Archaeological Problems Relating to the Egyptian Fortress at Askut

Author(s): Alexander Badawy

Reviewed work(s):
Source: Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, Vol. 5 (1966), pp. 23-27
Published by: American Research Center in Egypt
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40000168 .
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ArchaeologicalProblemsRelatingto the EgyptianFortressat Askut1

Alexander Badawy
plates x-xn
The excavations on the island of Askut
(1962-1964)2 have added another monument
to the system of fortresses built by the pharaohs
of the Twelfth Dynasty in the "Belly of the
Rocks" districts of Upper Nubia. Located
within signalling distance from the smaller
fortress south on the western bank at Shalfak
opposite Sarras,it must originally have covered
most of the small island when the contemporary
Nile waters were higher. Laid out within a
triangulargirdle wall with a spur wall projecting
from its northeast angle, it is strongly reminiscent of both fortresses at Shalfak and Uronarti,
though it displays the unique feature of a very
extensive quarter of square storerooms on a
rectangular grid scheme (eastern half). Accommodation in the shape of contiguous tripartite
housing units similar to those at Uronarti is
relatively unimportant (northwest),contrasting
with the vast two-storied palace of the commandant's quarters. A further stage still dating
from the Middle Kingdom was the addition of
two series of contiguous vaulted rooms outside

the south end, protected by a bastioned girdle

wall similar to the main one curving up the
southernmost bedrock knoll of the island. The
gateway is reminiscent as to its shape of
that at Uronarti and as to its location of
that at Buhen, a similarity further echoed in
the type of mural painting in the commandant
quarters in the columned hall. Here at the foot
of the four steps leading down fromthe western
corridor (Fig. 1) the gray dado running at the
bottom of the golden yellow walls is interrupted by a square panel, white in its lower
half and yellow framed on three sides with a
black-red-blackband in its upper half (Fig. 2).
This painted panel is exactly similar to the one
at the small end of the columned hall in the
fortress at Mirgissa above a brick podium
accessible from a lateral stairway interpreted
by the excavators as an altar.3 At Askut no
trace of a similar setting was found nor would
the lower half of the panel have been painted
had it ever been fronted by a podium. This is
the first of our problems: could this panel have
marked the location of the throne upon which
the commandantsat in state ? This identification
is suggested on the comparative evidence of
similar painted panels behind the throne of
pharaoh in the throne-room of New Kingdom
palaces.
Before the beautiful regular plan of the inner
structures of the fortresswas uncoveredevidence
about the later existence of squatters after the
Middle Kingdom was provided in an occupation

1Talk given at the AnnualMeetingof the American

ResearchCenterin Egypt, November13, 1965,Chicago.
2AlexanderBadawy, Excavation underthe Threat
of the High Dam: The Ancient Egyptian Island
Fortress of Askut in the Sudan, Between the Second
and Third Cataracts/' ILN, 1963, pp. 964-966. "An
Egyptian Fortress in the "Belly of Rock": Further
Excavations and Discoveries in the Sudanese Island
of Askut," ILN, 1964,pp. 86-88. "PreliminaryReport
on the Excavations by the University of Californiaat
Askut, (First Season, October 1962-January 1963),"
Kush 12 (1964) 47-53. "Askut: A Middle Kingdom
Fortress in Nubia," Archaeology18 (1965) 124-131.

3 N. Wheeler,"Diary of the Excavation of Mirgissa

Fort," Kush 9 (1961) 168-174.
23

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24

JARCE5 (1966)

layer featuring numerous cellars of irregular

shapes built of re-used brick set on edge as thin
party-walls (PI. X, fig. 1) on fill or even on the
original floor abutting on, or partly scooped out

of the walls of the fortress. Nothing in the

context helps to definemore closely a civilization
of goat herdsmen. Is this another of the C-group
settlers ?

