| Foucart's
1898 account gives the size of the mound as 9ha.,with a height of over
20m, but later in 1901 he recorded the size of the tell as 500 x 300 m
x 15 m high, which is a greater area than 9ha. He mentions sebakh-removal
in progress and notes: 'Much pottery on surface; visible street of houses,
100 m long'.
Visited in 1997 by J and P Spencer: reduced to a high core of mud-brick walls and fill, with a lower surrounding area. Some of the fill lies at about 45 degrees and consists of ancient rubbish-dumps. Core covers about 150 x 150m and rises 10m, periphery only 1-2m. Two main high mounds linked by a narrow ridge. Few glass fragments, small potsherds on SE mound of LP and GR, many small shells. No red bricks. Part of S edge dug out for a fish-farm. Access via dirt road going south from Riyad, just before El-Qurdi, then another dirt-track along the north side of a canal. The photographs opposite show, from the top, the mound from the south, from the west, and the slope of the high mound with surrounding low area cut by fish-farm. The high area consists of mud brick walls buried in dumped material. |
Photographs
taken 1997 © Patricia & Jeffrey Spencer
|
