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Soknopaiou Nesos Project
DireCTORS' REPORT ON 2003 SEASON
Team 2003
Sergio Pernigotti (director), Mario Capasso (director), Paola Davoli (field director), Micaela Alfieri (student), Angela Cervi (recorder), Carlotta Franceschelli (topographer), Anna Morini (assistant), Barbara Rizzo (drawer), Silvia Vinci (assistant). The Supreme Council of Antiquities has been represented by the Inspector Nahla Mohammed Ahmed.
Archaeological Report
The Italian Joint Archaeological Mission of Bologna and Lecce Universities, directed by Sergio Pernigotti (Bologna University) and by Mario Capasso (Lecce University), carried out its first excavation season at Dime, the Graeco-Roman town of Soknopaiou Nesos, between February 18th and March 13th 2003.
The mission, with Paola Davoli as Field Director, started working on this site in 2001 with the purpose of drawing up a topographic map of the entire archaeological area using modern methods of topographical surface survey (georeferencing the site with GPS and carrying out ground surveys with Total Station) as well as by means of a series of metric photographs taken at low altitudes using a specially equipped aerostatic balloon.
From an archaeological point of view Dime is not well known and very little has been published about it, despite the fact that it is in a good state of preservation. The last and the only one archaeological excavation carried out using a stratigraphical method took place in 1932. It was carried out by the Archaeological Mission of Michigan University directed by A.E.R. Boak. There have however been many excavations over the years, whose sole purpose was to find objects and particularly papyri. In fact many papyri, which are now housed in numerous collections, were found at this site during these excavations.
The topographic survey, which took place in 2001 and 2002, has enabled us to learn a great deal about the archaeological area, which measures 640 m from north to south and 320 m from east to west. During these surveys part of the visible buildings above the surface was catalogued and a scientific topographic map was drawn up. We decided to carry out a more in-depth archaeological investigation inside the great temple enclosure --1--, which still dominates the ruins of the ancient town and within which no scientific excavation work has ever taken place (fig. 1). Nothing was in fact known about the use and the chronological evolution of the buildings, which lie within it. The temple of Soknopaios is famous as numerous statues, architectural elements and a large number of Greek and Demotic papyri belonging to the temple archives have been brought to light there.
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Because there were many stone buildings here, this area was also used as a quarry, a good source of building materials. What is left today is a large enclosure which measures 200 x 80 m ca. surrounded by mud-brick walls which are about 10 m in height and mostly still well-preserved. The main entrance was about halfway along the southern side, at the end of a paved road, the dromos, which went southwards for about 400 m dividing the settlement into two.
Within the sacred enclosure the remains of a number of subsidiary buildings can still be seen. These were built in mud-bricks and lie along the internal perimeter of the temenos. In the middle there is a building, which can, for its position and plan, be easily identified as the temple (labelled ST 18) --2-3--. Its entrance faces south, opposite the original gateway in the temenos and the dromos. This temple is preserved for at least 5 metres in height and was built in local stones originally covered with a heavy layer of plaster, which only partially remains today. The building is surrounded by a mud-brick wall and its general plan is that of a small Egyptian temple of the Graeco-Roman Period, but it has a second door --4-- in the northern wall in front of the main entrance, at the rear of the naos.
Beyond this door, in the middle of the enclosure, there is an area, which measures approximately 60 x 20 metres, where we found a large number of blocks and lintels made with different types of local stone --5--. This leads us to believe that there might have been one or possibly more totally unknown monumental buildings present here.We therefore decided to begin excavating this sector, starting with the northern door of the temple, in order to understand how and when it was opened and investigate the enlargement of the temple northwards.
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The sector we are excavating is 20 m in width from east to west and 7 m in length from north to south. It turned out to be a big courtyard surrounded by walls --6--: to the south it was bordered by the northern walls of temple ST 18 in the middle of which there is a door; to the north it was bordered by an imposing wall built with local isodomic limestone blocks pertaining to a building labelled ST 20, which has not been excavated yet --7--. To the east and to the west respectively it was bordered by the external walls of two partially uncovered mud-brick subsidiary buildings (ST 200 --8-9-- & ST 23 --10-11--).
