Medinet Madi is a site with a very rich history dating back to 4000 years ago, at the end of Middle Kingdom (first half of the second millennium B.C.), when a village called Dja was founded in the so-called ‘Lake Region’, (present-day Fayoum), 100 kilometres south-west of Cairo.
The Supreme Council of Antiquities, ISSEMM Substantive Revision Project (Institutional Support to the Supreme Council of Antiquities/ Management, Maintenance and Permanent Opening of the Medinet Madi Archaeological Park) and UNDP (United Nations Development Programme), have the pleasure to announce the opening of the Visibility Campaign of Medinet Madi, (‘City of the Past’), the archaeological site with the most important monumental ruins in the oasis of Fayoum.
The purpose of this campaign of visibility, presentation and promotion is primarily to increase the number of Egyptian and foreign visitors, including school and University students, within the maximum amount of visitors allowed to the protected site of Medinet Madi (i.e. 10 thousand people a year). The campaign is now more important than ever, in the aftermath of the recent social and political events that distinctly point to the need for a wider preservation, enhancement and dissemination of knowledge of the invaluable Egyptian archaeological heritage. Raising cultural awareness in visitors, especially the young ones, will positively result in a better understanding of the correct rules to be followed while visiting archaeological sites.
The campaign is extremely significant for the local communities as well, as it spreads awareness of the extraordinary economic potential of a protected, well preserved and well maintained archaeological site which, on the other hand, is increasingly exposed to the housing and population pressures that are typical of rapidly expanding rural areas.
About ISSEMM and Medinet Madi Archaeological Park
The ISSEMM Substantive Revision Project (Institutional Support to the Supreme Council of Antiquities/ Management, Maintenance and Permanent Opening of the Medinet Madi Archaeological Park) is entirely funded by the Egyptian-Italian Debt for Development Swap Programme (EIDS). It is aimed at giving technical and scientific support to the monitoring and management of archaeological sites.
The project ISSEMM Substantive Revision Project is the extension of the cultural section of the Egyptian Italian Environmental Cooperation Programme (EIECP) Phase II. The ISSEMM Project Phase II was launched in 2005 under the scientific (Prof. Edda Bresciani) and technical (Arch. Antonio Giammarusti) direction of the University of Pisa. The ISSEMM Substantive Revision Project represents the third stage. This new current phase is still directed by Prof. Edda Bresciani, with the technical assistance of the University of Tuscia Viterbo (Prof. Stefano De Angeli, Prof. Roberto Buongarzone and Arch. Antonio Giammarusti). UNDP also still acts as executive agency as it did in the previous phases. The Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and the Fayoum Governorate are directly involved in the project, as well.
Thanks to ISSEMM, in 2011 Medinet Madi Archaeological Park was opened to the public. It was the first archaeological and natural park in Egypt. In order to promote social and economic development in the Fayoum Oasis - which was one of the main goals of the ISSEMM project -, an environmental study was conducted for the area. Specific touristic routes were devised for the development of sustainable tourism. An in-depth study was implemented for the management of protected areas. The ISSEMM project included a GIS (Geographic Information System) for the Fayoum archaeological sites, and an archaeological database. In addition, the temple area of the ancient city of Dja-Narmouthis-Medinet Madi was positively reclaimed by creating a well-organized Archaeological Park, connected to the protected natural areas of Wadi el-Rayan and Wadi el-Hetan through a 28-km scenic track across the Western Desert. Also, in order to accurately pinpoint the area to be protected and preserved, a buffer zone in Medinet Madi was conveniently laid out, so as to prevent and reduce the detrimental impact of agricultural expansion into the archaeological domain. The Park management must ensure the preservation of the site, based on the existing laws and regulations and in accordance with the Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Antiquities and the Fayoum Governorate. Today access to the ruins of Medinet Madi is at its southern end, where the southern altar stands as the gateway to the avenue of processions. A Visitors Centre welcomes the guests. Carefully located in order to minimize its impact on the archaeological remains, the Center provides a complete survey on the history of the site and the whole Fayoum area through replica statues, information panels and photographs. It has a cafeteria, a bookshop and a conference area introducing visitors to their experience of the monuments of the archeological site.