Figure 1

Figure 2

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ALEXANDER BADAWY, EGYPTIAN FORTRESSAT ASKUT

Speaking about settling let us proceed to the

entrance gateway where the lower part of a onevalve door made of vertical planks which had
been left open and parts of both doorjambs were
found in situ. In the entrance passageway there
ran axially a drain consisting of well-carved
limestone blocks sunk into the bedrock issuing
under the sill and proceeding eastward outside
the girdle wall as a channel lined on both sides
with coarse flagstones set vertically till it ended
at the original river quay. Just outside the
entrance a second drain appears as if it were
branching off askew but actually without connection to it (Fig. 3). It runs from the two
basins (1, 2) at its south end to a larger third
basin at its northeast end. The whole system is
hewn in the bedrockfloorand carefullyplastered.
The intercepting bars in terracotta and stone
and the decreasing levels can be interpreted as
characteristics of a settling system, the first of
its kind in an Egyptian fortress and probably
used for processing gold pellets rather than rock
salt as in the Coptic monastery of St. Simeon
at Aswan.
At the rear entrance to the commandant's
mansion, sunk vertically in the sill of the doorway on Main Street is a large massive terracotta
pipe with two square apertures (PI. X, fig. 2),
the upper one opening toward the inside of the
ablution chamber, the lower one nearly opposite
formingthe outlet connected to the simple drain
beneath Main Street. The terracotta tile pavement of the street (PL X, fig. 3) surfaced with
limestone flagstones indicated a hydraulic work
and the drain beneath it proved to be of the
simplest type consisting of a channel in the
bedrockallowing for seepage between the rubble
fill. An ablution area with four drains on a
cruciform plan is known in the fortress at
Mirgissa.
In the southeast sector outside the main body
of the fortress opposite the two rows of magazines at ca. 1.10 m. above the Middle Kingdom
floor (bedrock) there appeared the remains of
a mansion with a columned hall and painted
walls. Its westernmost room featured an altar in
brick abutting on a wall, with a small crude stela

25

set in a niche and the remnants of two wooden

posts fronting it - perhaps originally carrying a
canopy (PI. X, fig. 4). A terracotta pipe, its
mouth flush with the floor had been sunk vertically beneath it abutting against the edge of the
altar table; it drained waste liquids from the
libation into an underground large broken jar
(0.58 m. in diameter; PI. XI, fig. 5). At the
bottom of this jar a whole set of new small flat
bowls had been piled up. The stela itself is an
irregular sandstone slab rounded at its top,
coarsely incised with an offering formula and a
scene of the deceased Merykaisekhem( ?)fronted
by an attendant (PI. XI, fig. 6). A preliminary
investigation led to a tentative dating in the
Thirteenth Dynasty. Behind the wall of the
altar a long room runs parallel to the westernmost one paved with terracotta tiles of a
module differing from that of Main Street
and rising as a one-step dais at its north end.
There were three small pots sunk in its axis,
their rims flush with the pavement. The installation seems to have been used for ritual
ablutions or bathing and its connection to the
altar room next to it, as well as the finds in the
same layer in its vicinity featuring five painted
pots, two censers, and a curious terracotta
figurine of a pregnant woman with winglike
arms and a goat's head, would back this interpretation (PI. XI, fig. 7).
Turning now to the small finds let us mention
a sandstone stela inbedded in the north wall of
the upper stretch of the water-stairway that
had suffered from a violent fire. The offering
formula for the benefit of an official bearing the
title of try Hn fir c* is addressed to the god
hnt - My originally a crocodile god (PI. XI,
fig. 8). Now evidence about crocodile worship
is found otherwise at Askut in a rock inscription
in the name of a god Sbk cs;ty, in several terracotta figurines of crocodiles and on long spouts
modeled with a crocodile, not to mention a
statuette of an "overseer of the plowings"
whose name was compound with that of Sebek.
Several oval seal impressionson mud stoppers
from the northeast sector could be read wnn-nfr
with the nfr inscribed within a bastioned oval

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Ito

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ALEXANDER BADAWY, EGYPTIAN FORTRESSAT ASKUT

(PL XII, fig. 9). Could the tentative rendering

be "the Fortress 'Beautiful' " referringto Askut ?
Other seal impressions of a coarser nature bear
heraldic signs resembling two crossing arrows
sometimes tripled (PI. XII, fig. 10). An enigmatic
pottery dish with a central projecting bowl
beehived on its internal wall with its edge cut
smooth has no parallel (PI. XII, fig. n).

27

These are some of the problemswhose solution

would help toward a closer definition of the
chronology and purport of one of the smallest,
though most interesting forts among the chain
of fortresses built by the Middle Kingdom pharaohs in Nubia.
University of California,Los Angeles

List of Plates
fig. 1. Aspect of some squatters' cellars in the western sector.
fig. 2. Terracotta pipe in the sill of the doorway to the ablution room with upper aperture
showing.
Part of Main Street excavated beneath its double paving to uncover the under3.
fig.
ground seepage drain.
fig. 4. Altar in brick seen from above (southeast sector).
PL XI, fig. 5. The altar deprived of its stela and excavated to uncover the undergrounddrainage.
fig. 6. Stela of the altar.
fig. 7. Terracotta figurine found in the vicinity of the altar.
fig. 8. Stela found m the north wall of the water staircase.
PL XII, fig. 9. Seal impression with Wnn-nfr.
fig. 10. Seal impressions with crossing elements.
fig. 11. Terracotta dish and beehived bowl.
PL X,

Text Figures
i. Stairway from western corridordown to the columned hall.
Fig. 1.
2.
Painted Panel restored.
Fig.
Plan
of the settling system of basins at the entrance of the fortress.
Fig. 3.

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ALEXANDER BADAWY, EGYPTIAN FORTRESSAT ASKUT

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XI

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10

II

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