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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:
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Archaeological Problems Relating to the Egyptian Fortress at
Askut1 Alexander Badawy
plates x-xn
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 reminis- cent 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 com- mandant'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.
23
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24 JARCE 5 (1966)
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
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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 con- nection 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 door- way 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 pave- ment 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
verti- cally 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 western- most 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 terra- cotta 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
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26 JARCE 5 (1966)
I to to
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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 pha- raohs 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 under- ground 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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X JARCE 5 (1966)
I 2
3
4
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ALEXANDER BAD AW Y, EGYPTIAN FORTRESS AT ASKUT XI
5 6
7 8
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XII JARCE 5 (1966)
9 10
II
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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]
Back Matter