.
Plate 4a: Plan of prehistoric settlement S2 in Mahasna site M2.
20.
The indications of
dwellings are enigmatical. In the part S2 there were found the remains
of some wood-piles arranged in some system, and between them the
abundant traces of small twigs intertwined and of powdered mud. There
can be little hesitation then in saying that the essentials of the
shelter were provided by a " wattle and daub" construction. A
difficulty then arises as to the arrangement. In the sketch plan on
Pl.4a, the position of all the piles found within that area is
indicated.
A pencil line drawn through the numbers 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 25, 13, 24,
in succession, reveals the curious fact that only two sides of any
rooms are represented in the plan. The same effect occurs with 29, 30,
31 and 32. The "room" in each case, indicated by the litter of bones
(p.7) and pottery scraps upon its floor, was to the south of these
piles. Is it to be supposed that, like the nomads of to-day, these
pristine settlers raised their shelter only against the cold northerly
winds ?
Plate 4b: Artifacts from Cemetery L.
The number of small worked flints of the finer
quality taken from this portion, was greater than from the other. The
whole area was strewn with flints, some rough, others worked or
chipped. At one point on the outskirts was found a deposit of curious
natural flints, a selection from which is illustrated on Pl.5. Though
some of them are of a snake-like appearance, not all are so. They were
found buried in clean sand at a depth of one metre.
21. At
another point just to the south of the place S I was cleared a series
of pot kilns, unique in character. The photographs of Pl.3 at the
bottom (pl.3-5,-6) show the best preserved kiln, with pot in position, supported by
vertical bars of brick. Owing to the difficulty of getting good light
from this point of view (from the north) the photographs do not show
the details with satisfactory clearness. [A diagrammatic drawing
appeared in Man for March, 1902, Art. 29.]
A large earthenware pot
(or majur) is apparently in the act of being baked. It is supported
upon a bed of clay, which is lined with a thin layer of charred
material, probably some kind of herbage. This clay is held in position
by a series of fire-bricks arranged vertically, in graduated sizes, at
equal distances apart, and so entirely supporting the superimposed
weight. These bars are flat on one side and round on the other; similar
bricks (but broken) had been noticed by Professor Petrie at Naqada, but
their use was not known. One of the longest of these measured 28
inches. The whole rested upon a prepared claybed, and was surrounded by
a wall of fire-brick of ordinary character. It seems probable that the
obvious explanation is correct: that the fire was placed between the
bars below for the purpose of baking the pot that rested above.
Possibly there was a roof to the kiln, but it had been destroyed. The
kiln proved to lie in the corner of a group arranged somewhat regularly
together, though all appeared to be independent, and not merely parts
of a common furnace. Several other isolated examples, and groups of two
and three, were found near, but were in bad preservation. The large pot
could not be removed, being already broken and not thoroughly baked;
so the whole kiln was carefully covered over, and the authorities of
the museum informed of its position. A similar large pot, well baked,
but unfortunately cracked, was found in the settlement. It was of
unusual size, being 4 feet 6 inches high, and it was indented along the
rim with regular rectangular indentations like that which was in the
kiln.
22.
The flint objects found within the area of
this settlement possess some special features of interest. As may be
seen by a glance at the plate, there are two distinct types, which in
Europe would be named Palaeolithic and Neolithic respectively. On
Pl.3-3 is figured a group of the finer-worked examples from the point
S2
of the settlement. These include pieces of knives and cutting
implements, some saw-edged pieces, and portions of bracelets. Two other
kinds require special consideration. The one is a round flint, somewhat
thick, worked down nearly all round to a fine cutting edge on one side
only; two examples are shown on the right hand of this photograph;
another, of rougher sort, appears on Pl.5 in the last photograph on
the left hand at the bottom from the site S1 (p.5-5). The other is the arrow
or lance-head, of which several varieties are shown in the photograph (pl.3-3).
It has a double barb only. In the adjoining photograph of clay models
from a tomb of the cemetery at Alawniyeh are shown some models in
unbaked clay of the identical form (pl.3-4). There can remain no longer any
doubt as to the real pre-dynastic character of these flint-heads.
Turning now to Pl.5, there are three groups of flints
selected for illustration from the great quantity that were found as
representatives in the main of the different classes which they typify.
Perhaps the best series is that of the Flint Hoes, unfortunately
photographed on a scale somewhat too small (pl.5-4). There is one of these in
particular, now in the Pitt-Rivers Museum, which is noteworthy ; it is
shown in the centre of the bottom row. One side, on the upper half, has
received and retained a remarkable polish, as by long-continued
friction with a non-gritty earth. The action of sand alone (says Mr.
Balfour) would not have created such perfect smoothness. The other
side, at the same end, has a polish not so marked ; while the other end
is hardly smoothed at all, having (p.8) probably been fitted to the
haft.
On the same plate (pl.5-4), just to the right above
this object, is shown a somewhat perfect saw-flint; it is thicker, and
of better finish in the body than the selection illustrated in the
photograph below (pl.3). These latter are not worked equally on the two sides,
being for the most part flat on the under side, while the flint is
worked in long flakes down the length of the implement; the sawedge,
however, is prominent in them all. Another object of special interest
is the forked lance, which appears in the centre of the lower
photograph. Its workmanship in the lower half containing the forks
(below the notches about the middle) is particularly fine, the dressing
of the edge being uniform and close. The special interest of this
object, however, appears in another fact. From one of the graves of the
cemetery at Alawniyeh there were taken out the pieces of a lance which,
when put together, resembles this one in every respect, even in the
blunted top. It had not been restored at the time the Pl.5 was
prepared; but now that the two lie side by side in the Pitt-Rivers
Museum, the resemblance is remarkable. The one here figured, from the
settlement, is browned, presumably from exposure ; but that from the
cemetery is of a pale and unpolished appearance. The former, it may be
added, was found in a small black-topped pot, itself placed inverted in
a large dark pot of domestic character. The other flint objects
pictured, while of interest from their provenance, call for no special
comment. The large and bolder pieces seem to have been used in the
settlement concurrently with the implements more finely wrought.
23.
Unsatisfactory and inconclusive though this examination of the
much-disturbed settlement may be, there yet remain one or two points of
interest to be noted. The site was probably on the edge of water, on a
prominent rise which commanded a wide view on all sides. The houses or
shelters were constructed of wattle and daub, and were arranged with
sodie show of system. Fish and small animals were used as food; the
cooking was done in large earthenware pots, over fires of twigs.
Arrow-heads, knives, weapons and implements generally were of flint :
the working of these was not uniform, but the art of fine working (of
the neolithic class) was already known. Copper, though not unknown, was
extremely rare, occurring in only two small pieces (the one apparently
a drill). The domestic vessels were coarse, but fine work in pottery,
flint and stone was accomplished and reserved for the graves of the
dead. Their cemetery was two miles distant, to the south, in a site not
physically related to that of the settlement. To judge from their art,
in outline and in form, this people was essentially civilised: that is
to say, but for the absence of written language (about which there is
little indication), the people of this time were as advanced in
industrial processes as those of the earliest dynasties. Hence it seems
more fitting to speak of them as a pre-dynastic but not a prehistoric
people. And yet in date they must be placed at the beginning of the
period which has now been archaeologically but not yet historically
treated.
[Continue to Chapter 3]
[Return to Table of Contents]
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