Wadi Khashab (Egypt)
Dates of work: 6–20 January 2015
Team:
Director: Piotr Osypiński, archaeologist (Patrimonium Foundation)
SCA representative: Farag Shazly Mohamed
Archaeologist: Marek Woźniak (Polish Ministry of Education scholarship holder, PCMA UW; PhD candidate, Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish (Academy of Sciences)
Archaeozoologist: Dr. Marta Osypińska (Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poznań branch)
(Joint description of seasons 2014 and 2015)
The research at Wadi Khashab started as a subproject of the Berenike Projec. In its course, the southwestern part of the monumental ceremonial enclosure was explored, uncovering 23 features which included cattle and ram burials. A single infant skeleton was found with a necklace of Conidae sp. shells and a bracelet of faience beads on the ankle. Importantly, measurement of the cattle bones identified them as belonging to the African humped species.
The project was funded from Polish National Science Centre (NCN) grant UMO-2012/07/N/MS3/04056.
See also:
Osypiński, P. and Osypińska, M. (2014). Wadi Khashab — ceremonial complex of cattle keepers in the Egyptian Eastern Desert, season 2014. Nyame Akuma, 82, 84–90
Osypiński, P. and Osypińska, M. (2016). The Wadi Khashab ceremonial complex — a manifestation of cattle keepers in the Eastern Desert of Egypt before the end of the fifth millennium BC. Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa, 51(2), 257–281. https://doi.org/10.1080/0067270X.2016.1186335
Text: Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean 25