MEDINET MADI HISTORY
The remains of Medinet Madi encompass a considerable number of monuments, including the only Middle Kingdom worship temple still surviving in Egypt, with texts and engraved scenes. The history of Medinet Madi started in the Middle Kingdom, at the beginning of the second millennium B.C., as part of a reclamation project in the ‘Lake Region’ (present-day Fayoum). A settlement called Dja was founded while a temple, started by Amenemhat III and terminated by Amenemhat IV, was dedicated to the cobra goddess Renenutet and the crocodile god ‘Sobek of Shedet’ – Patron of the entire region and its capital Shedet – ‘Horus who resides in Shedet’. During the Ptolemaic period, Dja – then called Narmouthis, a Greek name meaning ‘the town of Renenutet-Hermouthis’ – and its 12th Dynasty temple greatly flourished, and more monuments were gradually erected north and south of the sacred building. It was the Italian Egyptologist Achille Vogliano that discovered Amenemhat's temple (Temple A) and its Graeco- Roman extensions, during his 1935 -1939 campaigns.
From the 4th and 5th century A.D., Narmouthis attracted many Coptic settlements, and churches were built. The Arabs then called it Medinet Madi, ‘the city of the past’, and this is the name whereby the archaeological area is still referred to up to this day.
The University of Pisa started investigating the area as early as 1978, exploring first Kom Madi, and then Medinet Madi, where ten churches were found in the southern, or Coptic, area. They go back to the 5th - 6th century and are particularly significant for the history of Christian architecture in Fayoum.
Between 1997 and 2004 archaeological campaigns brought to light a new Ptolemaic temple (Temple C) dedicated to the worship of two crocodiles. In a structure connected to the temple, a well-preserved barrel-vaulted room for the incubation and hatching of crocodile eggs was found.
Also, the Pisa University mission discovered four hymns in Greek language, carved in stone by an Egyptian man called Isidorus. They were duly restored and are now exhibited in the Karanis Museum.
In 2004 an Egyptian-Italian cooperation program called ISSEMM was started with the purpose of setting up an Archaeological Park in Medinet Madi (2004-2008).
More recently, systematic topographical surveys, aerial photo-interpretation and geophysical exploration resulted in a thorough understanding of the urban texture of the ancient town and its chronological stratification up to the Late Byzantine Period. In 2007 the huge Castrum Narmutheos was discovered, dating back to the Diocletian period. In 2008 the second phase of the Egyptian Italian Cooperation Program, ISSEMM started. The removal of the sand that had heaped up in the course of time brought to light the dromos, the south-north way that ran 230m down from the sacrificial altar. Four lion statues and a lioness statue were found at its sides, as well as Greek inscriptions dating back to 116 B.C.
More recent excavations by the University of Pisa in 2010 discovered of a large water shaft, going back partly to pre-Roman times. It consists of two concentric rings with two distinct ramps. The deeper one is circular and is covered by a gallery.
The current phase of the ISSEMM project (ISSEMM 3, 2013-2014) aims to open up the site to visitors, improve its facilities, among which the Visitor Center, restore the statues and other monuments, and remove all sand from the sacred shaft.
The Mission of the University of Pisa has effected in the period October-November 2006 the usual annual activity in the Fayum.
The first part has been devoted to the continuation of the work of consolidation and restoration to the rock-cut Tomb of the Prince Uaget to Khelua under the superintendence of the architect head of the SCA to the Fayum Mr.Abd el Alym Mynisier, that has collaborated with competence and share.
The 12 pillars of the hypostyle Have been completed in height; the state of maintenance of the sculptures of the pillars has been monitored; the door of principal access has been closed with a door in iron; a secondary door has been blocked; the inferior part of the 6 fragmentary statues in external façade has been in a large extent restored and protected, eliminating the incrustations of salt that had altered her. Such work has been conducted directly by the personnel of the department of the restoration of the Inspectorate of the Fayum. The closing of the ceiling and the definitive completion of the restoration will be object of the next mission in 2007.
The second part of the season, as foreseen, has been conducted in Medinet Madi, in the area chosen by the Mission and approved by the SCA according to the undersigned contract.
