2010 Season at Tell el-Ghaba, North Sinai: Preliminary Report

Abstract

Tell el-Ghaba lies in the northern coastal plain of the Sinai Peninsula, in what once was the most eastern border of the Nile Delta. The site was located on the route that linked Egypt with Palestine and next to a lagoon fed by the Pelusiac branch of the Nile. During 1995-1999 three areas were excavated at the site (Areas I, II and VI). The archaeological work uncovered successive occupational levels as revealed by the superimposed architectural remains such as the foundations of flimsy structures, residential and public mud brick buildings and industrial workshops. A dark thick layer of a charcoal rich sediment with oxidation lenses that covers all the excavated areas indicates that the site ended in a violent conflagration.The analysis of the recovered pottery indicates that the site seems to have functioned through the Third Intermediate to the Early Saite periods. No significant epigraphic evidence has been found, so far, at the site. This study was conducted within the context of the PICT 2011 No. 1883, Project funded by the FONCYT-ANPCYT (National Fund for Scientific and Technological Research), Buenos Aires.