Friday, April 06, 2012

Egiptólogos catalanes encuentran 1.200 peces de la época faraónica

La Vanguardia (Silvia Colome)

Thanks to Amigos de la Egiptologia for this link.

With some great photos.

Rough and ready translation: This year's season of the Catalan mission at Oxyrhynchus has ended with the unexpected discovery of about 1200 fish buried in the necropolis.  All were deposited at the same time and the archaeologists are discussing what may lie beneath them, hypothesising that they were perhaps deposited as a grave offering, with the burial beneath the fish.  It is not yet know which specie the fish is, although the team think that it would by nice if they were Oxyrhynchus , the specie after which the city was named.  The dating of the fish is also to be resolved, as they were found at levels below the Roman layers. 

Other finds by the team include both a complete funerary statue of a meter high and the head of a statue, both women, probably Roman.  A major discovery at the site was monumental way (flanked with porches, columns with impressive Corinthian captials and architraves, probably made of Aswan granite) running through the cemetery as far as the Osireion, an underground temple dedicated to the god Osiris.  It matches up with a street shown in aerial photographs and may be Ptolemaic in date. The first building along this route is now being excavated, probably a temple that later became Christan.  Finally, fragments of a Roman mosic was found in the same area.

La misión catalana que trabaja en la antigua ciudad de Oxirrinco ha finalizado la campaña de excavación con una inesperada sorpresa: el hallazgo de unos 1.200 peces enterrados en la necrópolis. “Nunca habíamos visto nada parecido, pensamos que se trata de un ritual”, explica Josep Padró, director de la misión liderada por egiptólogos de la Universitat de Barcelona. Todos fueron depositados en el mismo momento “formando capas entre estores vegetales”, precisa la arqueóloga Maite Mascort.

La hipótesis que baraja el equipo de egiptólogos es que “debajo de estos peces haya algo más”, sigue Mascort. “Quizás fueron depositados como ofrenda encima de una tumba”, añade. “Nos ha costado mucho dejar la excavación para el año que viene, pero así es el trabajo del arqueólogo”, se lamenta.

El equipo ha extraído miles de espinas de estos peces y ahora está trabajando en determinar de qué especie se trata.


No comments: