EGYPTIAN
Decorated sherds from the Pan Grave cemetery in the Moalla necropolis
ARCHAEOLOGY
Middle portion of the Moalla necropolis; the white box shows Area H3, the Pan Grave cemetery
During our survey of the environs of M08-09/S1, we discovered a desert track leading east from the area, entering the Eastern Desert through the Wadi Falij elHunud. Ceramic remains along the road are sparse, but indicate both predynastic and pharaonic activity. One area of the road passes near flat, Rock inscription along the limestone cliffs, where there is Wadi Falij el-Hunud road a rock inscription depicting a group of bovids, and the exaggeratedly long horns of the main cow are typical of Nubian iconography of the third millennium BC. One of the most extensive collections of ceramic material along the road occurred 2km beyond the rock inscriptions, near a natural rock overhang c.30m from the ancient track. A low dry-stone wall was constructed to create a small shelter beneath the overhang, and associated ceramic material was of late predynastic date. The track continues east past this predynastic stopping point, and at a point of ascent, we found another concentration of ceramics ranging in date from the Predynastic Period to the New Kingdom. This new Eastern Desert road is probably a branch of the north-south route that connects Elkab and Medamud. The settlement at the end of the track (M08-09/S1), possibly ancient Agny, would be well placed to provide access to the extensive network of Eastern Desert roads, granting the town economic and strategic advantages. Although not prominent in the textual record, the connections between the nome and the Eastern Desert via tracks such as the Wadi Falij el-Hunud Road will be significant in the interpretation of the area’s archaeological remains and for writing a history of the third nome of Upper Egypt.
the Upper Egyptian ceramic tradition of the Second Intermediate Period. Recovery of well-preserved tomb linings, including reed and leather matting, from two of the tombs provide further details of Pan Grave funerary culture. The newly discovered Nubian cemetery at Moalla also augments the known Pan Grave material from nearby sites, such as ed-Deir and Esna, which will eventually enable analysis of regional characteristics. As part of the larger regional survey of the Moalla area, we also investigated a site about 11km south of the Moalla necropolis (M08-09/S1) which comprises a dense surface scatter of abundant ceramic remains and traces of mud-brick architecture covering a large area (c.3.7 hectares). The site appears to correspond to a plundered cemetery that the Assyriologist and Egyptology aficionado Archibald Sayce briefly investigated in 1905, but which did not appear on any published maps. Surface collection of pottery indicates activity ranging from the late Predynastic Period to the New Kingdom. The sole epigraphic evidence from the site, already reported by Sayce, is a funerary cone belonging to the ‘Priest of Hathor of Agny, Aapehty’.Adding this to evidence from topographical lists and the rediscovery of the necropolis, we may now identify the site M08-09/S1 as a portion of ancient Agny. Most likely, the other urban centre of the northern part of the third nome, Hefat, lies in the area between M08-09/S1 and the northern edge of the large Wadi Falij el-Hunud, an area that will be the focus of future survey.
q Colleen Manassa is Associate Professor of Egyptology, Yale University and Director of the Moalla Survey Project, part of the Yale Egyptological Institute in Egypt (YEIE) and funded by the William K and Marilyn M Simpson Egyptology Endowment. The writer would like to thank John Coleman Darnell, director of the YEIE, for his support of the project and is also grateful to the staff of the SCA Inspectorate of Esna. Additional information on the MSP can be found at www.yale.edu/egyptology/ae_moalla.htm
The Wadi Falij el-Hunud, an access point for an ancient desert road
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