Samana (Egypt)
Coordinates: 30 ° 47 ' N , 31 ° 51' E
Es-Samana is a place in the northeastern Nile Delta in Egypt , about 15 km northeast of the city of Faqûs . The place is located on a raised area, a so-called Gezira , about 2.5 km east of the place Qantîr , where the center of the Ramesside capital of Egypt can be assumed.
In the Ramesside times, the area of today's location belonged to the extended urban area of the Ramses town of Pi-Ramesse .
history
The earliest detectable settlement belongs to the Ramessidic period. In the course of the abandonment of Pi-Ramesse at the end of the New Kingdom , the area of Samana was evidently abandoned, although it is quite likely that rural settlements have been here over time, as the location on the Gezira is favorable to settlement and the land fertile in the area.
The present village was not built until the second half of the 19th century. The population consists mainly of settled Bedouins , who hardly built permanent houses until the 20th century, but lived in tents in some cases.
exploration
The only ancient monument that still exists today is a well by Ramses II , which was excavated in 2000/2001 by the excavation team of the Hildesheim Roemer and Pelizaeus Museum under the direction of the Egyptologist Edgar B. Pusch . In addition, there are reports from the late 19th century that there were still visible remains of stone buildings at this time. In the 1960s, areas were littered with stone fragments. Occasional finds of grave goods made by residents of the place further indicate that there may have been cemetery areas here.
The strategically good location in the north-east of Ramsesstadt and the fact that a gezira is not suitable for agriculture also makes it not unlikely that military installations were located here.
literature
- M. Bietak : Tell el-Dab´a II. The place of discovery as part of an archaeological-geographical investigation of the Egyptian eastern delta , Vienna 1975
- H. Franzmeier: A fountain in the Ramses city - On the typology and function of fountains and cisterns in pharaonic Egypt , FoRa 7, Hildesheim 2010
- L. Giddy: Notes and News - Ancient Well , in: EA 2001, 18, 10
- WMF Petrie : Tanis. Part II , MEES 4, London 1888