1st
Qantir
Dr Pusch started his talk by describing the damage to the magazine at Qantir, which seems to have been more like vandalism, than a robbery. Five objects were removed but three have already been found on the ground outside the building.
He showed previous reconstructions of the ancient city of PiRamesse by Kitchen and Golvin, based on textual evidence and some imagination.
However, geophysical surveys have revealed the layout of the city to be quite different. In Qantir East is a large temple or palace with rows of mud brick magazines similar to those which still exist at the Ramesseum. It was also possible to identify the extinct Pelusiac branch of the Nile, lined with tree pits which showed up as black dots on the geophysical survey while column bases show as white dots. The river course also shows in the West City, running past a residential area with streets of large villas of the ‘Amarna’ type. In the East City are smaller houses and the area had been subject to large-scale destruction and demolition by later events.
In Qantir North the temple (110x60m) is surrounded by a large brick enclosure wall. There are two colossal statue bases with feet within the enclosure and it has been suggested many times that these are in situ, but they are in fact in pits.
Evidence now suggests that the mani city of Qantir was situated on an oval island in the Nile with Qantir North separated from the main city and on the ‘northern’ bank of the river. When the geophysical plans of Qantir and Tell el-Daba are put together on one map, they show the large scale of the city of Avaris/PiRamesse as it developed over time.
