Delta Survey

A British Academy Research Project

Information on the archaeological sites of the Delta is presented here in the form web-pages containing an alphabetical listing of sites. Where a substantial amount of information is available, or photographs of the site exist, links are provided to supplementary pages. The site-names in most cases are those of the Survey of Egypt maps. The material is offered as a source of reference and a tool for the planning of new projects.  The letters 'T' and 'K' in the lists stand for 'Tell' and 'Kom' respectively, Arabic words for 'mound', describing the usual appearance of archaeological sites in the region.

We would recommend viewing this area of the website on a desktop computer. 

You may also be interested to visit the separate Western Delta Regional Survey on Durham University's website here: http://community.dur.ac.uk/penelope.wilson/Delta/Survey.html 

Delta Reports

Delta Reports is a journal dedicated to the publication of archaeology, geography, history and heritage relevant to the Nile Delta. The first volume Delta Reports 1 Research in Lower Egypt was published in 2009 and edited by Donald Redford. The series has been restarted with a full editorial board and will be published by Archaeopress. Each edition will be published when a sufficient number of papers have been prepared, so there is a rolling deadline.

The publication aims to make fieldwork reports from the North of Egypt (including Alexandria, Wadi Tumilat, Wadi Natrun and North Sinai) available soon after the fieldwork has been completed. Each volume would contain about 10-15 reports from fieldwork, in order to make the material immediately accessible to other archaeologists and interested parties. There is no limit on time-period and historical and heritage material will also be accepted. The volumes will be edited by the editorial board and another academic reviewer. Reports would be published in English or Arabic and all reports would have an English/Arabic abstract.

If you are interested in sending us a paper, please do contact the email address below.

Download the submission guidelines

All correspondence and submissions should be made to: [email protected] 

British Museum concession since 1991. A large and relatively intact mound marking the site of ancient Smabehdet, also known in the New Kingdom as Paiuenamon, with a temple enclosure on the south and high occupation mounds to the north and west. The west mound is Roman with occupation down to beginning of 6thC AD; the east mound mainly dynastic. Temple foundations of Sheshonk III, Psamtik I and Nekhtnebef, dated by foundation-deposits, have been discovered, with enclosure walls of the Ramesside Period and dynasties 26 and 30. Part of the Ramesside temple enclosure-wall was cut by the tomb of a Lower Egyptian Vizier named Iken, dating from the reign of Osorkon I. More elite tombs of Dynasty 22 were found at the front of the Ramesside temple of Amun, to left of axis, in 1999. These were built of stone and contained some burials with falcon-mask coffins. In 2003 a Roman street was discovered through the middle of the site. The whole of the temple area has been magnetically mapped by a team led by Dr Tomasz Herbich of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

Previous work by Howard Carter in 1913 (MSS in Griffith Institute, Oxford) and Francis Ghattas for Mansura University in 1977-78.

Note: a set of web pages about the excavations directed by Jeffrey Spencer for the British Museum at Tell el-Balamun is available at http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/research_projects/excavation_in_egypt.aspx 

   

Left, excavation at the front of the Nekhtnebef temple, 2004; right, part of the temple enclosure wall of dynasty 26

   

Left, part of the Roman street; right, foundation deposit plaques of Psamtik I

   

Left, foundation deposit plaques of Nekhtnebef; right, the elite cemetery

Shabti-figures of the Vizier Iken

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