Excavations at Esh Shaheinab, Sudan (1949)

A full report of the excavations at Khartoum undertaken by the Sudan Government Antiquities Service in 1944–5 has recently been published. The present paper summarises the results of a subsequent excavation made by the same service at the early occupation site at Esh Shaheinab on the west bank of the Nile 30 miles north of Omdurman.Esh Shaheinab was chosen after study of numerous eroded occupation sites in Khartoum Province, because it appeared to be a one-period site, having a characteristic brown burnished and incised pottery with stone implements including gouges typical of Miss Caton-Thompson's Fayum Neolithic, and to have been less disturbed than other sites attributable to the same culture. Besides amply confirming the connection with the Fayum Neolithic, the new excavation made clear that the pottery characteristic of the site, which at first sight appeared to have nothing in common with the pottery of early Khartoum, except its brown colour and the fact that it is decorated with an incised pattern, is derived from that pottery. Other connections with the early Khartoum culture are recorded below, as well as four important novel features, viz:—bone axe-heads, shell fish-hooks, zeolite? lip-plugs and granite maceheads with flat tops.