During the operations of excavation have been brought to the light the principal structures of the Roman military camp, whose construction goes up at the end of the III century AD under the kingdom of Diocletian. About the existence of such camp we were informed till now only by manuscript sources (Notitia Dignitatum) and from some Greek papyrus. The Castrum of Narmuthis-Medinet Madi was the second Roman military camp of the Fayum, over that well known of Kasr Qarun, but till now it had not been located and discovered.
It is a quadrangular structure with walls of great thickness, strengthened with 4 angular towers and a circular central tower; endowed with two entries, the principal on the north side, the secondary one on the south side.
Has been shown great part of the perimeter and about halves the lodgings of the soldiers, destined to entertain the Cohors IV Numidarum located in Narmuthis under the command of a Roman tribunus.
The recovery of objects is limited to few bronze coins of the IV century AD, to modest and fragmentary rests of ceramics of daily use and to a fragment of relief on limestone with rest of colours, that represents the goddess Isis-Renenut in its usual form of feminine body and the inferior part of the body of cobra, but having a large squamous snake in relief on the chest.
The material written, all in Greek, is constituted by an ostrakon that it brings names of person and from some fragments of wine’s containers that they preserve the name of the owner, certainly a soldier.
The state of maintenance of the fortress has imposed us a big work of restoration and consolidation of the structures of mud bricks, mainly the enormous foundations, that it will continue together with the work of excavation in the next mission 2007.
In the second halves the month of November, according with our application to the SCA, a work of consolidation and restoration has been initiated in one of the houses of the second court of the temple of Medinet Madi. Such work has been conducted in accord with the Department of architecture and restoration of the Inspectorate of the Fayum and bottom an inspector's control sent by the SCA.
The mission was accompanied to Khelua and Medinet Madi by the inspector of the SCA Mazhar Ezt El Rweesy and by the inspector of the SCA Rezk Diab Ghadiry Hassan.
Members of the Mission:
Edda Bresciani-Director, Rosario Pintaudi-Messina University,
Antonio Giammarusti architect, Flora Silvano, Angiolo Menchetti.
Preliminary report, april 2007
The archaeological Mission of the Pisa University has effected a mission during the month of April 2007, at Medinet Madi in Fayum, in continuation with that of October-November 2006, when happened the important discovery of the location and exploration of a Roman fortress, the Dioclezianus’s castrum Narmoutheos, localized in the archaeological concession of the Pisa University thanks to the use of a satellite map with the archaeological controls.
Till this discovery, the two sources for the existence of a castrum at Narmouthis in late roman epoch were the paragraph XXVIII, 46 of the Notitia Dignitatum (known historical source compiled at the end of the IV century), and a Greek papyrus of Theadelphia (P.Thead.4) that preserved the name of the commander of the castrum, Flavius Salvitius, in 328 A.D.
After this, in November 2001, the Pisa archaeological mission during the exploration of a house to south of the temple C, found, written on a Greek contract of guarantee dated to 326 A.D., the name of the same commander, now with the title of tribunus.
The only castrum of the Fayum till now recognized on archaeological site, excavated and published (at the end of the years '40) was that of Kasr Qarun, the ancient Dionysias, with two temples and the great fortress; the castrum Dionysiados- so named it in the Notitia Dignitatum- is well known thanks to the splendid Greek archives of Flavius Abinneus, commander of the Ala Quinta Praelectorum, troops of cavalry quartered in the castrum of Kasr Qarun.
As announced in the Report 2006, the castrum Narmoutheos, that entertained the Cohors Quarta Numidarum, has a quadrangular structure (50 x 50 ms.) with walls of mud bricks, thick 3,80 ms., strengthened with 4 angular towers and a circular central tower on the west side, placed side by side with another thick rectangular tower; it is endowed with two entries, the principal on the North side, built with prevalence of mud bricks and stone, the second one on the South side, toward the city, built in fired red bricks tied by mortar. On the East side, the wall and the bastions are practically to rock level, but are been traced in the plan.
Inside the fortress the exploration has been continued in April 2007 in the lodgings of the soldiers; the rooms in the zone South-West gave ceramic material of fragmentary kegs of ellipsoidal form ( have been counted the necks of some hundred kegs) presumably destined to contain the daily ration of wine (measured capacity l.0,75, a tenth of the capacity of the roman amphorae for wine in Fayum); on the most greater part of the fragments have been found written Greek names, often accompanied by the patronymic, surely the indication of ownership.
