Conny Waters – AncientPages.com – Remains of a large administrative facility from the First Intermediate Period were uncovered during an excavation carried out by an Austrian-Egyptian mission led by Eriny Foster this week at the Upper Egyptian town of Kom Ombo that lies approximately 45 km north of Aswan on the east bank of the Nile River.

Remains of a conical silo in the newly discovered administrative facility from the First Intermediate Period. Credit: Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities

It consists of many rooms containing more than 20 conical silos used for grain storage as well as cellars, staircases, and storerooms, reports Nevine El-Aref, Ahram Online.

“The walls of these silos are exceptionally well preserved, standing up to two meters in height, and some of the silos are even taller,” said Foster. The building probably served as a centre for grain distribution.

“It is a unique discovery at Kom Ombo and indicates the importance of the town in Upper Egypt during the First Intermediate Period,” he pointed out.

Credit: Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities

Abdel Moneim Saeed, the head of Aswan and Nubia Antiquities, pointed out that Kom Ombo is a protected area, containing the famous Ptolemaic Temple of Kom Ombo, which is a regular feature of tourist itineraries.

Surprisingly, the surrounding area of the ancient town was never investigated systematically.

The Austrian Archaeological Insтιтute in Egypt, which has a long-term research interest in settlement archaeology, began a project there in cooperation with the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities in 2017 with the aim of investigating Kom Ombo and its hinterland.

In antiquity the city was in the Thebaid, the capital of the Nomos Ombites, on the east bank of the Nile; laтιтude 24° 6′ north.

Credit: Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities

Ombos was a garrison town under every dynasty of Egypt as well as the Ptolemaic Kingdom and Roman Egypt, and was celebrated for the magnificence of its temples and its hereditary feud with the people of Dendera.

Ombos was the first city below Aswan at which any remarkable remains of antiquity occur. The Nile, indeed, at this portion of its course, was ill-suited to a dense population in antiquity. It runs between steep and narrow banks of sandstone, and deposits but little of its fertilizing slime upon the dreary and barren shores.

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There are two temples at Ombos, constructed of the stone obtained from the neighboring quarries of Hagar Silsilah.

The town was settled from the Early Dynastic times until the Early Islamic Period and, after a long gap, again during the British occupation of Egypt when a fort was built in the town as part of defences erected against the Mahdist uprising in Sudan.

Written by Conny Waters – AncientPages.com Staff Writer