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Mission El Salha, 2004. In spite
of the actual economic crisis, which troubles Italy
and affects the resources our state can provide to
archaeological researches, we were successful in continuing
our work in the El Salha area, south of Omdurman.
We landed in Khartoum November 14th 2004. After the
accomplishment of the customary bureaucratic duties,
the search for a flat not too far away from our working
area, and having the engine of our cars (two Panda
4x4: Fig. 1) overhauled, we finally started our scheduled
working program.
The team was composed of Donatella Usai, the director
of the project, Luana Cenci, conservator and archaeologist,
Sandro Salvatori, archaeologist and vice-director,
the new entry Federica Boiani, a student of the “Facoltà
di Beni Culturali” of Ravenna, and the National
Corporation for Antiquities and Museums inspector
Amel Awad Mukhtar Nasir, archaeologist. Although reduced
in number our group was able to accomplish with great
satisfaction the ambitious program we designed for
this season. But let us tell you the story in order.
Donatella, with Federica and some experienced local
workers resumed excavations at the 10-X-6 site (Figs.
2, 3). The previous years work at the site made clear
that the Mesolithic layers we were looking for had
been systematically disturbed and practically destroyed
by an intensive use of the area as a graveyard since
the first centuries AD and by scavengers which tunnelled
in all directions the anthropic deposit used to build
up Post-Meroitic tumulus-like tombs. The present campaign
confirmed our most pessimistic prediction. As a result
of the 2004 excavation campaign a clear picture of
the site formation process was over-refined.
Deepening the old trench we went through the eight
Post-Meroitic pit grave located, as the other seven,
along the edge of a large, plundered tumulus-like
grave we excavated in 2002.
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| The dead was in a crushed
position lying on his right side (Fig. 4) and furnished
with a large pottery bowl decorated with a sheaf of
zigzag dotted lines and a chain of lozenges (Figs.
5, 6).
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| He also wore a long necklace of
ostrich eggshell (Fig.7), faience (Fig. 8), carnelian,
agate and ivory beads (Fig. 9).
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A further deepening
of the trench gave us, finally, a key to understand
the site formation history.
Well inside the trench a very old erosion gully, marked
by a number of sandstone tools like grinding stones
and grinders, has been found and cleaned (Fig. 10).
It is very much alike the erosion gullies on the eastern
slope of the site (Fig. 11). This means that the prehistoric
site eastern edge was 25 meters back than the actual
line. Further evidence was later provided by the cleaning
of the rocky bed which appeared to slope down from this
point to the alluvial plain to the Nile (Fig. 12). The
archaeological evidence shows without doubts that the
site morphology east of the oldest edge was shaped by
the building of a number of tumulus-like Post-Meroitic
graves. A second line of Post-Meroitic tumulus-like
and pit graves is located, parallel to the other, on
the axis of our excavation trench and produced the destruction
of the prehistoric (Neolithic and Mesolithic) deposit.
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An attempt to enlarge our trench to the
west was necessarily limited by the presence of the modern
cemetery (Fig. 13). To verify the persistence of some prehistoric
deposit to the west only an extension of 5 meters of the original
trench was possible. Unfortunately a portion of a second large
mud-brick structure related to a Meroitic or Post-Meroitic
grave, partly disturbed by later pits, appeared along the
northern edge of the trench extension. The grave’s structure
was directly lying on a very thin prehistoric layer, the only
trace of the original Mesolithic deposit (Figs. 14-15). Being
impossible to move the excavation to the west we decided to
abandon 10-X-6 (Fig. 16) to move our research to more southern
sites were we confide to find better preserved Mesolithic
deposits. 10-X-6 is still an important archaeological site
that could provide information on later periods and it is
possible that in the next future Sudanese archaeologists from
the Antiquity Service will resume excavations to investigate
the large Post-Meroitic graveyard.
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| Fig. 13 |
Fig. 14 |
Fig. 15 |
Fig. 16 |
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