Archaeological site in the eastern Nile delta
Financed by
The French Institute of Oriental Archeology (IFAO)
The Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs (MEAE)
In partnership with
The National Institute for Research and Preventive Archeology (INRAP)
The TRACES-UMR5806 laboratory, Toulouse (CNRS)
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The Tell el-Iswid site
Tell el-Iswid is located in the Eastern Nile Delta, 40 km northeast of the present-day city of Zagazig, in the province of Sharqiyah. The interest of this site for periods prior to the first dynasties is due to the fact that, from the mid-1980s, a thick stratigraphy covering the whole of the 4th century millennium. This site therefore offers an essential archaeological potential to renew the reflections on the cultures which followed one another, during the period of formation of the Egyptian State, in this key region of the Delta, at the crossroads of Saharan Africa and the Levant.
Tell el-Iswid was discovered in 1987 by a team from the University of Amsterdam, during a prospecting campaign in the eastern delta of the Nile. Two soundings were then carried out there which revealed the existence of a stratigraphy covering the whole of the 4th millennium. Excavations have been undertaken by Ifao since 2006, which benefited from financial support from the excavation commission of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and until 2010 from that of the Midi-Pyrénées Region. They exploited and extensively developed these preliminary data, and also brought to light the built structures of the Late Period, the study of which could in the future constitute an extension of current work.
