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Tell el-Daba in the Late Period
We’re back on our programme now with a talk by Manuela Lehmann on the Late Period remains at Tell el-Daba, a site more usually recognised as being of the Hyksos Period and the New Kingdom.
By the end of the New Kingdom, the Pelusiac branch of the Nile was silting up and the site was abandoned until the 26th Dynasty. By ‘Late Period’ Manuela mis referring here to the 26th and 27th Dynasties.
In the eastern part of the tell are several large houses of the Late Period, with very solid brick casemate foundations. Some were easily identifiable on the magnetic scans while others, perhaps because they were preserved above the distinctive foundations, were less visible before excavation.
These were probably ‘tower-houses’ of several stories as known from models and shown on the later Palaestrina Mosaic. The casemates were filled with material containing objects, pottery etc of varying dates from the Middle Kingdom to the Late Period itself. Contemporary Late Period material from the houses themselves, includes many amulets (some very stylised), Persian arrow-heads and an Achaemenid seal (temp. 27th Dyn).
Pottery studies are still in the early stages but they include pilgrim-flasks, ‘fire-dogs’ vessels in both Nile silt and marl wares and imported amphorae from the Greek islands and Athens.
