31st
Tell el-Yahudia
Another talk about a site at which the EES worked first worked in the late 19th century! Aiman Ashmawy Ali is talking about recent SCA excavations at this site.
The current SCA work at Yahudia started in 2010. Aiman is showing on a GoogleEarth image how the large ancient tell has been encroached upon by cultivation and modern settlement, and what is left is cut into two parts by a road. Previous excavators all record finding many tombs but none left a plan. The recent SCA excavations on the ‘small tell’ show how densely occupied the ancient cemeteries were. Several donkey burials have been found in mud brick tombs. Donkey burials are a feature of the Second Intermediate Period in the eastern Delta, having been found at Tell el-Daba, Tell Basta and other sites in the region.
Early excavations often recorded ‘Middle Kingdom’ tombs but later scholars have disputed this dating, seeing them as Second Intermediate Period but the SCA has now excavated tombs which were overbuilt in the Hyksos Period and so can be dated stratigraphically to the Middle Kingdom.
The team are now studying the finds and comparing them with those found by early excavators.
