EES Minufiyeh Survey

EES Minufiyeh Survey (Joanne Rowland)

Jo is back in the Minufiyeh district of the Delta reporting on the long term project to survey the area. See the above page for all her posts to date.

Wednesday 23rd March

Today was the first real day of survey work - we set off from the apartment at 7.30am, a later start than usual, as we have to ensure that our inspector can travel from Tanta in good light! We met as usual under the bridge at Quesna and headed off to the area of el-Rimaly where we made our first stop - as usual on the first day of survey in a new area - in the town centre for tea, to await the arrival of our colleague. Our colleague having arrived, we began to walk around the area, which is in close proximity to the Delta Survey sites of Tell Mustai and Umm Harb. The fields are mainly planted at the moment, although there are a number of clear fields, giving us the opportunity to take a closer look at the range of ceramics that have been turned up through ploughing. A selection of diagnostic sherds will be examined by our ceramicist, Ashraf el-Senussi during the last week of this short season. Tell Mustai was once a high kom and has been heavily built upon; Umm Harb is the highest point on the kom, surmounted by the tomb of the Sheikh Umm Harb (Arabic for ‘mother of war’). We also worked with the total station surveying equipment, and were able to plot the fields that were examined and measure the height of each of the remaining koms.