The Forgotten Excavation at Tell Basta: New Information on the Graeco-Egyptian Bath and the Context of Gold and Silver Objects Discovered in 1906

Introduction

The archaeological site of Tell Basta marks one of the largest sites in the Nile Delta and was known by its Greek name Bubastis. This town was Egypt’s capital during the Twenty-Second Dynasty and the main place of worship of the goddess Bastet. In 1906, the mound was levelled with the help of temporary railways, which led to some important discoveries. Among the finds were two hoards of gold and silver objects, as well as a small, separate deposit and the remains of a Graeco-Egyptian bath. The context of these discoveries is still a matter of controversy as their published descriptions lack plans or photographs of the excavated areas. The main aim of this article is to discuss the results obtained by studying a letter deriving from the correspondence of Gaston Maspero, which includes previously unknown photographs taken during the excavations that shed some light on the context of the discoveries made at Tell Basta in 1906.

The First Hoard of Tell Basta

On 22 September 1906, the labourers working beside the temporary railway uncovered a group of splendid gold and silver objects, known today as the first hoard of Tell Basta. ¹ The discovered objects were stolen by workers and were afterwards partially retrieved by the Service des Antiquités. Among the numerous gold and silver objects was a gold lotiform goblet and a situla made of electrum naming Nineteenth Dynasty Queen Tawosret. There were also three silver jugs naming the royal cupbearer Atumemtaneb along with numerous other objects. ² In the published excavation account we can read:

The tell was being demolished by the Railways workmen in a perpendicular section, in which one saw remains both of houses and of burials: as we afterwards learned, the treasure must have been discovered in the low ground level with the railway at the foot of this perpendicular cutting. ³

The Small Deposit ⁴

Soon after the discovery of the first hoard, the Service des Antiquités carried out a small-scale excavation to find traces of the partially retrieved hoard, the exact findspot of which was unknown. The main person involved in the excavation was Campbell Cowan Edgar, who, at that time, was the Chief Inspector of Antiquities in Lower Egypt. ⁵ In his published account we can read:

On the second day of the excavation we made a good find, but in a different part of the site, a little north of the temple, at the place where another train of the Railways was being filled with earth. The workmen here uncovered some small pieces of gold, and this being observed by the ghafir in charge our own people were summoned to clear out the spot. The gold objects turned out to be the scattered pieces of a necklace; besides these we found two small figures, one of gold and one of electrum, apparently made for attachment against a flat surface; and from the mouth of one of the workmen a flat piece of silver covered with gold leaf was extracted with some difficulty. These things were found at a slightly higher level than the great treasure, in ground which contained no distinguishable remains of buildings. The mound here at the time of the discovery was still very high, though even the highest layer was pre-Roman, and I should judge the stratum in which the necklace lay to be of the Ramesside age. ⁶

Edgar further stated that the abovementioned objects were unrelated to the first hoard, although, in his opinion, the discovered necklace was of the same age. ⁷

The Second Hoard of Tell Basta

On 17 October 1906, the second hoard was discovered laying in one heap, just below the surface near the base of the perpendicular cutting. ⁸ Among the discovered objects was a pair of magnificent gold bracelets inlaid with lapis lazuli and inscribed for Ramesses II along with two fine gold jars and numerous different objects. ⁹ What is more, Edgar noticed traces of burning in the earth beneath the hoard. ¹⁰ He also stated that the spot of the second hoard was located quite close to the alleged spot of the first find (which he believed must have lain a little nearer to the temple of Bastet), although according to him, the two hoards must have been at least several metres away from each other. ¹¹ Furthermore, Edgar also described the location of the second hoard:

The spot where the treasure was found lies west of the temple, 160 metres from the west corner of the ruins and 100 metres from the more north-westerly of the two circular chambers in the Roman building. ¹²

