During excavations of the early Roman temple of Shanhûr (near Luxor, Egypt) a large concentration of small fish bones was found in a younger occupation layer dated to the late 6th-early 7th century AD. The various taxa encountered in this Byzantine (Coptic) assemblage are described and quantified in terms of both number of fragments and minimum number of individuals. Fish lengths are reconstructed using power equations for those taxa for which sufficient modern reference material was available. After excluding natural taphonomic agents (otters, fish eating birds, natural death) it is argued that the deposit is anthropic and that the material represents the remains of fish sauce or of pickled fish. Other archaeozoological data from the literature, textual and archaeological evidence, as well as modern practices show that Nilotic fish were consumed in salted form from about 2500 years ago up to the present-day.
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