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The whole area has been tampered with on more than one occasion by undocumented excavation work and was furthermore covered with sand and mounds of mud-brick and stone collapsed from walls in different moments --12-13--. A large 3 m high mound of rubble, the result of these clandestine operations, covered the entire eastern end of the courtyard as well as building ST 200. In this rubble we found numerous Demotic ostraka, fragments of Greek and Demotic papyri and some objects of daily life such as vegetable fibre sandals. Before being covered by the aforementioned rubble mound, building ST 200 had been totally emptied. It was made up of three rooms, of which two have been completely brought to light. Building ST 23 also suffered the same fate. Of this building only two small rooms, which had originally had a barrel vault ceiling, have been brought to light. Both these buildings have underground cellars, which we shall finish investigating during the next excavation campaign.
At this stage we can hypothesize that building ST 18 was the original temple dedicated to the crocodile god Soknopaios and founded during the Hellenistic Period. Although the inside of the temple still has to be excavated, we can recognize subsequent building phases, which gradually altered its plan. The four gateways, of which two are internal, were built with fine limestone blocks on the longitudinal axis and probably date back to the last of these restructuring phases. The fourth gateway was opened in the back wall of the naos and led into the courtyard, which was brought to light in 2003. On the opposite side of the courtyard and on the same axis there was another gateway in the limestone block wall pertaining to building ST 20. It is therefore likely that the courtyard, the building ST 20 and all the limestone gateways in ST 18 are contemporary and can be dated back probably to the end of the Ptolemaic Period or the beginning of the Roman Period. At this stage in our research we are unable to date this building phase more precisely.
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As far as building ST 20 is concerned, we have so far brought to light the façade of the southern external wall, which measures 20 m in length, 1.44 m in width and is preserved to a maximum height of 7 courses of blocks, which equals 1.53 m. The wall was made of isodomic blocks stuck together with white and pink mortar. Its southern façade remained rough with blocks showing bosses surrounded by four chiselled bands, which are 7-8 cm wide. At the far south-eastern end of the wall there is also a projecting part with a rectangular cross-section (11.3 x 23 x 23 x 10 cm), which should have been used to mould the corner torus cornice. Some stylized letters of the Greek alphabet are engraved on the bosses of a few of the blocks as mason’s marks. The door, which is halfway down this wall, was 2.40 m wide.
We have found numerous Egyptian style architectural elements --14-- in this area such as fragments of uraeus friezes, lintels with a solar disc flanked by two cobras, part of a bas-relief with a hieroglyphic inscription, even in the Classical style, like the base of an “attic” type column and a fragment of a metope frieze with rosettes.
It is therefore possible that the temple of Soknopaios was enlarged in the late Ptolemaic Period or at the beginning of the Roman Period when a new building was constructed at the back of the older temple, which then became a passageway. The new temple seems to have been built with the same technique and in the same style as we can see in other sites in the Fayyum, such as Karanis, Bakchias, Narmouthis and Dionysias, although inside and around it there were also chapels and buildings constructed in the Classical style.
Among the objects we found during this first season it is also worth mentioning a piece of a wooden naos which bears a hieroglyphic inscription with the Horus name of Ptolemy III, a small scarab with the inscription nswt bit and a face of an anthropoid sarcophagus --15-- probably dating back to the Late Period .
Papyrological Report
The first campaign was particularly lucrative from a papyrological point of view. We in fact found 80 Demotic ostraka and a few Greek ostraka. Amongst other objects from the courtyard, we found a wooden inkwell and what is probably the fragment of an umbilicus which was used to roll up papyri. Both these objects are simple but not unrefined. The Demotic ostraka are mostly fragmentary and are datable between I and II century A.D. They are lists of goods and various accounts.
We have also to mention a few dozen fragments of Greek and Demotic documentary papyri and, above all, 9 figured magic papyri --16--, many of which still rolled up, tied up with a papyrus fibre and sealed with mud. These were amulets worn by people.