He also stated that the second hoard was buried under one of the high mounds, which, in ancient times, were likely covered with houses and streets. ¹³ He further stated that the hoard was found at a level not much higher than that of the temple of Bastet. ¹⁴ What is more, Edgar also stated that the large area around the spot of the second hoard was cleared and turned out to be completely bare of any structures and contained only a small amount of pottery and other finds. This included one painted New Kingdom fragment along with a fragment of a portable braiser and one large anepigraphic block of limestone along with a smaller block containing a fragment of an inscription. ¹⁵

The exact circumstances concerning the deposition of the two hoards remain uncertain, although according to Gaston Maspero, who, at that time, was the Director General of the Service des Antiquités, ¹⁶ the objects from them belonged to a goldsmith who collected objects discovered by sebakh-diggers. ¹⁷ Maspero further stated that the most splendid objects from the hoards were preserved because the aforementioned goldsmith intended to sell them as such, but he had broken and partly melted some of the silver objects in order to transform them into earrings and bracelets. ¹⁸ Maspero claims that the goldsmith was probably killed during a time of conflict or war around the beginning of the Muslim conquest of Egypt, while his house or workshop (in which the hoards were buried) was destroyed. ¹⁹ Contrary to this claim, Edgar believed that both hoards were deposited during the Nineteenth Dynasty, as, according to him, it would have been difficult to explain how it came to be that the hoards were buried 20 or more metres below the Roman stratum. ²⁰

The Remains of a Roman Bath

Edgar also briefly mentioned the results of the excavations in the neighbourhood of the two hoards and the place where the small deposit was found:

For several weeks after this I kept a few of our workmen employed in the neighbourhood of the places where the finds had been made. They were engaged for the most part in clearing out some peculiar buildings of Roman date close to the north-west end of the temple between the two temporary lines of the Railways. These buildings, which will be described more fully in the Annales, stood on practically the same level as the temple itself, which shows that they must have lain within the precincts on ground which had been kept clear down to the date of their erection, though in later times they were covered by a deep mass of earth and rubbish. ²¹

Edgar further stated that the Roman building contained two circular chambers, ²² although he did not mention it as a bath building in his account. Nevertheless, in his later publication, he refers to this structure as a ‘large bathing establishment with two round chambers’. ²³

Unfortunately, Edgar did not publish any photographs nor a plan of the site with the marked location of the hoards and the small deposit, ²⁴ which according to him were found in close proximity to the Roman structure; the Roman structure was also unpublished, except for a short mention. Nevertheless, the approximate location of the two hoards was later proposed on a plan published by Labib Habachi in 1957, on which two hoards were placed south of the Sixth Dynasty temple of Pepi I. ²⁵ The same plan was later updated and published by Ahmad El-Sawi (fig. 1). ²⁶ Unfortunately, the alleged area of the hoards indicated by Habachi has since been partially built over by modern structures.

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Fig. 1.

Plan of Tell Basta indicating the position of the hoards located to the south of the temple of Pepi I (El-Sawi, Excavations at Tell Basta, fig. 4; modified by the author).

An Unpublished Letter

Recently, the author of this paper stumbled across a previously unpublished document related to the discoveries made at Tell Basta in 1906. This document comes from the collection of the Bibliothèque de l’Institut de France and consists of a letter dated to 3 November 1906, which was written by Edgar and sent to Maspero:

Mansourah

3. 11. 06

Dear M. Maspero,

Enclosed are the names of / the three police-officers at Zagazig who / seized the silver jug and the gold cup / for us. If you find it possible to give / them a reward of L. E. 5 each, I / have no doubt it would stimulate the / deal of the police in similar affairs. / I spoke to you a little in / Cairo about the case of Chaban Effendi. / This year I have been seeing him / constantly and have found him a very / useful inspector with an intelligent interest / in his work, but my impression of him is / that he is a man who is apt to deteriorate / unless noticed and encouraged a good / deal. You told me about the difficulties / in the way of giving him an increase / of pay, but perhaps you could still continue / some means of rewarding him for his / services. I feel it would have a bad / effect on him if he alone got no / profit out of the find. / I send you some small photographs / of the work at Tell Basta. We have still / got some men excavating under the charge / of the inspector, and I go there every / few days to see how things are getting / on. Nothing new has been found lately. The / small beads enclosed belong to the treasure: / they were found in sifting the dust from / the excavation.

