Badawy JARCE

Archaeological Problems Relating to the Egyptian Fortress at AskutAuthor(s): Alexander BadawyReviewed work(s):Source: Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, Vol. 5 (1966), pp. 23-27Published by: American Research Center in EgyptStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40000168 .Accessed: 28/01/2013 06:04

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Archaeological Problems Relating to the Egyptian Fortress at Askut1 Alexander Badawy

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The excavations on the island of Askut (1962-1964)2 have added another monument to the system of fortresses built by the pharaohs of the Twelfth Dynasty in the "Belly of the Rocks" districts of Upper Nubia. Located within signalling distance from the smaller fortress south on the western bank at Shalfak opposite Sarras, it must originally have covered most of the small island when the contemporary Nile waters were higher. Laid out within a triangular girdle wall with a spur wall projecting from its northeast angle, it is strongly reminiscent of both fortresses at Shalfak and Uronarti, though it displays the unique feature of a very extensive quarter of square storerooms on a rectangular grid scheme (eastern half). Accom- modation in the shape of contiguous tripartite housing units similar to those at Uronarti is relatively unimportant (northwest), contrasting with the vast two-storied palace of the commandant's quarters. A further stage still dating from the Middle Kingdom was the addition of two series of contiguous vaulted rooms outside

the south end, protected by a bastioned girdle wall similar to the main one curving up the southernmost bedrock knoll of the island. The gateway is reminiscent as to its shape of that at Uronarti and as to its location of that at Buhen, a similarity further echoed in the type of mural painting in the commandant quarters in the columned hall. Here at the foot of the four steps leading down from the western corridor (Fig. 1) the gray dado running at the bottom of the golden yellow walls is inter- rupted by a square panel, white in its lower half and yellow framed on three sides with a black-red-black band in its upper half (Fig. 2). This painted panel is exactly similar to the one at the small end of the columned hall in the fortress at Mirgissa above a brick podium accessible from a lateral stairway interpreted by the excavators as an altar.3 At Askut no trace of a similar setting was found nor would the lower half of the panel have been painted had it ever been fronted by a podium. This is the first of our problems: could this panel have marked the location of the throne upon which the commandant sat in state ? This identification is suggested on the comparative evidence of similar painted panels behind the throne of pharaoh in the throne-room of New Kingdom palaces.

Before the beautiful regular plan of the inner structures of the fortress was uncovered evidence about the later existence of squatters after the Middle Kingdom was provided in an occupation

1 Talk given at the Annual Meeting of the American Research Center in Egypt, November 13, 1965, Chicago. 2 Alexander Badawy, Excavation under the Threat of the High Dam: The Ancient Egyptian Island Fortress of Askut in the Sudan, Between the Second and Third Cataracts/' ILN, 1963, pp. 964-966. "An Egyptian Fortress in the "Belly of Rock": Further Excavations and Discoveries in the Sudanese Island of Askut," ILN, 1964, pp. 86-88. "Preliminary Report on the Excavations by the University of California at Askut, (First Season, October 1962- January 1963)," Kush 12 (1964) 47-53. "Askut: A Middle Kingdom Fortress in Nubia," Archaeology 18 (1965) 1 24-131.

3 N. Wheeler, "Diary of the Excavation of Mirgissa Fort," Kush 9 (1961) 168-174.

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layer featuring numerous cellars of irregular shapes built of re-used brick set on edge as thin party-walls (PI. X, fig. 1) on fill or even on the original floor abutting on, or partly scooped out

of the walls of the fortress. Nothing in the context helps to define more closely a civilization of goat herdsmen. Is this another of the C-group settlers ?

Figure 1

Figure 2


ALEXANDER BADAWY, EGYPTIAN FORTRESS AT ASKUT 25

Speaking about settling let us proceed to the entrance gateway where the lower part of a one- valve door made of vertical planks which had been left open and parts of both door jambs were found in situ. In the entrance passageway there ran axially a drain consisting of well-carved limestone blocks sunk into the bedrock issuing under the sill and proceeding eastward outside the girdle wall as a channel lined on both sides with coarse flagstones set vertically till it ended at the original river quay. Just outside the entrance a second drain appears as if it were branching off askew but actually without connection to it (Fig. 3). It runs from the two basins (1, 2) at its south end to a larger third basin at its northeast end. The whole system is hewn in the bedrock floor and carefully plastered. The intercepting bars in terracotta and stone and the decreasing levels can be interpreted as characteristics of a settling system, the first of its kind in an Egyptian fortress and probably used for processing gold pellets rather than rock salt as in the Coptic monastery of St. Simeon at Aswan.

At the rear entrance to the commandant's mansion, sunk vertically in the sill of the doorway on Main Street is a large massive terracotta pipe with two square apertures (PI. X, fig. 2), the upper one opening toward the inside of the ablution chamber, the lower one nearly opposite forming the outlet connected to the simple drain beneath Main Street. The terracotta tile pavement of the street (PL X, fig. 3) surfaced with limestone flagstones indicated a hydraulic work and the drain beneath it proved to be of the simplest type consisting of a channel in the bedrock allowing for seepage between the rubble fill. An ablution area with four drains on a cruciform plan is known in the fortress at Mirgissa.

