Early Makuria Research Project – Tanqasi
Dates of work: 10 January–15 March 2018
Team:
Director: Assist. Prof. Mahmoud El-Tayeb, archaeologist (PCMA UW)
NCAM inspector: Neamat Mohamed El-Hassan
Archaeologists: Anna Jaklewicz (freelance), Zofia Kowarska (freelance), Maciej Wyżgoł (PCMA UW)
Anthropologist: Magdalena Srienc (Austrian Institute of Archaeology)
Archaeozoologist: Urszula Iwaszczuk (PCMA UW)
Ceramologist: Ewa Czyżewska-Zalewska (PCMA UW)
Metal expert: Łukasz Zieliński (Institute of Archaeology, University of Warsaw)
Topographer/archaeologist: Magdalena Antos (freelance)
Photographer: Adam Kamrowski (Gdańsk Archaeological Museum)
Archaeology student-trainees: Wafa Sharif and Zaynab Abd El-Galil (Neelain University), Nuseyba Abd El-Hamid (Bahry University)
Tanqasi village lies on the left side of the river Nile, about 17 km downstream from Merowe city. A large tumuli field is located some kilometers southeast of the village toward the edge of the Bayuda Desert. It contains no less than 250 tumuli of various size and form of superstructure, varying from very large to very small, but only four of these have been excavated so far (three in 1953 and one in 2006). A new study program, starting in 2018 within the frame of the Early Makuria Research Project, has now explored five more tombs located in different parts of the cemetery, providing a broad chronological sequence from late to terminal Meroitic.
Acknowledgments:
The project is financed by the Qatar–Sudan Archaeological Project, mainly, and by the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology, University of Warsaw.
Text: Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean 27/1
Contact
Mahmoud el-Tayeb: mahmoudeltayeb@uw.edu.pl