Yours very truly

C. C. Edgar ²⁷

In addition to the short record concerning the recovery of some objects from the first hoard of Tell Basta and the case of Mohammed Chaban, who assisted Edgar with the recovery of Tell Basta treasure, ²⁸ the letter also mentions small beads likely belonging to a necklace, which should be attributed to the second hoard and will be mentioned later. The letter also contains eleven small photographs, which depict the spot of the second hoard, the bath structure and the spot of a small deposit.

The first set (fig. 2) contains five photographs, some of which depict an excavation taking place. The first two are described as ‘Excavating in the place where the second treasure was found’, while the third photograph, which likely shows the same spot from a different perspective, is described as ‘Sifting the earth for small objects’. This photograph can be, in fact, connected with the small beads mentioned in Edgar’s letter, as, in his published account, the beads from the second hoard were mentioned as found scattered amid the treasure and picked out of the soil during several days. ²⁹ The above-mentioned photographs also provide some insight into the conditions of work, including the number of workers engaged in the excavation of the spot of a second hoard.

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Fig. 2.

The first set of photographs from Edgar’s letter (Courtesy of the Bibliothèque de l’Institut de France, Ms 4016, fol. 258).

The fourth photograph is described as ‘About to be destroyed by Railways: the necklace was found here’. The photograph shows high debris at the foot of which one may see a seated person, who indicates that the debris visible in the photograph was about nine metres high. We know that the second hoard contained numerous objects, among which was the aforementioned assemblage of gold and carnelian beads, although the discussed photograph likely features the spot where a small deposit was discovered, and which contained the scattered pieces of another necklace. ³⁰

The last photograph from this set shows the area described as ‘Between temple and cats’ cemetery’. The discussed photograph shows an area of extensive surface remains of stratified debris, which covered a considerable part of the site, and are no longer preserved.

The second set (fig. 3) contains six photographs described as ‘Tell Basta: various views of the Roman remains excavated last month’. Apart from the presence of the temporary railways, as well as the open wagons and small wooden sheds which give some insight into the works that led to the destruction of a considerable part of the site, the photographs depict the remains referred to by Edgar as a ‘large bathing establishment with two round chambers’. Judging from the photographs, the poorly preserved bath building uncovered in 1906 was obviously built of burnt red bricks and was coated with plaster. The building itself consisted of at least two tholoi equipped with about 20 hip-bathtubs each, which points to the fact that the capacity of the bath was quite considerable. Also visible is a semi-circular basin placed between the two tholoi. From the preserved photographs, it is also obvious that the discussed bath contained at least two fragmentarily preserved individual immersion bathtubs as well as at least five additional hip-bathtubs placed at right angles with regard to the abovementioned individual immersion bathtubs.

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Fig. 3.

The second set of photographs from Edgar’s letter (Courtesy of the Bibliothèque de l’Institut de France, Ms 4016, fol. 259).

The discussed building fits into the classic Graeco-Egyptian collective bath type, which is characterised by its three distinct sections. The entrance section consists of a large hall, which occupies the entire width of the building and is followed by a cleansing section, which comprises two parallel tholoi equipped with hip-bathtubs, while the last section (the heated section) consists of an oblong corridor, which occupies the entire width of the building and opens onto the relaxing bath room equipped with individual immersion bathtubs, a subterranean furnace (topped by a boiler) and a tank supplied with water from outside. ³¹ Furthermore, the described classic Graeco-Egyptian collective bath type is also characteristic of the almost systematic presence of a semi-circular or semi-oval basin placed between the two tholoi. ³²

The exact dating of the discussed bath discovered at Tell Basta is uncertain, although according to recent studies, the classic Graeco-Egyptian collective bath type should be dated to the third–second century BC, ³³ which likely indicates the probable date of the Tell Basta bath within the Ptolemaic Period.

