Excavations at the Western Kom at Tell el-Farkha 2011–2012

Excavations at the Western Kom were continued within a former trench that had been opened in 2006–2007, extended to the north in 2009 and further excavated in the next season. On the interior face of the eastern wall of Room 240 associated with the Protodynastic administrative-cultic centre, traces of thin wooden posts were preserved. Wooden planks had been fixed to it, thus forming a kind of an inner cladding of this wall. A complex of rooms of clearly utilitarian function was unearthed in the northern and south-eastern part of the trench. The pottery uncovered in Seasons 2011– 2012 indicates that the upper layers excavated during the campaign are contemporaneous with the end of Phase 4 at Tell el-Farkha (i.e., Naqada IIIA1/IIIB) and the deeper layers with Phase 3 (Naqada IID2/IIIA1). Fragments of imported Near Eastern pottery were discovered, notably fragments of so called Tell Erani C style vessels and a small piece of a vessel with white stripe-painted decoration, which has its counterpart only in Megiddo, Israel. On the stratigraphic interface of the administrativecultic centre and the Naqada residence, a brewery dated to Naqada IIIA1 was uncovered.