The Tell el-Far'n Excavation, 1969

Dorothy Charlesworth

The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 56. (Aug., 1970), pp. 19-28.

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 THE TELL E L - F A R ~ ~EXCAVATION,
N 1969
By DOROTHY CHARLESWORTH
THEseason was a short one (April 26-May 24),and work was concentrated on what is
now seen to be a public bath-house of three main periods, constructed entirely of
baked brick, ranging from the second century B.C. to the second century A.D. T h e
earliest structures on the site must be among the earliest baked-brick buildings in
EgyptY1possibly even to be dated to the last years of the third century in one case. Some
of its features were recorded in 1967, and part of the later periods was examined and
planned in 1968.~The bath-house is extensive and complicated. Excavation is not yet
complete, but at the north end of the site water level was reached in that part of the
excavation where the first bath-house was examined, and an area wide enough to obtain
the limits of the later buildings on all but the south was cleared (fig. I).
This year the members of the expedition were Messrs. P. G. French, B. J. Kemp,
J. Scudder, and J. H. Thompson. All shared in the supervision of the digging. Mr.
Kemp kindly made advance arrangements for the season in Cairo,3 and on the site was
responsible for the planning and some illustrating. After he left Mr. Thompson took
over this work. Mr. French was responsible for the work on the wall-plaster and all the
recording and drawing of the pottery. I am very grateful to the Department of Antiqui-
ties for the expeditious renewal of the permit. Our inspector, Abdullah Said Mahmud
was of the greatest help and took a keen interest in the work, in particular helping
with the painted plaster. Hajj Ismayil Ibrahim Fayid was again our reis.
The season was financed by funds donated specifically for Tell el-Fart'in by the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and from general excavation contributions
provided by the University of Aberdeen, the City of Birmingham Museum, the Bolton
Museum, the University of Cambridge, the University of Durham, the Fitzwilliam
Museum, Cambridge, the University of London, the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto,
and the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh.
1. The Ptolemaic bath-house (fig. 2)
This is the first building above water-level, but its north wall, still standing to a height
of over 2 m., continues below the water and is earlier than this bath-house. Deposits
accumulated against its outer face included amphora stamps, the earliest being dated by
Miss Grace4 c. 180 B.c., but it is not known how far above the base of the wall this
lay. The layer of clean earth, was dug into until it became too wet, about 0.50 m. below
the mortar floor of the ambulatory (pl. XXVII, I). No material was found here to
indicate the approximate date of the insertion of the Ptolemaic baths.
Lucas, dncient Eygptian Materials and Industries* 5 0 . JEA 5 5 , 26 f., fig. 2.
3 We are very grateful to Professor Plumley for helping in the preliminary stages in Cairo.
4 Miss Virginia Grace kindly identified the stamps from drawings.
 T E L L E L - F A R A ' I N
P U B L I C B A T H S
(1 9 6 9)

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1.5 PERIOD 4 BATHS1
 T H E TELL EL-FARA'IN EXCAVATION, 1969 2I

The bath itself is a circular room within a square outer wall with two slightly but-
tressed corners, to take the thrust of the dome. This would have been built of brick,
probably with a central opening. T h e entrance is on the east side, not central. T h e floor,
PTOLEMAIC BATH
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both in the circular room and in the ambulatory which surrounds it is a pebbly mortar,
and where it was cut through in the ambulatory, it was seen to be founded on a bed of
limestone chips, which must suggest some link with the destruction of the temple,' as
that is the obvious source of limestone. Round the room are the remains of a series of
cubicles (pl. XXVII, 2), wedge-shaped and plaster coated. Each has a circular sump in
the front part. The fittings of the back are entirely removed. A low curb runs round the
front of the cubicles with a break at the south end which is clearly the drain. This is a
form of foot-bath, familiar in Egypt and known in other parts of the Hellenistic world
(see below, p. 27). Its interpretation is made clear from well-preserved examples at
Cyrenez and Gortys in Arcadia.3 T h e back part of each cubicle will have taken the form
of an armchair-shaped seat. The total disappearance of these backs suggests that they
may have been made of limestone, but they could equally well have been plastered
brick. An attendant will have poured water from a jar over the feet of the bather and
collected the water from the sump. T h e diameter of the room is 6.3 m. and each cubicle
I JEd4 5 5 , 7. JHS 77 (19571, 306 f. CRAIBL 1952, 56-63.
 DOROTHY CHARLESWORTH

