Anna Wodzińska

Rubbish or Technology? A Short Discussion

This short article presents a case of intentional use of a layer consisting of a large number of pottery sherds along with the more usual clean yellow sand in a shallow foundation trench under a fragmentary New Kingdom mudbrick wall encountered in Tell el-Retaba in the Wadi Tumilat. Various possible explanations for the use of these sherds as a part of an architectural feature are explored with the aim of drawing attention to a hitherto under-studied cultural practice in Egyptian New Kingdom settlement architecture.

Grabungsvorberichte/Preliminary Excavation Reports: Egyptian Mission Rescue Excavations in Tell el-Retaba. Part 2: The Second Intermediate Period Cemetery

The present article about the first excavated part of an extensive cemetery of the Second Intermediate Period in Tell el-Retaba is one of the outcomes of the scientific co-operation between the Egyptian rescue excavation mission led by M. Nour el-Din and the joint Polish-Slovak archaeological mission in Tell el-Retaba. Seventeen mudbrick tombs dating to the mid – late 15th dynasty were unearthed during two campaigns in 2011– 2012. The tomb architecture and the grave goods found with the buried individuals which are presented in this article offer an insight into the burial customs of the inhabitants of Tell el-Retaba during the end of the Second Intermediate Period. Furthermore, they can help us to shed more light on the settlement history and material culture of this still somewhat controversial period of Egyptian history.

Tell el-Retaba 2012: the pottery

Archaeological remains excavated by the Polish–Slovak Archaeological Mission in Tell el-Retaba can be well dated to the New Kingdom till the Late Period. During the 2012 season domestic layers from the Hyksos period were found, indicating that the site was occupied for the first time around the end of the Thirteenth and beginning of the Fifteenth Dynasties. Next to the houses three Hyksos graves were found. Archaeological work also revealed houses from the early Eighteenth Dynasty located just above the Hyksos structures in Area 7. Very interesting material came from the late Twentieth Dynasty and Third Intermediate Period houses excavated in Area 9. Rich pottery assemblages mostly of domestic character have been recovered from all of the structures.