Today was the first day in the field with our gang of workmen headed by Rais Imad Mohammed Shorbagi – and it was already very successful and promising! We just cleaned the surface of a southern extension to Square 1 at SAV1 West and faint traces of mud bricks are already visible. They are perfectly in line with the enclosure wall and should represent the same monument. And we hope that in this section the wall will be better preserved than in our original trench from 2014.
The surface of the southern extension of Square 1 after the first cleaning.
The pottery from the surface cleaning was processed today as well – 24 baskets of sherds illustrate how rich in sherd material this sector of the Pharaonic town is! And already the surface material is to 40% 18th Dynasty in date – the other 60% percent are mostly Christian, but also some Post-Meroitic material is present.
As far as the New Kingdom material is concerned, our results from 2014 and the preliminary dating of the enclosure wall are supported by the first baskets of this year’s fieldwork: the pottery dates to Thutmose III and later.
Looking much forward to making more progress at SAV1 West in the upcoming weeks!
