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

Temple

            Unfortunately, none of our epigraphic team was able to come this year apart from Thomas Logan, so the more detailed epigraphic and drawing activities we had planned for the Shoshenq temple had to be postponed. We continued our photographic documentation of the temple, however.

Palm tree growth within the temple walls.

Temple area showing encroaching vegetation.

            When we returned this year we were shocked by the condition of the temple. There was even more vegetation than last year, and the stump of the palm tree we had cut down last year had sprouted in three separate areas, creating three growing palm trees where had formerly been only one. Even the back rooms of the temple, mostly barren of vegetation last year, now sprouted lushly with a low grass due to the high water table. The rest of the temple was overrun with halfa grass, growing between the temple stones and making the temple walls all but invisible in the front and middle parts of the structure.  Limestone at ground surface level was damp and disintegrating, and the ground itself was damp at the surface in many places. This situation was to get worse before we finished our work. This year we did not clear the temple of vegetation but instead cleared a path through the center of the structure.

Vegetative growth within the temple.

Halfa grass growing around and on temple blocks.

Visibly damp limestone blocks at ground level inside temple.

            The three blocks we had treated last year were in varying shape, despite their virtually identical treatment. These blocks had been disintegrating in front of our eyes already in 2001, so we had performed emergency conservation on them with the materials we had available to us for the task:  cellulose nitrate with UV inhibitor, and clear cellulose acetate. The cellulose nitrate had been applied with a brush on the relief surface of all three blocks. The cellulose acetate was applied with a brush only to the sides of the Sheshonq cartouche block. The Sheshonq cartouche block was in the worst shape of the three treated blocks. The cellulose acetate had peeled off the sides of the block. The relief had continued to deteriorate despite the surface treatment with cellulose nitrate, and is now about half gone. The other two blocks, which had been in very poor shape to begin with, did not seem to have deteriorated much further for the moment. The area that had been treated on the large, standing block looked dry, but other parts of the stone were damp, indicating that the cycle of wetting and drying that mobilized the salts in the blocks was continuing to occur (Figure 10).  The block lying on the ground surface was completely damp from the high water table (Figure 11).

Rapidly deteriorating block with cartouche of Sheshonq I.

Block showing results of conservation attempt in 2001.

Damp block at surface level.

            We had planned this season to try to locate bedrock in the temple temenos area, and hoped to excavate one or more exploratory trenches inside the temple down to the limestone floor and one or more to the foundations of the structure along the exterior temple walls.  We began by excavating a 2 m x 2 m probe trench (STPT 1) adjacent to the exterior rear wall of the temple. To our surprise and dismay, we hit water only 15 cm below surface level. We then excavated a second probe trench (STPT 2), 2 m x 1 m, against the interior back wall of the temple. This time we hit water table after only 18 cm. We then auger cored in the first probe trench, STPT 1, for 1.8 m before the core could go no further. Unfortunately it was impossible to tell whether we had hit bedrock or simply an obstruction, such as a rock, that the core could not penetrate. We suspect, however, that the area underneath the temple does not contain limestone bedrock and is composed instead of accumulated Nile silt deposits. The high water table made it impossible for us to excavate geologic trenches to locate bedrock in the temenos area around the temple, or even to excavate down to the interior temple floor or the exterior temple foundations. We know from last year's auger cores that the temple's limestone floor is probably a meter or more below current ground surface level.

            The two test trenches against the back temple wall, especially the exterior one, did enable us to monitor changes in the water table during our work at the site.  We originally excavated the trenches on June 16, at which time the water table was 15-18 cm below ground surface. By June 22 the water table had dropped and we were able to excavate the exterior trench, STPT1, a total of 80 cm below the ground surface before again encountering water.  Two days later the water table was high again. On July 3, the water table was at the level of much of the ground surface, and there was standing water inside the temple in many different places (Figures 12, 13).  The western end of the path we had cleared through the center of the temple was filled with water (Figure 14). The high water table is very dangerous for the temple, and the rise and fall of the water level is even worse for the limestone, which is of poor quality to begin with.

Temple area seen from east showing signs of flooding.

Water at surface level in trench STPT 1.

Water level along central path through temple.

            It became clear from monitoring both the water table in the temple and the water level in the irrigation canals of the banana grove that lies directly adjacent to the tell to the east and south of the temple, that there was a direct relationship between the two. When the banana grove was being irrigated, the water table in the temple rose. When the water in the irrigation canals was low, the water table in the temple dropped. When the water in the irrigation canals was high, and there was standing water in the banana grove, there was standing water in the temple.  This banana grove is apparently a relatively recent phenomenon, within the past approximately five or six years, and it appears that the very rapid deterioration of the temple in the past few years is attributable primarily to the constantly varying and often extremely high water table that results from  irrigating the banana trees.  Given this situation, especially the rapidity with which the deterioration of the limestone relief seems to be occurring since the banana grove was planted,  it will be very difficult and possibly impossible to save the temple.  We consulted with conservators at both the Getty Institute in California and the Metropolitan Museum in New York before coming to Egypt, and everyone said that unless and until the water table can be both lowered and stabilized, so that the limestone is no longer subject to cycles of wetting and drying, little can be done to save the remaining temple relief in the temple structure.

Location of banana field in relation to area of excavation.

Irrigation canals in banana field south of tell.

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