In the southeast sector outside the main body of the fortress opposite the two rows of maga- zines at ca. 1. 10 m. above the Middle Kingdom floor (bedrock) there appeared the remains of a mansion with a columned hall and painted walls. Its westernmost room featured an altar in brick abutting on a wall, with a small crude stela

set in a niche and the remnants of two wooden posts fronting it - perhaps originally carrying a canopy (PI. X, fig. 4). A terracotta pipe, its mouth flush with the floor had been sunk vertically beneath it abutting against the edge of the altar table; it drained waste liquids from the libation into an underground large broken jar (0.58 m. in diameter; PI. XI, fig. 5). At the bottom of this jar a whole set of new small flat bowls had been piled up. The stela itself is an irregular sandstone slab rounded at its top, coarsely incised with an offering formula and a scene of the deceased Merykaisekhem ( ?) fronted by an attendant (PI. XI, fig. 6). A preliminary investigation led to a tentative dating in the Thirteenth Dynasty. Behind the wall of the altar a long room runs parallel to the westernmost one paved with terracotta tiles of a module differing from that of Main Street and rising as a one-step dais at its north end. There were three small pots sunk in its axis, their rims flush with the pavement. The instal- lation seems to have been used for ritual ablutions or bathing and its connection to the altar room next to it, as well as the finds in the same layer in its vicinity featuring five painted pots, two censers, and a curious terracotta figurine of a pregnant woman with winglike arms and a goat's head, would back this inter- pretation (PI. XI, fig. 7).

Turning now to the small finds let us mention a sandstone stela inbedded in the north wall of the upper stretch of the water-stairway that had suffered from a violent fire. The offering formula for the benefit of an official bearing the title of try H n fir c* is addressed to the god hnt - My originally a crocodile god (PI. XI, fig. 8). Now evidence about crocodile worship is found otherwise at Askut in a rock inscription in the name of a god Sbk cs;ty, in several terracotta figurines of crocodiles and on long spouts modeled with a crocodile, not to mention a statuette of an "overseer of the plowings" whose name was compound with that of Sebek.

Several oval seal impressions on mud stoppers from the northeast sector could be read wnn-nfr with the nfr inscribed within a bastioned oval


26 JARCE 5 (1966)

I to to


Fig. Fig. i. 1. Stairway Stairway from from western western corridor corridor down down to to the the columned columned hall. hall. Fig. Fig. i. 1. Stairway Stairway from from western western corridor corridor down down to to the the columned columned hall. hall.

ALEXANDER BADAWY, EGYPTIAN FORTRESS AT ASKUT 27

(PL XII, fig. 9). Could the tentative rendering be "the Fortress 'Beautiful' " referring to Askut ? Other seal impressions of a coarser nature bear heraldic signs resembling two crossing arrows sometimes tripled (PI. XII, fig. 10) . An enigmatic pottery dish with a central projecting bowl beehived on its internal wall with its edge cut smooth has no parallel (PI. XII, fig. n).

These are some of the problems whose solution would help toward a closer definition of the chronology and purport of one of the smallest, though most interesting forts among the chain of fortresses built by the Middle Kingdom pharaohs in Nubia.

University of California, Los Angeles

List of Plates PL X, fig. 1. Aspect of some squatters' cellars in the western sector.

fig. 2. Terracotta pipe in the sill of the doorway to the ablution room with upper aperture showing.

fig. 3. Part of Main Street excavated beneath its double paving to uncover the underground seepage drain.

fig. 4. Altar in brick seen from above (southeast sector). PL XI, fig. 5. The altar deprived of its stela and excavated to uncover the underground drainage.

fig. 6. Stela of the altar. fig. 7. Terracotta figurine found in the vicinity of the altar. fig. 8. Stela found m the north wall of the water staircase.

PL XII, fig. 9. Seal impression with Wnn-nfr. fig. 10. Seal impressions with crossing elements. fig. 11. Terracotta dish and beehived bowl.

Text Figures Fig. Fig. i. 1. Stairway Stairway from from western western corridor corridor down down to to the the columned columned hall. hall. Fig. Fig. i. 1. Stairway Stairway from from western western corridor corridor down down to to the the columned columned hall. hall. Fig. 2. Painted Panel restored. Fig. 3. Plan of the settling system of basins at the entrance of the fortress.


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Article Contentsp. 23p. 24p. 25p. 26p. 27[unnumbered][unnumbered][unnumbered]

Issue Table of ContentsJournal of the American Research Center in Egypt, Vol. 5 (1966), pp. 1-134Front MatterBlack-Topped Pottery [pp. 7-10]Six Predynastic Human Figures in the Royal Ontario Museum [pp. 11-17]The Cylinder Seal of a Ruler of Byblos Reconsidered [pp. 19-21]Archaeological Problems Relating to the Egyptian Fortress at Askut [pp. 23-27]A Little More Evidence for the End of the Nineteenth Dynasty [pp. 29-32]A Problem of Pedubasts [pp. 33-41]The Nile Level Records at Karnak and their Importance for the History of the Libyan Period (Dynasties XXII and XXIII) [pp. 43-55]"Blue Marble" Plastic Vessels and Other Figures [pp. 57-63]Leon the Toparch [pp. 65-68]The Population of Medieval Egypt [pp. 69-82]Fus Expedition: Preliminary Report 1965: Part I [pp. 83-112]Book ReviewsReview: untitled [pp. 113-117]Review: untitled [pp. 117-118]Review: untitled [p. 118-118]Review: untitled [pp. 118-119]Review: untitled [p. 119-119]Review: untitled [pp. 119-121]Review: untitled [p. 121-121]Review: untitled [p. 121-121]Review: untitled [pp. 121-123]Review: untitled [p. 123-123]Review: untitled [pp. 123-125]Review: untitled [p. 125-125]Review: untitled [pp. 125-127]Review: untitled [p. 127-127]Review: untitled [pp. 127-128]Review: untitled [pp. 128-129]Review: untitled [pp. 129-130]Review: untitled [pp. 130-133]Review: untitled [pp. 133-134]Review: untitled [p. 134-134]

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