REPORT ON THE 2003 FIELDWORK SEASON OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY AT THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE OF EL-HIBEH, BENI-SUEF GOVERNORATE

By Carol A. Redmount, Project Director 

Study, Monitoring and Excavation in the Sheshonq Temple Temenos

A small provincial temple to the Theban god Amun in the local form of "Amun-Great-of-Roarings" was built of local limestone at El-Hibeh by Sheshonq I, first ruler of Dynasty 22. The decoration was evidently completed by his son, Osorkon I. Later, probably in Dynasty 30, a pronaos was added to the original Third Intermediate Period structure.⁽¹⁴⁾ Kamal⁽¹⁵⁾ and Daressy⁽¹⁶⁾ produced the first publications of the temple, describing the structure and its condition and relief decoration. Subsequently in 1913/14, a German mission completely cleared the interior of the temple and trenched around at least the back part of the temple exterior. This German mission also recorded the temple inscriptions and some, but not all, of the temple relief decoration. The best relief pieces were brought back with the expedition to Heidelberg. No further archaeological work in the temple seems to have been carried out until 1980, when the American mission excavated a small probe trench in the pronaos and noted that several meters of Nile flood sediment had accumulated in the temple since the structure was cleared in 1913/14.

The temple structure itself is presently in poor shape and, because of the fluctuating local watertable resulting from the irrigation of adjacent and nearby fields, its condition worsens every year. Many of the blocks above ground surface level are heavily eroded, especially in the rear portion of the temple where the poorest quality local limestone was used for construction. Relief decoration remains visible, but only in a few areas. The relief on the back exterior wall of the temple is badly worn and only barely legible in places. A few other extant in situ relief blocks are located in the temple's interior. In general it appears that the relief in the front part of the temple was cut into better quality limestone and is therefore better preserved than the relief in the back part of the temple. Other relief blocks, all either badly broken or badly worn or both, have been found scattered in various locations inside and outside the temple structure.

We again cleared the interior of the temple of the worst of the vegetation that had grown since last year (Figure 5). We also continued our on-going observations of the watertable in the temple in particular and in the temenos area in general by observing water and moisture levels inside and around the temple structure and the nearby irrigation channels, and by augering two core holes that served as monitoring stations (Figure 4, Auger Cores 1 and 2). Watertable level in these core holes varied as much as 60 cm in less than twelve hours. From our observations we were able to determine that the groundwater in the temple and in the temenos area is especially affected by the quantity of irrigation water supplied to the agricultural fields that are located on higher ground to the east and southeast of the tell. In particular, the agricultural fields lying within 300 meters of the temple appear to control the height of the watertable under the temple and in the surrounding archaeological sediments. Intensive watering of fields of approximately 1 feddan-25 cm and greater for periods over several hours produces the greatest rise in watertable elevation at the temple. The local sediments transmit the irrigation water rapidly (about 1cm/minute of head rise for every 12 meters of distance from the source) from the agricultural water source to the tell. The temple temenos area is in close proximity to irrigated fields on its east, south, and west, and when these fields are flooded, the surface of the ground at the temple is fully saturated, with standing water in some locations.

In addition to monitoring the temple's condition and variations in the local water table, we extended our excavations in the temple temenos area. We opened up two areas, one (STTA-C; Figure 4, 6) immediately west of the largest of our earlier trenches, the other at the western edge of the preserved temenos area, abutting the paved road (STTZ; Figure 4, Figure 7). Because of the unanticipated finds elsewhere on the tell (see below), we had less time than originally planned to work in this area. We succeeded only in clearing and in beginning to excavate both areas, finding, as expected, secondary debris from earlier work or disturbance in the area consisting of numerous limestone fragments in the case of STTZ (Figure 7; the only find of note was a relatively crude limestone foot, see below), and broken fired brick with only occasional limestone fragments in the case of STTA-C (Figure 6; a number of the broken bricks bore fragments of the cartouches of Menkheperre or Pinudjem, High Priests of Amun at Karnak in Dynasty 21). We did encounter one surprise in the area: on the second to last day of excavation, we uncovered the remains of an in situ kiln or oven of unknown use (Figure 8). This installation will be investigated further in future seasons.

References:

14. Arnold, op. cit.

15. op. cit.

16. G. Daressy, "Le Temple de Hibéh," Annales du Service des Antiquités de l'Égypte 2 (1901): 154-56.

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