0.55 m. internally. If the drain and the door were the only breaks in the circle, it could
have seated twenty-two persons. The water must have been brought in by jar. There
was no trace of any conduit and the short length of lead pipe which shows on pl.
XXVII, 2 is at a higher level, separated from this circular room by a layer of rubble.
The corridor or ambulatory, which ran round at least three sides of the room, was lit
by a window near the west end of the north wall. Its walls were plastered with a plain
white plaster. On the outer face of the north wall broad bands of plaster also remain.
Some alteration was made to the north-east part of the ambulatory. The quarter circle
of mortar floor is clearly an addition and has fallen away from the main floor. A wall
seems to have been inserted and a doorway made through it. I t is not known whether
any further rooms lay to the south of this bath and there is only an indication of walls
possibly of this period further east.
This building was deliberately dismantled when the second bath-house was built.
There is no building rubble in the intervening level within the second bath-house. This
level is formed of clean earth brought by the builders, but containing some pottery.
Much of the material is of the second century B.c.; but it has a considerable range of
date, and the deposit, and consequently the date for the new bath building, cannot be
earlier than about the beginning of the Christian era. The deposit over the north-east
corner of the ambulatory, which included a small amount of brick rubble, contained an
identifiable amphora stamp, dated c. 180-146 B.C.

2. The second bath-house (fig. 3)

This bath-house is Ptolemaic in style but early Roman in date. Rather more of its plan
has been uncovered than of that of its predecessor. Again its main feature is a domed
room with foot-baths en couronne, but in such a poor state of preservation that without
the evidence of the earlier bath the significance of the regularly spaced sump-holes
would have been missed. On this floor the sumps are surprisingly heavily worn and
many repaired with pieces of limestone. Very little remains of the cubicles, only some
low brick walling on the north-west side. A large number of illegible coins' were found
in some of the sumps, as though the attendants had lost their tips through holes in their
pockets. The mortar floor was very rough and had probably been the base for a floor of
limestone flags, which had been removed for use in a later building.
This circular bath was built into the north-west corner of the existing building,
over the reduced walls of its predecessor. The window in the north wall was blocked
and the east part of that wall demolished. A blocking wall was built over what had been
the corridor (pl. XXVII, I). The circular bath now projected north of the main build-
ing. Further east the remains of this period have not been fully examined, but a small
ovoid plunge-bath, plaster lined, later filled with brick (pl. XXVIII, I) seems to belong to
them. This is an area of almost solid brick and consolidated rubble, presumably of the
later Roman period and obscuring all earlier phases. Later alterations have also removed
most of the east and south walls and the whole of the south-east corner of the circular
See Clayton's comments in J E A 5 5 , 12 on the condition of coins from this site.
 T H E T E L L EL-FARA'IN EXCAVATION, 1969 23
building and this destruction, together with the later building of two plunge-baths, has
obscured the connections between the foot-bath and the rest of the bath-house.

SECOND BATH-HOUSE

T o the south of the foot-bath there are two different arrangements, both of which
seem to be contemporary with the foot-bath. T h e earlier, with mortar floors and well-
built drains, is at a slightly lower level than the foot-bath floor, the second, with tiled
floors is slightly higher, but in both cases one or two steps only would have been
required. Neither floor shows the hard wear of the foot-bath, but the tiled floor is
24 DOROTHY CHARLESWORTH
one lot of tiles lying immediately on top of the other, either for strength or repair. Both
the mortar and the tiled floors are manifestly later than the first circular bath. Both
overrun its south end.
T h e circular cistern (pl. XXVIII, 2) and some of the attendant tanks can also be
assigned to this period. The floor of the ambulatory had sunk towards its ragged north
end when the north wall was demolished and the pottery which lay in the deposit over it,
a uniform fill which covered the side of the cistern almost to its top, was all of second-
to first-century B.C. date. A few pieces of later Roman pottery were found in only the
very top of this level. Much of the pottery is of types made in the adjacent kilns,' and
included one waster. The typically black Ptolemaic wares predominate, but the deposit
includes red wares, which seem to date from the later Ptolemaic and early Roman
period. The cistern was clearly built before any ash was dumped to the east of it, and
this ash must derive from the Roman bath, Period 3.
T o this second period also belongs the painted wall plaster, found dumped outside
the east wall of the building. This deposit is immediately under thick layers of ash.
Such material as has been dug out from under it is largely Roman in date. I t may be
assumed that the plaster was ripped out at the time of the re-modelling of the interior
in the second century A.D. Not all the plaster has yet been recovered and time did not
permit a full study of what there is; but it has been sorted and stored for further work.
However, the preliminary examination has shown that some plaster is from the walls
and some from the ceiling. T h e backing of the wall plaster contains fragments of brick
and scars showing that it has been pulled off a brick wall. A few pieces have indications
of cornice or dado mouldings on the back. T h e ceiling indicates very clearly that the
building had a flat roof made of logs, intertwined with reeds or straw on which the plaster
was keyed. T h e impress is very clear on many fragments. The nature of the roof is a
further reason for assigning the plaster to this period rather than to Period 3, when the
heating of the rooms would make a timber roof unsuitable. I t is evident that the baths
were well maintained. The plaster had been renewed at least once, with a different
scheme of decoration.
The date of Period 2 is reasonably clear and would be very precise if the coins were
legible. As well as the coins in the foot-baths others were found scattered about, and
a corroded mass of more than 17 was found with a bone die in the same drain as the
pottery group (pl. XXIX, I). The pottery sealed under the floor of the foot-bath was
Ptolemaic black ware. T h e pottery between the mortar and the tiled floors was not
exclusively Ptolemaic, but included some pieces of early Roman and fragments of two
imported Eastern Sigillata B dishes. For the end of the period the group of pottery
wedged together in the drain is most significant. T h e ribbed ware is typical of the Roman
period, first-second century A.D. No ware of this type was made in the adjacent kilns.
The flagon is white ware, the three similar jars coarse brown, probably local and the
remainder red. A mid-second century A.D. date is suggested for the group.
As this building was constructed about the beginning of the first century A.D. and
continued in use until the middle of the second century, it might be expected that it
See JEA 55, 28, fig. 3, 1-14.
I. Ambulatory floor removed to show earlier deposit. Period 2 blocking wall in position

