Abasseya Project



SEASON 2016


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SEVENTH SEASON – SUMMARY





Start date: February 10th, 2016
Duration: 20 days



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Sector B – Abasseya

Archaeological work

AnchorAnchor AnchorAnchorIn the sector B a first cleaning of the site was performed. The season has focused on the excavation of the foundation levels of the building found in sector B, uncovering the entire perimeter of that level. It has been found that there are no foundation benches in the corners of the eastern wall, unlike what was documented in the previous season for the north and south corners of the west side.





We have finished digging the two remaining rooms inside the podium. Inside we have documented a fill up layer consisting of clean sand without collapse debris or artifacts. In the central room towards the east access, a vessel of I-IV Dunham type was found, the same type of those found in the U-shape room. In this case the vessel was found in situ, facing down and in perfect preservation condition.





Also, the debris level documented in the previous season located on the southwest side of Sector B (outside the podium) was partially excavated. Below the debris level appears a level of use formed by rubble and stones, which has been related to the structures located in the southwest area outside the podium.

AnchorAnchorAt the fill up layer in the southern area of Sector B, they have appeared two new drums, numbered pieces 66 and 67. Also, nearby two facade fragments have appeared. The two fragments have Egyptian shape, one would correspond to a corner.





Restoration and exhibition work

AnchorAnchor As for the restoration work of the podium plaster, there have been three types of interventions. On the one hand, we have continued the consolidation of the plaster of the podium, reinforcing the edges of the joints between the layer of plaster and the preserved wall (bevel) or filling up visible gaps, cracks or fissures in some of the walls.





On the other hand, in the west ramp, and in the northern and southern walls we have restored plaster fragments detached from their original place. The fragment of plaster detached from the west ramp was recovered in the previous season and was picked up from the Barkal Museum and restored in its original place.



Finally, there has been carried consolidation works of the interior face of the plaster layer and their preparation layers in order to rebuild the podium wall on the north side. In the campaign of 2014, two provisional support walls were built, one on the north wall and one on the south wall of the podium. The support wall of the north side was built to ensure the conservation of the plaster as the original wall had partially disappeared and the plaster was hanging loose.



The restoration work consisted of cleaning the inside of the wall, consolidating the layers of preparation, restoring of the original wall of the podium and removing the provisional support wall. The provisional wall on the south side was dismantled and the original wall restored according to the general criteria for intervention of the site, retaining the original alignment of the wall and not the current one, which is slightly shifted to the south.





As for preparation for exhibition work, we have completed the restoration of the inner and outer walls of the podium. According to the guidelines of the previous season we have cleaned the top of the levels and we have placed a green plastic network between the old and the modern restoration level.





Resistivity survey in west area of Abasseya B

As part of our scope of work for this season we performed an electrical resistivity survey towards the west side of the Abasseya B building. We built our own instrument by using four bolts as electrodes attached to a circuitry including a small battery, a switch and two multitesters (one for voltage and one for amperage), all of them mounted in a PVC frame. Two types of systems were used: Pole-Pole array and Wenner array, which would give us different depths of investigation.





The surveyed area was a square of 19.5 mts x 15 mts located around 15 mts from the first step of the west access of Sector B. This area was covered with the Pole - Pole array by surveying 10 lines of 13 readings each.

The results were plotted in a colour coded grid map. A high resistivity area was identified towards the north-east quadrant of the surveying area.





The measurements were checked by surveying a small grid of 4 mts x 3 mts with the Wenner array within the high resistivity area. The readings were confirmed and a trench of 3 mts x 3 mts was opened to find out what was causing the high resistivity. Several scattered partially preserved redbricks and a small but complete sandstone block among fragments of pottery, redbrick and sandstone were found in the trench at a depth between 20 cm and 40 cm from surface. All this material was surrounded by clean quartzite sand.





We have concluded that this homemade resistivity survey device is enough to provide subsurface data that would allow us to identify possible structures. Further improvement has to be made on the sensibility of the signal and its relation to the actual depth of investigation. So far both type of arrays have provided similar results, although the Wenner array is easier to deploy. This is something important to consider on extensive survey areas.

Materials

All material found during excavation of the sectors B have been cleaned, identified and inventoried. The most significant pieces have been drawn and photographed. All material found during this campaign has been stored with the material of the previous campaigns in the Barkal Museum (Karima).





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