The Sikait Project’s 2022 season has allowed us to continue increasing our knowledge about the characteristics of the Sikait settlement and, at the same time, about the process of extraction and commercialization of emeralds in Antiquity.
The season was carried out throughout the month of January with a team of four archaeologists, a ceramologist, a geologist and two restorers, together with two inspectors and a restorer from the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities and the rest of the local workers.
As in previous years, the work focused on three axes: the excavation at Sikait, the documentation of the mines and the restoration-consolidation interventions.
The excavation
In relation to the excavation tasks, this year they focused on the Small Temple. It is a small temple of the speos type (cut into the rock) located at the entrance of the settlement, a hundred meters from the Southern Temple.
Its interest lies in the fact that it is the only building in Sikait that partially preserves a dedicatory inscription. It is a dedication from the time of Emperor Gallienus (3rd century A.D.) made to honor the construction of several wells in the settlement. The text is dedicated to Apollo, Serapis and Isis of Senskis, being the only evidence we have of the original name of Sikait.
Despite its obvious interest, no archaeological intervention had ever been carried out in the temple and therefore it was decided that its excavation might be appropriate. Unfortunately, the interior of the temple had been intensely plundered over the years and so we preferred to intervene in the part of the outer courtyard, a space in which there are two rooms on both sides made with masonry walls, which was presumably intact.
The intervention made it possible to understand the functioning and evolution of the temple, which had been erected in the third century A.D. from a large cut in the rock, with an interior nave accessed through three doors and a small front courtyard reached by a ramp or staircase that connected with the wadi.
As in most of the structures of Sikait, the occupation of the space was maintained in later times, with the existence of at least three more phases of operation, in which the structure of the temple was modified, incorporating several terraces in the front, a lateral access staircase on the south and, finally, the two rooms mentioned above.
It is possible that in these later moments the temple had already lost its ritual function and, to emphasize from the chronological point of view, materials have been found that point to a continuity until the beginning of the Islamic dominion of Egypt, a fact that has been corroborated in other points of the settlement and in the mines.
Regarding the materials recovered, without being comparable to other ritual spaces such as the Southern Temple or the Large Temple, it is worth mentioning the discovery of a large fragment of the temple inscription with six preserved lines of text in Greek.
The mines survey
The mines survey work continued and, in fact, allowed an exponential increase in the number of mining areas and mines documented. Thus, on the one hand, work continued in some of the eleven mining zones already documented in previous seasons. For example, the mines in zones B and E (north of Sikait) were reviewed, increasing the number of mines identified. We also continued with the documentation of what, for the moment, is the largest and most interesting mining complex found, the SKP-US129 mine. It is worth mentioning the discovery of at least ten new mining graffiti that tell us about the people who worked in the mines and the mining process.
On the other hand, most of the survey work was carried out in the so-called zone G or West Sikait, an interesting mining area located between Wadi Sikait and Wadi Nugrus that stood out for the discovery of several mines, but especially for other relevant elements such as a necropolis, a temple, several control towers, road markers, etc. The intensive survey of this area allowed the identification (for the moment) of more than 140 mines, making it by far the largest mining area documented for the moment in the entire Mons Smaragdus.
Entering these mines, it was possible to identify several mining complexes of great extension and complexity that will have to be accurately documented in future seasons.
Among the materials recovered, there are abundant ceramic remains (which mark a broad chronology between the Roman and Islamic periods) and also organic remains, such as baskets.
Even in some of the mines, ritual elements such as spaces for offerings could be evidenced. All this makes this one of the key areas to advance in the knowledge of the process of extraction and work of emeralds.
Another interesting aspect related to this area G would be the intensive survey of the roads that communicated this mining area with the settlements of Sikait and Nugrus and, in general, the roads that facilitated communication between Wadi Sikait and Wadi Nugrus in antiquity. This is an issue that had only been briefly noted in the seasons of the 1990s and 2000s in the area, but during this season it was possible to work in detail, identifying different roads that allowed this communication, adapted to the passage of people or animals and carts depending on the case, but well suited and with the presence of stopping points, road markers, mines, tombs, etc.
Finally, the mining zones were also expanded. On the one hand, towards the south of Sikait, the mining area L, of presumably great extension, was found. Also in Wadi Nugrus, the mining area M, around the Abu Rusheid deposit, was documented and, finally, the large mining area of Umm Kabu was survey again, in this case on its eastern slope, called Umm Dibba (mining area N). Work will continue in all these areas in future seasons.
In any case, this season doubled the number of documented old mines, exceeding 300 and confirming the intensity of exploitation in ancient times.
The conservation and restoration
Finally, a last fundamental part of the work of the season is the conservation and restoration interventions, continuing a task already started in 2018. Interventions were carried out on part of the movable assets, which were extracted during the season and needed to be consolidated or treated to improve their reading and handling.
However, the conservation and restoration work focused on the consolidation and punctual reintegration of the most affected walls of the Tripartite Building Complex and the Small Temple, as well as the continuation of the diagnostic work on the state of conservation of the Southern Temple and the Large Temple.
The objective of these interventions was to guarantee the durability of the integrity of these structures and to improve their legibility, avoiding, at all times, excessive and unnecessary aesthetic reintegrations.
Tripartite Building Complex
During the 2021 season, an intervention was carried out in Building A of the Tripartite Building Complex that consisted of consolidating areas of the front of the building, which you can see in the comparative photo below along with other areas of the front platform.
Despite these first two interventions, there are many areas in the Tripartite Building Complex that need to be consolidated and during this season it was decided to reconstruct an intermediate section of the façade of Building A, which had fallen down and preserved the stones of the wall in perfect order.
This type of reconstruction is called Anastylosis. This term is used to designate the technique of reconstruction of a monument in ruins thanks to the documented and methodical adjustment of the different elements that make up its architecture. In the case that stones are missing to recompose the volume of the wall, similar stones are used and a separating element is used to help the legibility between the original and the reconstruction.
We leave you with the result before and after the intervention.
Small Temple
This year’s excavation season focused mainly on the exterior of the Small Temple. When the excavation was carried out, several of the walls found had areas with missing parts that caused the panels to be deformed.
The intervention consisted of replacing the missing stones with others of similar characteristics, using a separating element to be able to distinguish between the original and the consolidation intervention.
Finally, it is worth mentioning that the criteria applied in all cases have focused on carrying out minimal interventions, respecting the needs of the objects and using reversible and environmentally sustainable materials. In addition, it should be noted that the restoration team was made up of highly qualified restorers specialized in archaeology.
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