The archaeological site of Tell el-Farkha is composed of three mounds excavated continuously by the Polish team since 1998. In the 2014 and 2015 seasons, covered in this report, investigations were carried out in already opened trenches in three sectors. On the Western Kom, another brewery was explored to add to the already existing set of investigated installations of this kind. It demonstrated three phases of use, the topmost separated from the middle one by a thick layer of burnt soil and ashes. The deposit attests to a conflagration that consumed the entire settlement. The study of a huge Naqadian building was continued on the Central Kom. Two occupation phases were distinguished: an older one at the beginning of the Naqada IIIA1 period and a younger one attributed to Naqada IIIA1–IIIA2. Remains of Lower Egyptian structures were unearthed below the foundations of this building. A big clay stamp-seal with hieroglyphs from the mid First Dynasty period was found associated with this feature. On the Eastern Kom, a big mud-brick edifice of unknown function was investigated. A further 17 graves, mostly from the second half of the First and the beginning of the Second Dynasty, were discovered as well.
The paper discusses archaeological investigations carried out on all three tells making up the site of Tell el-Farkha, expanding on the findings from earlier seasons. Phasing of the brewery discovered four years ago on the Western Kom gave a time range for the use of the installation from the first Southern Egyptian occupation (Naqada IID) to the Naqada IIIA1/2–IIIB phase, when a catastrophic fire destroyed the entire settlement. The big Naqada warehouse on the Central Kom was also phased (beginning in Naqada IIIA1) and further parts of an underlying building attributed to the Lower Egyptian culture were explored, including a wooden fence around the structure. The 11 graves explored on the Eastern Kom were dated to the Tell el-Farkha Phase 6 (Naqada IIIC2–IIID). They cut into a building (temple?) from an earlier phase.
Excavations at Tell el-Farkha in 2012 and 2013 were conducted on all three koms making up the site. The upper layers excavated on the Western Kom during the first campaign were connected with the beginning of phase 4 at Tell el-Farkha and the lower layers with phase 3. A few poorly preserved rooms were unearthed, mainly in the southern part of the trench. Also part of a brewery dated to Naqada IIIA1 was explored. A rectangular building with thick walls discovered on the Central Kom was most probably the remains of a big Naqadian store. Results of geophysical research from 2000 were verified; excavations uncovered a round edifice, 7 m in diameter, surrounded by a wall almost 2 m thick. In a test trench on the Eastern Kom, a rectangular room (2.50 m by 6 m) with two regular entrances from north and south was unearthed. In the main trench, work concentrated on the area north and south of the monumental mastaba uncovered a few seasons earlier.
The Tell el-Farkha site, which has been excavated since 1998, is formed of three tells. All three were excavated in the course of the two seasons, reopening already established trenches. Breweries discovered earlier on the Western Kom were explored, two completely, two in the early stages of exploration. Thick poorly preserved mud-brick walls were unearthed northeast of one of the breweries. Remains of a multi-roomed structure continued to be cleared in the northern trench on the Central Kom. D-shaped red bricks in this area suggest the presence of a brewery in the vicinity. A Naqada IIB and IIC settlement was recognized in the southern trench: storage pits, postholes, and furrows from a big house built of wood. A part of a settlement dated to the Tell el-Farkha Phases 3 and 4 (Naqada IID2–mid IIIB) was explored on the Eastern Kom. Of greatest interest is a structure composed of rectangular rooms around an open space, probably a courtyard. Three graves were discovered including one dated to the Naqada IIIB with the first pottery coffin discovered at Tell el-Farkha.
Archaeological research at the Khor Shambat site located in Omdurman in central Sudan has been conducted since 2012, when a team of scientists from the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology Polish Academy of Sciences (Poznań) launched a salvage exploration of a Neolithic site and cemetery damaged by road construction. Research is now conducted within the scope of a grant from the National Science Centre, Poland (No. 2015/17/D/HS3/01492). Three seasons of fieldwork since 2016 have focused on the extensive prehistoric settlement spanning nearly 4000 years, from the early Mesolithic to the late Neolithic. The site turned out to be attractive not only for Mesolithic hunters-gatherers and Neolithic shepherds, but also as a burial place for the Meroitic and post-Meroitic inhabitants of the region. A survey of about 1% of the surface of the Khor Shambat site (KSH 1) resulted in the discovery of 66 graves; 12 of these are probably post-Meroitic, and of these three presented a rich and interesting array of burial goods, including imports from the Far East. At the same time, KSH 1 is one of the southernmost post-Meroitic cemeteries.
The first Affad was the one we saw when the archaeological sites there were first investigated at the beginning of the century. The second Affad, which is the region that we have been exploring in the past 15 years, bore many signs of modern Sudanese culture encroaching upon the desert. In 2009, an asphalt road cut through the desert and shortly thereafter, the Debba bridge and power lines were constructed, the latter coming from a hydroelectric power station on the Fourth Cataract. Affad 3.0 is what the location looks like today—extensive industrial-scale farms on terraces too far away for traditional agriculture. The investment has already caused irreversible destruction to the archaeological heritage. Cattle+ in the title of this article refers to new data on large ruminants. The discovery of auroch remains and the Neolithic cattle data are both extremely important proxies for the adaptation strategies of people inhabiting the Southern Dongola Reach in prehistory.
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