It is also worth mentioning that archival research suggests that Ptolemaic remains uncovered by Edgar might have been documented in the form of a plan, ³⁴ although such a plan was never published.

Before the discovery of Edgar’s photographs, we knew of two buildings identified as baths, which were found at Tell Basta.

The first bath building is likely to be identified with the poorly-preserved remains uncovered by Labib Habachi, in 1943–4, above the eastern enclosure wall of the temple of Pepi I:

When we began clearing around it we found that above the north end, there was a pavement of baked bricks laid with pebbles and some kind of mortar. This must have been the remainder of a building dating quite possibly to the Roman period. We do not know anything about this building, but it may be the one referred to by Edgar in his publication of the two hoards found in 1906. In speaking of the place of the discovery he says that it lies “160 metres from the west corner of the ruins and 100 metres from the more north-westerly of the two circular chambers in the Roman building”. Since the pavement found above the wall is also about 160 metres from the west corner of the ruins of the Big Temple, it is quite probable that it belongs to the building referred to by Edgar. It is not improbable that such a building was used as a bath since its pavement is so strongly built and this may explain why the wall was so badly damaged. ³⁵

The remains of the building uncovered by Habachi, may, in fact, be identical to the remains of a bath excavated by Aiman Ashmawy Ali in 1997, according to whom, they were located in the north-eastern part of the temple of Pepi. ³⁶ Furthermore, according to Ashmawy Ali, this bath was connected to the temple of Bastet as it was located less than 20 cm from the western wall of the sanctuary. ³⁷ The description of the abovementioned remains is as following:

After removing the surface layer we uncovered parts of a heavily destroyed building, i.e. fragments of a floor and a red brick wall. The floor was prepared with burnt bricks covered with red plaster composed of lime, red powder of smashed red bricks mixed with very small stones. Its preserved part is 3.15 m long and about 2 m wide. Beside this floor was discovered a fragment of a limestone column. To the west of this floor, 70 cm deeper, a floor of a furnace, made of burnt bricks, was uncovered. The walls of the furnace were preserved up to about 20 cm. It is 3.5 m long from north to south, 2.5 m (north) or 1.5 m (south) wide. The fire opening is in the southern side of the furnace. On this level a wall of burnt bricks was discovered. It encloses the furnace and the bath from the northern and the western sides, but is destroyed along the other sides; the bricks of the wall and the floor of the furnace are 26 x 12 x 7 cm. To the south of this part of the bath a round basin was uncovered, built of unfinished limestone blocks. Its floor and inner wall are coated with a very thick plaster as in the other room. It is 2.70 m dia. and 50 cm high. Its wall is about 35 cm thick. The preparation of the floor with mortar mixed with pebbles is similar to the floor of the Early Ptolemaic bath discovered at Tell el-Fara’in and suggests therefore the same period. ³⁸

The general location of the remains excavated by Habachi and Ashmawy Ali indicate that it was likely one building, which, judging from its close proximity to the north-west end of the temple of Bastet, is probably identical to a bath discovered in 1906, already suggested by Habachi. The exact location of the discussed structure can be gained from a plan published by Eva Lange-Athinodorou (fig. 4). ³⁹

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Fig. 4.

Detail of a plan of Tell Basta showing the area of the temple of Pepi I with the position of the remains of a bath pointed with an arrow (Lange-Athinodorou, ZÄS 133, Taf. XXVIII; modified by the author and reproduced with permission).

What is more, recent research suggests the presence of a canal system in the northern and southern surroundings of the temple of Bastet, ⁴⁰ which likely indicates that the bath uncovered by Edgar was supplied with water from the canal. It is also important to mention that one of the earliest known maps of the site was drawn up by John Gardner Wilkinson in 1822–7 and depicts a large structure, which seems to have been located in the area of the temple of Pepi, ⁴¹ which also housed the remains of an already discussed bath. This enigmatic structure is believed to have been a large Roman or Byzantine fort, ⁴² but, unfortunately, the relationship of the bath building to this structure is unknown as the fort-like remains recorded by Wilkinson were completely destroyed and are no longer preserved.

