Description

Sudan Archaeological Research Society, Publication Number 13

This volume is the first of a series that will report on surveys and excavations carried out in the most northerly portion of Sudanese Nubia, in the years between 1960 and 1963. Specifically, the area covered comprised the west bank of the Nile between the villages of Faras and Gemai, and adjacent islands of the Second Cataract. This stretch of approximately 60km was selected for initial attention because it was the area most immediately threatened, by construction of the cofferdam that preceded the main Aswan High Dam. During the course of four seasons the West Bank Survey recorded a total of 262 sites, ranging in age from Neolithic to early modern, and carried on at least some excavation in well over half of them. The present volume describes only the sites of Meroitic and Ballaña age that were discovered during the survey, while sites of earlier and of later date will be described in subsequent volumes.