The exploration of the inside lodgings of the fortress is continued, in the West-North area, where the modern destruction has been less deep than of the oriental South half of the camp, allowing a survey of environments with preserved walls around the meter; it seems to be able to recognize a private lodging, maybe for the use of the chief of the castrum; this principal room preserves part of the original plaster and we found many fragments of the decoration with geometric motives. This sector of the castrum didn't directly access the zone of the cistern; but we found a singular installation still in situ, a plumbing of tuboli in tile along the walls of a elbow corridor, but we not have been able to recognize from where was destined to take and to bring where the water; perhaps a projected plan but not finished.
A long wall, currently tall less than a meter but that, calculating the height of the level on base the adjacent vault of the cistern, had to present himself with a height of around m. 1,70; using the comparison with Kasr Qarun, we can propose that on the raised base or bema; on the axle of the door North, existed the “chapel of the insignias”, flanked by two rooms.
The most important discovery of this mission is certainly that of a complex hydraulic system and till now without parallel, certainly worthy example of the hydraulic engineering of the Romans.
It is a square cistern (side: m. 3,35) inside the castrum, immediately after the entrance South, cut in the rock, and entirely covered by a vault in fired bricks. The vault has been found not whole, probably broken down by the fall of a great capital Corinthian for pillar (found collapsed inside the cistern).
The capital presumably originates from the colonnade that departed from the door North (on the
model of Kasr Qarun) or maybe from the architectural structure of the chapel, as also two bases and columns found under the level between sand and collapses of wall in the room KMM South 3.
The destruction and the spoil of the castrum was performed, can be hypothesized, in the epoch of the to bloom of churches in Medinet Madi, and has been completed by the devastations of the sebbakhins.
The findings of objects in April 2007 consist in ceramics, some Greek Ostraka, few bronze coins very oxidize, and in a bronze bracelet, of Christian epoch adorned with a monogram of Christ.
Also during the mission of April 2007 has been devoted great care, time and money for the protection and the maintenance particularly of the hydraulic installations.
The mission, formed by E.Bresciani, R. Pintaudi- Messina University, Angiolo Menchetti, the architect Antonio Giammarusti, was accompanied by the Inspector of the SCA Mohammed Badr el Din Hassan, who has been of great help and good collaboration.
Prof. Edda Bresciani Director of the Mission
Medinet Madi October 2006-April 2007
Preliminary Report November 2007
The archaeological Mission of the Pisa University - with Prof. Rosary Pintaudi, Messina University
has effected a mission during the month of November 2007, in the archaeological concession of the Pisa University at Medinet Madi in Fayum, in continuation with that of April 2007.
Inside the fortress has been continued the exploration in the lodgings of the soldiers, in the South half of the camp and the West-North area. The long wall, is confirmed as the raised base or bema; on the axle of the door North, existed the “Chapel” for the imperial cult, flanked by two rooms; the colonnade that departed from the door North (on the model of Kasr Qarun) arrived near the long wall, and the raised zone of bema was reached by 4-5 steps.
Outside of the castrum, in the north zone, has been discovered a “forno”, maybe industrial maybe for alimentary aims.
In April 2007 had been discovered inside the castrum a complex hydraulic system
and till now without parallel, certainly worthy example of the hydraulic engineering of the Romans, a square cistern (side: m. 3,35) inside the castrum cut in the rock, and entirely covered by a vault in fired bricks.
But it was necessary continue the control of the system of the adduction and derivation channels; during November 2007 expedition this has been obtained with trenches till the actual fields, under which the old channel continues.The old agricultural channel, oriented South-North, gave water to the castrum’s cistern with a system of two tubs related by channel; an other water point present eleven steps to reach the cut- rock channel.
The place of two old saqyia is to recognize in the South section of the channel. This section of research (to be continue during next seasons) has been studied – for publication- in the exploration November 2007 by Emenuele Brienza.
It is clear that the explorations of this year show how it is necessary the control of the still existing areas around the archaeological sites, to avoid that the new cultivations could destroy the rests of ancient civilisation. We could call this interventions of our archaeological missions with the definition of “urgency excavations”.Also during the mission of November 2007 has been devoted great care, time and money for the protection and the maintenance of the big walls of the castrum and of the inner installations and the channel line with the important water points.
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