Another bath was discovered by Mohamed Mohsen in 1967 in the south-eastern part of the site. The bath excavated by Mohsen was also built of burnt red bricks and was coated with plaster, while its main room was equipped with six basins, one of which was oval, while the rest were rectangular, in addition to a circular immersion bathtub. ⁴³ Additionally, a round cistern was uncovered along with two water channels and two additional rectangular basins. ⁴⁴ Even though no plan nor photographs of this bath were published, it seems that it cannot be identified as the remains visible on Edgar’s photographs due to its general description and the location far to the south of the temple of Bastet. The dating of the bath excavated by Mohsen is uncertain, although, according to Ashmawy Ali, the description of the remains points to the Roman or Byzantine building. ⁴⁵

Going back to Edgar’s photographs, the presence of common features that appear on some of the above-described photographs demonstrates that both sets were partially connected, which allows us to reconstruct the spot of the remains of the bath along with its environs (fig. 5). From the connection of the photographs, it seems that the bath was located quite close to the spot where the scattered necklace was found along with the two small figurines and the fragment of gilded silver. To further support that we are dealing with the location of the small deposit, and not with the location of the second hoard, which also contained a scattered necklace, it is worth mentioning, that according to Edgar, the second hoard was found 100 m from the bath building. ⁴⁶ The connection of the photographs suggests that the distance between the alleged spot of a small deposit and the remains of a bath was in fact much shorter. ⁴⁷ In his report, Edgar mentioned that even the highest layer of the mound covering the small deposit was pre-Roman, and that the layer in which the necklace belonging to this deposit was found should be dated to the Ramesside Period. Judging from the photographs, it seems improbable that the mound covering this small deposit was pre-Roman. If the photograph showing the probable spot of the discussed deposit was taken after its discovery, it would suggest that the deposit was likely on more or less the same level as the structure of the bath or even a bit higher, which points to the fact that the necklace might have been deposited here along with a few other objects in the Ptolemaic Period. Unfortunately, it is uncertain if this small group of objects was related to the two hoards, although the fragment of gilded silver found in this deposit might have been from a vase similar to those found in the two hoards. ⁴⁸

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Fig. 5.

Composite of Edgar’s photographs; a) ‘tholos a’ equipped with hip-bathtubs, b) ‘tholos b’ equipped with hip-bathtubs, c) semi-circular basin, d) remains of two individual immersion bathtubs, e) remains of five hip-bathtubs, f) modern sheds, g) high remains of stratified debris/spot of a small deposit, h) spot of the second hoard, i) high remains of stratified debris, j) lowerlying debris (modified by the author and reproduced with permission).

The location of the second and, at the same time, of the first hoard can probably be indicated with the help of the third photograph from the second set. In the background of this photograph one can notice industrial chimneys likely representing the modern city of Zagazig. The two joined government maps issued in 1912 and 1915 demonstrate that Zagazig, in the times of Edgar, was located to the north and the north-west of Tell Basta, ⁴⁹ which suggests that the aforesaid photograph might have been taken facing north or north-west. This may further be supported by Edgar’s statement that the second hoard was located ‘[…] 100 metres from the more north-westerly of the two circular chambers in the Roman building’, ⁵⁰ which should be understood in a way that one of the two circular chambers was more north and more west than the other. Considering that ‘tholos a’ was likely the north-western one, the connection of the photographs suggests that high stratified debris demolished with the help of railway open wagons, visible in the second photograph from the second set, were located to the west of the abovementioned tholos. Since we know that the second hoard was probably found just several metres away from the first find, which was believed to have been found in the lower ground level with the railway at the foot of the perpendicular cutting, we may suppose that both hoards were found in close vicinity to the high stratified debris visible in the background of the second photograph from the second set.

Ptolemaic Deposits (?)

