Tell el-Farkha (Ghazala) (Egypt)
Dates of work: 28 February–27 April 2009
Team:
Co-Directors: Dr. Marek Chłodnicki, archaeologist (Archaeological Museum in Poznań), Prof. Krzysztof M. Ciałowicz, archaeologist (Institute of Archaeology, Jagiellonian University)
SCA representative: Saad el Sayed Mansur
Archaeologists: Katarzyna Błaszczyk, Artur Buszek, Marcin Czarnowicz, Dr. Joanna Dębowska-Ludwin, Grzegorz Pryc (Institute of Archaeology, Jagiellonian University), Maciej Jórdeczka (Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poznań)
Ceramologists: Dr. Mariusz Jucha (Institute of Archaeology, Jagiellonian University), Michał Rozwadowski (Center for Archaeological Heritage Rescue Research, Poznań)
Anthropologist: Anna Kozłowska, Joanna Wojdala (Institute of Zoology, Jagiellonian University)
Geologists: Prof. Maciej Pawlikowski, Anna Grochowina (AGH University of Science and Technology, Kraków), Dr. Małgorzata Mrozek-Wysocka (Institute of Geology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań)
Paleobotanist: Dr. Lucyna Kubiak-Martens (BIA X Consult, Zaandam, Nederland)
Photographer: Hubert Chudzio (freelance), Robert Słaboński (freelance)
Documentalists: Halina Żarska-Chłodnicka (ARCH media s.c., Poznań)
Student-trainees: Jagiellonian University in Kraków and Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań
Excavations at Tell el-Farkha in 2009 were conducted on all three koms making up the site. A complex of buildings around an empty space continued to be investigated on the Western Kom, the results confirming the exceptional role of the Western shrine (Room 211) and its surroundings at the turn of the Protodynastic period. Remains of a Lower Egyptian “residence” were identified on the Central Kom. The layout of these rectangular units made of organic materials and wooden structures serving as enclosures proved to be quite complicated. A number of pits, some of them lined with mud, were found in and around the structures. On the Eastern Kom 23 graves were discovered and fully explored. They can be divided into three main groups. The most interesting are the richest graves lined with mud brick or even constructed in mastaba form, with numerous offerings inside them. Four subsidiary child graves were discovered in the south wall of a freestanding mastaba (grave 100) from the times of Dynasty 0.
[Text: PAM]