The Oriental Institute Archeological Report on the near East, 1941

Abstract

Abusir (in the Delta). Department of Antiquities Excavations and restorations begun in 1937 (AJSL, LV, No. 4 [October, 1938], 426) on the ancient sites of Plinthin6 and Taposiris, 40 kilometers west of Alexandria, were continued in 1940. The great tower, octagonal at the bottom and cylindrical at the top, has been completely restored from near ruin. The stairway in the octagon and the spiral staircase in the top are now rebuilt and show the means of access to the summit. Once thought to be a funerary monument, the tower seems clearly to have been a lighthouse. It is the only building of its kind extant in Egypt and may indicate what the great Pharos of Alexandria was like. The cemetery around it has proven on excavation to be of earlier date than the tower. The excavation of the so-called "Temple of Osiris" was also continued. The building now appears to have been something like a convent with small cells about a central chapel. Pottery found under the floor of one cell points to a date at the earliest Hellenistic for the founding of the building. From a Department of Antiquities release.