The Egyptian archaeological mission of the Supreme Council of Antiquities working at the Tabba Matouh site, west of Alexandria, managed to discover a pottery manufacturing workshop (mainly amphorae) dating from early Roman times, during the excavations it was carrying out in the site.
Dr. Mustafa Waziri, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said that the discovered workshop consists of a group of ovens, two of them carved into the rock. One of them is in a good state of preservation and has a vaulted entrance on the western side through which the potters entered the kiln to stack the amphorae.
During the compaction process, the entrance was plugged with clay blocks and the remains of other ceramic pieces, and the fuel was introduced through a ramp carved into the rock located below this entrance.
Dr. Waziri said that the first evidence indicates that this workshop was used in later times, since the northern area was used to create a lime oven that could date from the Byzantine era.
For his part, Dr. Ayman Ashmawy, Head of the Egyptian Antiquities Sector of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said that the mission also managed to discover another building located to the south of these two furnaces, which was probably used to preserve everyday utensils. Inside, kitchen utensils and crockery were found.
The find also includes a set of about 30 rooms built in limestone dating from the Ptolemaic era, used for different purposes as a temporary residence for workers and kitchens, in which mills, pestles, amphorae, weights of different types and spindles were found. .
Another of the rooms was possibly used for cooking and selling food, since remains of amphorae in which fish bones were kept, stoves for cooking food and a large number of coins were found under the floor of the room. .
In another room, used to perform rituals, a raised platform was found on the floor of the room, which contained parts of poorly preserved terracotta statues, one of them of the god Harpocrates.
Mohaja Ramadan Abdel Qader, head of the mission, indicated that a large group of coins was also discovered, most of which date from the Ptolemaic era.
The mission also found parts of terracotta statues representing deities and women, an amulet of the god Bes with the feathered crown of this deity and part of a statue related to fertility, as well as parts of fishing hooks used by the inhabitants of the area, and the anchor of a ship.
Nearly a hundred burials were also found, in a cemetery with a system of rock-cut pits, which predates the time the pottery workshop was built.
