REPORT ON THE 2007 FIELDWORK SEASON OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY AT THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE OF EL HIBEH,
BENI-SUEF GOVERNORATE

By Carol A. Redmount, Project Director

Abstract

El Hibeh lies on the east Nile bank about 55 km south of the modern town of Beni Suef. Occupation began at the site and seems to have been most extensive during the Third Intermediate Period, but Hibeh continued to be occupied into Byzantine and possibly early Islamic times. In 2007, the UC Berkeley mission focused on a preliminary exploration of a newly discovered small Coptic cemetery adjacent to the town wall on the east side of the north gate area. Carbon 14 analysis of two samples of outer mummy wrappings undertaken at the French Institute in Cairo gave dates for two previously excavated mummies from the cemetery ranging from the third to the sixth centuries C.E.  In addition, on-going surface monitoring and exploration of the site was continued, along with processing of ceramics and other material culture finds from earlier seasons.            

Introduction and General Observations

El Hibeh, ancient Egyptian Teudjoi and Greek Ankyronpolis,¹ is an ancient town and cemetery site located on the east bank of the Nile in northern Middle Egypt in Beni Suef Governorate (Figure 1). The site consists of two main parts (Figure 2): 1) a walled town mound; and 2) a series of outlying cemeteries with numerous burials, mostly disturbed, cut into the desert floor or limestone outcrops surrounding the site. The town was founded in the Third Intermediate Period and occupation continued into Byzantine and possibly early Islamic times. El Hibeh is particularly important for our understanding of the history of the Third Intermediate Period, as it seems to have marked the northern border of Theban control and been an official residence at this time.² The site also is well known as the reported find spot of a number of important papyri sold on the antiquities market from approximately 1880-1910, most notably the Tale of Wenamon and the Petition of Petiese (Papyrus Rylands IX).³  Sheshonq I, first king of the Twenty-Second Libyan Dynasty, built a small limestone temple at the site, dedicated to a local version of the Theban god Amun. This temple is mentioned in Papyrus Rylands IX, also known as the Petition of Petiese, and still stands today, although it is deteriorating because of the fluctuating water table at the site and the poor quality of the local limestone from which it was constructed. El Hibeh is, like most sites in Egypt today, endangered by a combination of factors, specifically the rising water table of the Nile, the increased planting and irrigation of local agriculture, the spreading land claims of the villages north and south of the site, and the completion of the new highway from Cairo on the east side of the Nile. Pressure on the site from these sources is already serious and will continue to worsen.

Previous archaeological work at El Hibeh was undertaken, with one exception, in the earlier part of the twentieth century. Ahmed Kamal was the first to work at the site; he published his results in 1901.⁴ Kamal was followed by Grenfell and Hunt, who excavated at Hibeh in 1902 and 1903⁵ and recovered enormous quantities of Greek and Demotic papyri from mummy cartonnage.⁶ Junker excavated burials at the site for three days in 1911;⁷  Ranke completely excavated Sheshonq I’s limestone temple and explored some Graeco-Roman houses on the town mound in 1913 (trial excavation) and 1914 (main excavation);⁸ and an Italian mission undertook extensive excavations at the site in 1934 and 1935, uncovering structures and burials dating from Third Intermediate Period to Roman times.⁹ Almost 50 years would pass before an American mission, co-directed by Robert Wenke and Cynthia Sheikholeslami, worked at El Hibeh for one season in 1980.¹⁰ Most recently, the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley), began work at the site season in 2001.¹¹ With the exception of the 1980 American expedition, the earlier archaeological work at the site was largely unsystematic and interested only in the Sheshonq temple, in recovering coffins or papyri from mortuary cartonnage, or in searching (unsuccessfully) for additional papyri. Unfortunately, with the partial exceptions of the 1913/14 clearance of the temple and the work of the American mission in 1980, none of the earlier work was completely published, even to the standards of the time.

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2007

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