Salted fish products from the Coptic monastery at Bawit, Egypt: evidence from the bones and texts

Fish bone assemblages are described that were recently discovered in the storage area of two rooms, dated to the 7th century AD, from the monastery of Bawit, Egypt. The species composition, the reconstructed sizes of the fish and the find contexts show that this material represents pickled fish (salsamenta). This product was made in one case of medium-sized Clarias catfish, whereas another assemblage, found inside an amphora, consisted of small-sized fish, mainly cyprinids and alestiids. The latter product was stored in a Late Roman Amphora 5/6 of Palestinian origin, traditionally considered as a container for wine. The amphora was clearly re-used since the fish found in it are Nilotic species which excludes that the salsamenta came from outside Egypt. A few additional finds of fish inside amphorae were available, but due to the low number of bones it was unclear if salted fish products were stored in them. Textual information provided by ostraca and papyri from the same site shows that the monks exerted fishing activities themselves and also suggests that the production of pickled fish took place locally. One of the two Nilotic fish taxa (Labeo) that is specifically mentioned by written evidence is the most common ingredient found in the amphora with abundant fish remains. The paper ends with a brief summary of other faunal evidence for salted fish products from monastic and other historic sites in Egypt.

Interstitial insertion of varying amounts of ABL-containing genetic material into chromosome 22 in Ph-negative CML.

We studied the cells from three selected patients with Ph-chromosome-negative chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) by Southern blotting, polymerase chain reaction, and in situ hybridization of informative probes to metaphase chromosomes. All three patients had rearrangement of M-BCR sequences in the BCR gene and expression of one or other of the mRNA species characteristic of Ph-positive CML. Leukemic metaphases studied after trypsin-Giemsa banding were indistinguishable from normal. The ABL probe localized both to chromosome 9 and 22 in each case. A probe containing 3' M-BCR sequences localized only to chromosome 22, and not to chromosome 9 as would be expected in Ph-positive CML. Two new probes that recognize different polymorphic regions distal to the ABL gene on chromosome 9 in normal subjects localized exclusively to chromosome 9 in two patients and to both chromosomes 9 and 22 in one patient. These results show that Ph-negative CML with BCR rearrangement is associated with insertion of a variable quantity of chromosome 9 derived material into chromosome 22q11; there is no evidence for reciprocal translocation of material from chromosome 22 to chromosome 9.