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Modern Description: In addition to a temple, the site included a cemetery: about feddan in size in 1910, with mud brick tombs subsequently burnt, a limestone sarcophagus and inscribed elements. Excavations by SCA in 1990 - some pottery then in Mansura office. In1996, 25 feddan still remained in high area but the land belongs to farmers. Daressy equated with Tell Onuphis but Coptic evidence suggests other places for this town. Survey by Canadian mission directed by G. Mumford 1999-2002. Work by SCA in 2003. Part of the site has been overbuilt by a water treatment plant. SCA excavations reactivated in 2014, found several tombs of Ptolemaic date. Additional data assembled by Friedman and Buck, 1987:
Excavation: In 1908 Hossein Abdullah obtained authorisation to make sondages in the necropolis, overseen by Chaban (1910:28-30). Abdel Fattah excavated 16 feddan for EAO during the late 1980s. Finds taken to the SCA office at Mansura. Survey commenced in 1999 by Canadian expedition led by G. Mumford of Toronto.
This expedition mapped the site in December 1999 and proceeded to carry out a programme of excavation. Periods of occupation revealed included the Old Kingdom to early First Intermediate Period, Second Intermediate Period, followed by renewed activity from Dynasty 21 to Graeco-Roman. Tombs of the Late Period and of Graeco-Roman date have also been revealed. During its 3rd season, the expedition catalogued and photographed 357 limestone, granite, and diorite surface pieces (sarcophagi, column bases, a drain channel, wall and paving blocks, a naos corner piece, gateway blocks and more) originating from a LP cemetery and temple at Tebilla. Pottery was also collected and sections of deep trenches, cut within an adjacent water plant, photographed. The potsherds from the mound span the OK to SIP and Dyn 21-31 to the Greco-Roman period. A grid was extended over the north end of the mound, which appears to contain massive square and rectangular blocks of mortuary structures, placed close together, some industrial areas, and courtyard areas. Surface finds included human skeletal material, funerary amulets, LP pottery and intense burning. Excavation revealed a disturbed cartonnage burial and a tomb chamber at the NW of the mound and, at the NE, a large, mudbrick structure (13 by 14+m); several of its chambers were excavated, some revealing multiple levels of use, pottery deposits, and burials spanning Dyn 26 into the Graeco-Roman period. A variety of imported ceramics from the Levant and East Greece were found. The north-west quadrant of the ancient mound has been destroyed by the construction of a water treatment plant. During the building of this facility, numerous pieces of stone masonry were revealed which have the appearance of having belonged to the temple of the city. The Canadian team catalogued some 357 pieces in Summer 2001. Subsequently, remains of the Late Dynastic temple enclosure wall have been excavated, together with parts of an inner wall. http://deltasurvey.ees.ac.uk/billa156.html)
Wikidata ID: Q1749396
Trismegistos Geo: 3093

Info: Wikipedia.org

(Wikipedia)

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