Volume 1
The Wellcome excavations in the Sudan / [Frank Addison].
- Addison, Frank
- Date:
- 1949-1951
Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Credit: The Wellcome excavations in the Sudan / [Frank Addison]. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![employed. These were recorded by Macfarlane, and all the pottery and objects from each succes- sive floor or living surface were separately packed and labelled. It is not necessary to deal at any length with the routine work of excavation during the last two seasons; its general character has already been sufficiently indicated. But it must not be overlooked that, amid the sifting-machines and the paraphernalia of large-scale excavation, there were highly skilled Egyptian excavators at work whose standard of execution never relaxed. The photographs reveal very clearly that, where graves were concerned, the final clearing of the skeleton with its ornaments in situ was done with a patient care and a delicacy of touch that could not even to-day be surpassed. DENUDATION OF STRATA We may now return to the question of the denudation of the strata to which allusion was made on p. 15. It had been observed by Wainwright and Dixon that the four strata they had named were not uniformly present over the whole site, and that in places one, two, or even three of them were missing; but the question of denudation was first dealt with, from the geological point of view, by Middleton. In a report dated the 24th of December 1913 he wrote: A study of the accompanying 'Section of Strata through line O' [PI. XXII, Fig. 1] throws a little light on the age of the valley deposits. The section is taken across the work in an east-and-west direction along the line O, and is extended to a little beyond the Great Khor. The level of the lip of the Gorge, through which the waters discharge on to the plain, is also shown. The actual parts of the strata measured are those exposed in the long trench and in the deep sondage therein: these parts are shown by the dotted line AB. Levels were taken at every 10 metres, indi- cated by light vertical lines in the section. On examining the section, an important fact is revealed, viz:—that the configuration of the present surface is not the same as that of the surface at the time when the strata were being deposited. In other words, this configuration is a result of the denudation of the strata rather than of its deposition. It will be seen that the slope of the surface is steeper than the slope of the strata, cutting, in fact, through the latter and denuding their lower ends, so that, near the Great Khor, nothing remains of the lowest layer recognised on the work—the so-called 'black gebel'. Further evidence that the lower ends of the strata have been denuded is afforded by the fact that, before the site was touched, skeletons buried in the deeper layers were observed to be projecting from the slope in a horizontal direction in this region. Now it appears to be likely that the strata in question once extended across the entire width of the valley, as shown by the broken lines; but in order to allow of this the lip of the Gorge must have been at a higher level than at present. The lowest level of the lip, consistent with the retention of the strata shown by the broken lines, is indicated by the mark ' higher lip' in the diagram. The difference in level between this and the present lip is about 3-5 metres. It is thus seen that since the deposition of the upper layer of the strata a period of time must have elapsed at least sufficient to allow of the lowering of the Gorge lip 3-5 metres by, apparently, the natural processes of weathering and denudation. The Geological sequence of events in the valley may therefore be stated as follows:— (1) The valley existed with a gentle slope (gentler than at present) towards the Gorge. The lowest strata were deposited with the same gentle slope, being rather of the nature of torrent fans than of tranquilly deposited](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b20457911M001_0044.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
