Kom Firin
Later structures at Kom Firin
While the Ramesside temple
and enclosure gave way to modest domestic buildings in the Third
Intermediate Period, the appearance on the art market of donation
stelae from the site suggest a temple to Sekhmet and Heka may have
existed here in the early first millennium BC.
Later, the two objects in the British Museum suggest a Saite
temple existed at the site, a theory further supported by the
excavation of shabtis belonging to priests o
f this period, in the
adjacent cemetery (Silvagou).
A standing segment of enclosure wall stands at the modern
entrance to the site (right), and the extension of the magnetometry
survey in 2005 suggested the possible presence of two further
enclosures, to the north of the Ramesside fortifications.
Pottery collected from around an exposed patch of brickwork from
one of these northern walls included very distinctive sherds from
decorated transport amphorae. The decoration and fabric indicate
these come from the Aegean and Phoenicia, and date to the 6th
century BC. Is this newly identified enclosure the remains of a
Saite temple complex?
Surface ceramics suggest Kom Firin continued to flourish for
many centuries, perhaps until the 7th century AD.
Images (from top):
- Negative of an
enclosure wall? Accumulated layers of fill have built up againts a
now lost feature, which may have been up to 5m thick. This
'channel' aligns well with the new enclosure wall found through
magnetometry survey in 2005
- Aegean and Phoenician
pottery collected in surface survey in and around exposed segments
of a monumental mud-brick wall in the north-eastern part of Kom
Firin.
- Standing segment of
monumental mud-brick wall in the north-eastern corner of the
site.