Doubts concerning the dating of some of the objects discovered at Tell Basta in 1906 and the time of their deposition occurred shortly after their discovery as, according to Maspero, the hoards of Tell Basta were likely deposited around the beginning of the Muslim conquest of Egypt. Contrary to this claim, Edgar believed that both hoards were deposited during the Nineteenth Dynasty, as, according to him, it would have been difficult to explain how it came to be that the hoards were buried deep beneath the Roman stratum. Nevertheless, it has been noted that some objects found in the two hoards may be dated to different periods and that the whole treasure might have been buried at quite a late period of time. ⁵¹ Furthermore, the late dating of some of the objects from Tell Basta was also proposed in much later publications. ⁵² Recent research has proven that both hoards were linked, ⁵³ although their dates of deposition are still uncertain. As Edgar stated in his report, only some of the objects from the first hoard were retrieved ⁵⁴ and it is worth noting that a well-known Cairo antiquities dealer, Maurice Nahman, sold some objects that allegedly came from the first hoard to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1907. Some of these objects clearly postdate the Ramesside Period as among them is a gilded silver statuette of Harpocrates dated to the Ptolemaic Period as well as a silver incense burner and its chain, the closest parallels of which are also dated to the Ptolemaic Period. ⁵⁵ Of course, one may not dismiss the possibility that the group of objects sold by Nahman represented a mixture of objects from different sites and periods to make the biggest possible profit. Nevertheless, according to Lilyquist, their corroded silver state, when acquired, matched that of the Ramesside objects from Tell Basta, but a number of the items were gilded, a technique not seen on other objects from the site. ⁵⁶

Also, the time of the deposition of a small group of objects discovered shortly after the first hoard is problematic, just like the two hoards dated by Edgar to the Nineteenth Dynasty. The necklace discovered in this deposit was later dated by Émile Vernier to the Nineteenth Dynasty, while the figures discovered in the same deposit, representations of the goddesses Hathor and Isis, were dated by him to the Ptolemaic Period. ⁵⁷ If the spot visible on the fourth photograph from the first set indeed shows the place where this deposit was found, this indicates that it was found in a layer which was equal or even higher than that of the Graeco-Egyptian bath, which is dated to the Ptolemaic Period. If we are to connect the small deposit with the two hoards, this may suggest that the objects discovered in two different spots of Tell Basta in 1906 were not deposited during the Nineteenth Dynasty as proposed by Edgar, but much later, during the Ptolemaic Period. This may be supported by the possibility that a considerable amount of debris covering the hoards might have represented spoil accumulations from earlier excavation activities.

The abovementioned facts indicate the possibility that the hoards of Tell Basta might have been buried along with a small deposit during the Ptolemaic Period, although it is still uncertain and requires further research.

Conclusions

Considering the fact that Edgar’s published account of the 1906 excavation at Tell Basta lacks plans and photographs documenting the context of the finds, the discussed photographs, likely taken by Edgar himself, are a significant complement to the textual notes. Their analysis allowed us to gain more information on the architecture and layout of the Graeco-Egyptian bath, which was only briefly mentioned by Edgar. Despite the fact that the plan of the discussed bath was never published, its structure is likely to be identified with the poorly preserved remains uncovered by Habachi, and later by Ashmawy Ali. Furthermore, the connection of the photographs clearly indicates that the aforementioned bath was located close to the spot of a small deposit, which contained scattered pieces of a necklace along with a few additional objects, which, according to Edgar, were not connected with the two hoards. The discovery of previously unknown photographs also sheds light on the context of the Tell Basta hoards, which, judging from their position, and some of the objects attributed to them, seem to have been deposited during the Ptolemaic Period along with a small deposit. Nevertheless, such a dating of the deposition of both hoards and the small deposit requires further research as it cannot be confirmed with certainty. Unfortunately, despite the discovery of the above-mentioned materials, it is still not possible to determine if the location of both hoards, first proposed on the map published by Habachi and based on the vague description of Edgar, is correct. Future excavations in the area of Tell Basta, along with archival research, will potentially enable us to gain more information concerning the context of the discoveries made at the site in 1906, which will contribute to the better understanding of the history of the site, along with its topography.