The House of Serenos. Clementina Caputo

fragments.

      Figure 14: Almost complete unfired clay disc in Room 13 (DSU 216).

      Figure 15: The double bin (F151+F174) in Room 13.

      Figure 16: Section drawing of Room 14.

      Figure 17: Plan of Room 15 showing the distribution of ceramic vessels that received a Field Number (FN) during the excavation.

      Figure 18: The stibadium outside the House of Serenos.

      Figure 19: Section drawing of Street 2.

      Figure 20: Vessels found in a dumped layer (DSU 163) lying on the floor (F117) of the laconicum.

      Figure 21: Cooking pot (no. 129 = Inv. 10264) from DSU 170 in the laconicum.

      Figure 22: The closed alley (R43) to the south of Building 6 (Area 2.2).

      Figure 23: Illustration of Serenos’ social network.

      Table 1: Fabric and Ware desciptions.

      Table 2: Total kilograms for each fabric found in B1, S2, S3 (above floors).

      Tables 3–17: Quantification of ceramic types and distribution by functional categories for selected contexts above floors of B1.

      Table 18: Quantification of ceramic types from Serenos’ dump (Room 43, DSU 160, Area 2.2).

      Table 19: Percentage of pottery from B1, S2, S3 (above floors).

       General Catalogue

      Plate I: Small footed bowls (nos. 1–9); Bowls (nos. 10–27).

      Plate II: Bowls (nos. 28–38); medium bowls (nos. 39–41); dishes (nos. 42–46).

      Plate III: Oasis Red Slip Ware (nos. 47–55); vessels for liquids (nos. 56–72).

      Plate IV: Vessels for liquids (nos. 73–79); kraters (nos. 80–85).

      Plate V: Krater with decoration from Room 15 of House B1 (no. 86).

      Plate VI: Deep bowls (nos. 87–88); basins (nos. 89–94).

      Plate VII: Basins (nos. 95–98); sieves (nos. 99–100); funnel (no. 101).

      Plate VIII: Cooking plates (nos. 102–103); casseroles (nos. 104–111); cooking pots (nos. 112–122).

      Plate IX: Cooking pots (nos. 123–147).

      Plate X: Bread molds (nos. 148–149); baking trays/dokkas (nos. 150–151); small lids (nos. 152–155); lids (nos. 156–163); jars (nos. 164–174).

      Plate XI: Jars (nos. 175–194).

      Plate XII: Kegs (nos. 195–203); Yellow slipped flasks and jars (nos. 204–212).

      Plate XIII: Amphora AE 4 (no. 213); Rhodian amphoras (nos. 214–215); LRA 7 (nos. 216–227); Sāqiya pots (nos. 228–230); miniature vessels (nos. 231–235); other (nos. 236–238).

       Selected Contexts above Floors (B1, S2, S3)

      Plate XIV: Room 1–DSU 4.

      Plate XV: Room 4–DSUs 9 and 23.

      Plate XVI: Room 6–DSUs 67, 75, 76, and 78.

      Plate XVII: Room 8–DSUs 63, 74, and 77.

      Plates XVIII–XIX: Room 9 and Room 10.

      Plate XX: Room 11–DSU 235 and Room 12–DSUs 245 and 247.

      Plate XXI: Room 13–DSUs 208, 209, and 216.

      Plate XXII: Room 14–DSUs 221 and 233.

      Plates XXIII–XXVII: Room 15–DSUs 140, 145, 152, 157, and 181.

      Plate XXVIII: Rooms 16 and 17–DSUs 150, 158=161.

      Plate XXIX: Street 2–DSUs 342 and 348 and Street 3–DSU 387.

       Relevant Units below Floors in Area 2.1

      Plate XXX: Trenches Room 1 and Room 2.

      Plate XXXI: Trenches Room 4 and Room 6.

      Plate XXXII: Trench Room 8.

      Plates XXXIII–XXXV: Below courtyard Room 9 and Room 10.

      Plate XXXVI: Trench Room 15.

      Plate XXXVII: Trenches Street 2 and Street 3.

      Plate XXXVIII: Some decorated fragments found in the dump layers below floors of Room 15 (B1) and Street 2.

       Serenos’ Dump Catalogue

       Plates XXXIX–XLIII: Room 43–DSU

      Foreword

      The work that Clementina Caputo presents to the community of historians and archaeologists of Roman and Byzantine Egypt, and indeed to a wider audience, is the result of an extended research effort carried out in conditions that one might describe as ideal, because it has taken place in the context of multidisciplinary studies and as part of a team of scholars whose competences have made it possible to grasp with some precision the history and immediacy of the use of a ceramic assemblage in the far west of the Dakhla oasis during the fourth century CE, and in the particular setting of Amheida/Trimithis, which acquired the status of polis at the latest by the start of that century.

      During the 1980s, when I was studying the workshops and tombs of the Sixth Dynasty and the First Intermediate Period at Balat and ‘Ayn Asil, I had the opportunity to become acquainted, albeit rather rapidly, with this large urban territory and to recognize the existence there of a local ceramic production, rather different from that of Douch/Kysis, which I studied shortly afterward for the Institut français d’archéologie orientale. Later, I returned to Dakhla, this time to Amheida, on the invitation of Roger Bagnall and Paola Davoli, for surveys of the urban territory and for ceramological seminars on site. These provided the opportunity for discussions and exchanges concerning the fabrics and ceramic productions of Trimithis and of Dakhla more broadly. It is thus particularly pleasing to be able to provide a foreword for this work, the product of that working environment.

      The work carried out at Amheida, the last large urban settlement of the Great Oasis before one enters the desert zones to its west, has produced an exceptional documentation. The excavation has revealed a city located in a rich agricultural hinterland, with houses, tombs, wall decoration, texts, and other objects that show us its wealth and allow the reconstruction of many of the practices of daily life, from food to education.

      For more than forty years, following the pioneering work of Ahmed Fakhry, the sites of the western desert have been intensively explored, and for the Great Oasis—a toponym that comprises both Dakhla and Kharga in the Roman period—the production of information has been quite exceptional. For Dakhla, the first publications go back to the beginning of the 1980s, marked above all by Denkmäler der Oase Dachla aus dem Nachlass von Ahmed Fakhry, the foundational work of Jürgen Osing based on the dossiers of