| Foucart
notes the looting of a hoard of gold coins of Ptolemy II from the site
in 1894, found in a pot within a vaulted chamber. Roman and byzantine sherds
and glass noted on surface by Munich survey in 1966. Also a quartzite fragment
from a seated statue of Sesostris III - taken to the house of the ghafir
at Minshat Abu Omar, see Muller, "Bericht über im Marz/April 1966
in des östliche Nildeltas unternommene Erkundungsfahrten", in Sitzungsberichte
der Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Heft 8 (1966), pp. 10,
17 and Abb.9. (Elsewhere referenced as SBAW).
Visited in November
2001 by Jeffrey & Patricia Spencer. A very large and high mound with
sandy surfaces, littered with fired bricks, ceramic slag and glass fragments.
It is reached by a pitted mud track which extends for some 6km from the
asphalt road which connects Husseiniya to Qantara. The site lies in an
area of land-reclamation where large fish-farms have been established,
and are being enlarged. The area immediately around the tell is devoted
to regular forms of agriculture. The high core of the mound is surrounded
by extensive low areas, which are being cut away for agriculture, especially
at the north. No traces of any buried features were visible. On the
highest point is a steel survey-point, bedded in concrete, which there
had been recent attempts to extract. Apart from a few limestone flakes
and a large fragment of eroded red granite on the top, there was little
stone visible on the site.
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Photographs
taken 2001 by Patricia and Jeffrey Spencer
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