Preliminary Report on the Survey of Kom el-Hisn, 1996

The Egypt Exploration Society initiated a new archaeological survey at the site of Kom el-Hisn near the edge of Egypt's Western Delta. Six test pits were opened in the southern half of the site to the north of the Old Kingdom town excavated by the ARCE mission in the 1980s. Deposits dating to the mid-Thirteenth Dynasty were discovered in Test Pit 1, robbers' trenches and the foundation wall of the main temple building of Sekhmet-Hathor (probably New Kingdom or later) in Test Pits 2, 3, 5 and 6, and domestic structural remains of the late Third Intermediate Period in Test Pit 4. Auger cores in the intervening areas of the site suggested that deposits of the Middle Kingdom and Third Intermediate Period were substantial.