2. First foot-baths; door in the foreground

TELL E L - F A ~ ~1969
~ N
eF, --
Ail-"'

IIIAXX 3LVTd
 XXIX
PLATE

I. Group of pottery from Period 2 drain

.-
"a,

2. West end of tiled floor under hypocaust. Roman cold rooms to the South (left)

TELL E L - F A R ~ ~ c1969
~N
 I. Hypocaust seen from the South. Period 3

2. Bath built over the south end of the circular room. Period 4

TELL E L - F A U C ~ N1969
 T H E TELL EL-FARA'IN EXCAVATION, 1969 25
would include rooms with underfloor heating, the hypocaust having been invented by
the Romans in the first century B.c.' There is no evidence of any heating system at this
period, but this does not rule out the possibility of charcoal braziers in some rooms.
The Greeks certainly heated some of their baths.2 I t is thought that the excavation has
reached the limits of this bath-house, although not all its rooms have been cleared.
There is no indication of rooms further south, under the Period 3 cold room.

3. The Roman bath-house (fig.4)

T h e main modification in Period 3 was the insertion of the hypocaust over the tiled
floors of the Period z rooms (pls. XXIX, 2; XXX, I ) . At the same time the floor of the
circular building was raised and tiled. The outer walls of Period 2 still stood unaltered.
Some inner walls may have been pulled down and not merely stripped of their plaster;
but the three heated rooms are coextensive with the earlier cold rooms. T h e roof,
except probably the dome on the circular building, was almost certainly altered, the
timber roof stripped, and a brick, vaulted, roof built.
The pillars of the first hypocaust ran diagonally over the tiled floors and some were
left standing when the whole series was renewed on a new alignment, at right-angles
to the walls. Some pillars, all tile-built, stood to their full height of 0.60 m., and at the
north end of room 2 a small piece of the floor, with a later floor on it, was intact. T h e
hypocaust was no longer functioning when the final floor was built. A layer of rubble
filled it. This building was heavily robbed from the south and none of its walls still
stood when it was excavated.
Room I was probably the tepidarium. There were no signs of a flue leading directly
into it. A concentration of burning indicates a flue in the angle of the north wall and the
outer wall of the circular building. This would heat the north end of room z ; there was
a second flue on its east side which would increase its heat and also partly serve room 3.
The cold rooms were to the south of these. One had a floor of marble chips, set in
mortar, its edges broken away where it overlapped the walls of the Period z room
below it. T o the east of it was part of a solid mortar floor and the remains of some plain
plaster on one of its walls. South of these was a large area of rough mortar, originally
covered with limestone flags, of which only one remained. I t is probable that some of
the flags were originally used in the circular foot-bath of the second period. The floor
also showed traces of seating for brick columns. The full extent of this large room has
not yet been uncovered. It could be the apodyterium, but it seems large for that when the
size of the other rooms is seen, or the exercise hall, the palaestra. This is outside the
earlier bath-house and it could be as the result of this extension that the earlier south
wall was removed.
The circular room continued in use, but not as a foot-bath. T h e level of its floor was
raised, and there was no trace of any fittings on what was left of its tiled floor. Probably
it now became the sudatorium or laconicum, a room of intense dry heat usually found in
a Roman bath-house.
The Stabian baths at Pompeii c. 120 B.C. are thought to be the earliest baths heated by a hypocaust.
These were steam baths, heated by braziers.
26 DOROTHY CHARLESWORTH
Some structures seem to have been built on the north side of the hypocaust, and a
late door-sill indicates a new minor entrance. Access was needed here to the stoke-hole.

