REPORT ON THE 2002 FIELDWORK SEASON OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY AT THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL

SITE OF EL-HIBEH, BENI-SUEF GOVERNORATE

By Carol A. Redmount, Project Director

North Area

            Our mission plans to work at El-Hibeh, with the kind permission of the SCA, for very many years in the future. We therefore require an appropriate facility to assist us and to assist the SCA inspectors with this long-term work. We began our preliminary planning for an expedition compound last year, during our first field season, in spring-summer of 2001; we continued the planning this year. As mentioned above, finding affordable accommodations for the dig team with appropriate facilities for work and study is already difficult and will become more problematic in the future. 

            Storage is also a serious problem for us, both for antiquities and for expedition equipment and supplies and other materials. The nearest official SCA storehouse to El-Hibeh is at Ahnasya El-Medina, some sixty or more kilometers away (approximately an hour and a half by car), on the other side of the river. It is difficult and problematic to constantly move finds back and forth to this storehouse, and it is not good for delicate objects such as relief to be transported long distances unless absolutely necessary. Hibeh is a very rich site and we expect many finds, some very large and heavy, from future work. Many of these, such as fragments of relief from the temple, will require extended study over a number of years to place them in their complete archaeological context. Already after only two and a half weeks of fieldwork in 2001 we recovered two  reused limestone relief blocks, presumably from the Sheshonq temple, in addition to a number of other items. This year we discovered twelve more relief fragments (see below). It is therefore clear that El-Hibeh should have its own antiquities storage magazine, which the UC Berkeley team is willing to provide. In addition, the UC Berkeley mission also needs its own magazine to store equipment and other supplies and materials. 

            Consequently, we are requesting permission, in a separate letter, to construct a expedition compound that will consist of an enclosure wall, a guard house and bathroom (the current guard structure has no bathroom, and the guards have been using the temple and the area around it as a toilet), two storage containers, one for antiquities, one for UC Berkeley mission storage, and a large day house with a large inspector's room for the UC Berkeley team and for the SCA Inspectors. In 2001, we identified a possible location for this compound that appeared to have few or no in situ antiquities. This area was located at the northern edge of SCA antiquities land,  bordering the village north of the site. Our first task in 2002 was to investigate this area in detail to see if it was truly suitable for construction.

Team conducting surface survey of area north of tell.

            Thus, during our first week this season, before we started our main work, we undertook surface survey and test pit excavations at the location we had identified last year for the mission compound. This flat, low lying area was adjacent to the road, well north of the town mound, and next to the village of El-Ogra that lies north of the site. It lies at the northwesternmost corner of the antiquities land.  The village had already requested permission (denied so far) to build a school in this area. We are hoping that if we build our compound in this area it will help protect the northern border of the site from encroachment by the village. Our surface survey and test pits did in fact confirm that the location we had chosen last year for the Berkeley expedition compound contains no in situ archaeological materials and that the area was therefore an appropriate site for construction.

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