ROMAN BATH-HOUSE

I R U B B L E I

I Flue
r
mm
8
m g ;

Both hot and cold plunge baths should be found in this bath-house. T h e obvious ones,
however, do not fit into its plan. T h e damaged opus signinzim floor on the east of the site
was still in use.
It is not clear how long this bath-house remained in use. Most of the pottery found
 THE TELL EL-FAM'f N EXCAVATION, 1969 27
in the ash tip is of second-century date. The finds include imported lamps datable to
that century.'

4. The final phase

The last period is represented by a scatter of massive bricks and mortar baths (pl.
XXX, 2) with the connecting links so broken that they all give the impression of having
been in the open air. This is, however, unlikely in an area where the winters are cold
and wet. The existing bath-house must have been largely demolished. One deep bath,
entered from the south, overlies the south end of the circular room, and another, to the
south-west of it, projects beyond the earlier west wall. A corridor cuts through the east
wall of the circular room and a kiln or oven was built into its former south-east corner.
This is a small kiln, perhaps taking advantage of a flue still in this area. Two amphora tops
were found on its floor, but they had been thrown in after it went out of use. The east wall
of the bath-house was also overlaid by a brick platform, which extends from the cistern.
The area between the tanks round the cistern and the rest of the baths is filled with a
confusion of remains of walling, brick rubble and mortar, accumulated debris which it
has proved impossible to disentangle. No coherent plan can be produced for this period.

Foot-baths en couronne
The two successive circular rooms with foot-baths round the walls are a distinctive
architectural feature of the bath-house, which may be compared with other Hellenistic
examples.
The best preserved, but not dated by the excavators, is at Cyrene,2 cut into the rock,
near the sanctuary of Apollo. It is part of a complex of so-called ritual baths. The cir-
cular domed room has a series of baths resembling high-backed armchairs with a basin,
in which is a small circular sump, in front of each. Over each chair is a niche. The walls
were plastered. At Gortys in Arcadia3 a similar building, semi-underground, was found
5 m. from the temple of Aesculapius. This was dated by the excavators to the second
half of the third century B.c., rather earlier than the first foot-bath at Tell el-Fargrin
(Buto). At Gela in Sicily4 a small bath-house, including a circular room with foot-baths
en couronne, was dated c. 3 10-282 B.C. An example at Oeniadae,~reduced to floor level
but with its regular series of sump-holes, as in the second circular room at Buto, can
be dated approximately by the five coins found in it to 230-168 B.c., more or less con-
temporary with the first foot-baths at Buto. At Eretria6 there is another, but undated,
example.
Some of the examples listed as parallels to the bath at Gortys7 are plain circular rooms
with no signs that they have ever had any internal fittings. There is no reason to assume
that these contained foot-baths en couronne. A circular, domed room is a common
feature of both Hellenistic and Roman bath-houses, used as a sudatorium.
Mr. Peter Clayton kindly helped with the dating of the lamps. J H s 77, 306.
3 CRAIBL 1952,56 f. ILTotzie degli Scnvi 13 (195g),182f. -4JA (xgog), 216.
6 Ibid. 5 (I~oI),
96.
See p. 21,n. 3 above.
 DOROTHY CHARLESWORTH

More important in considering the origin of the foot-baths is the discovery at

Olympia' of two successive public baths, each with a rectangular room, the earlier with
eleven, and the later with twenty, foot-baths. The first is dated to the fifth century B.c.,
and must be one of the earliest public bath-houses. The second is of the second half of
the fourth century B.C.
Public baths are a normal feature of Ptolemaic as well as of Roman towns in Egypt.
Those which have foot-baths en couronne as an element of the building have been listed
by Schwartz and Wild in their study of the baths at Qasr-QBrh (Dionysias)Z where
the circular room, diameter 3.70 m., had ten foot-baths in a circle broken only by the
entrance. The other examples are at K6m en-Negila (near Alexandria), AbQ Sir
(Taposiris Magna), K6m el-Wasat (near DamanhQr), Tell Atrib (Athribis), Kdm
Demes, Mersa MatrQh, and Shisht el-AnrBm. There are also examples of foot-baths in
private baths. The bath at Dionysias was thought to date from the beginning of the
third century A.D., which seems very late for a demonstrably Hellenistic type. Such
evidence of date for this type of bath as there is at present supports the dating sug-
gested by the study of the material found in the two at Buto; even there the second bath
is later than might be expected.
Bericht iiber die Ausgrabungen in Olympia, 4 (1934), 32 f.
* J. Schwartz and H . Wild, Qa~r-QartlnDionysias, 1948, 54 f.