The fortress of Askut lay on an island in the Batn el-Hajar, just south of the Second Cataract (fig. 1), and was one of a chain of fortresses established in the Middle Kingdom. Until the excavations of the University of California at Los Angeles, led by Alexander Badawy from 1962-64, little was known about the site and its significance. Wheeler mentioned it in passing in 1932, characterizing it as" much destroyed and rebuilt," and noting that it provided a crucial line of sight between Shalfak and Murshid, thus ultimately connecting Semna with the Second Cataract. 1 It was, however, only after the University of California excavations that Askut's significance as a major fortress of the Middle Kingdom was realized. The site was, as Wheeler observed, extensively overbuilt, but this condi-tion actually served to protect the earlier deposits, not destroy them. Remarkably, Askut was relatively free of modern disturbance from looters and sebakheen. The consistently deep cultural deposits reached approximately 1.2 m in the Upper fort, and 2.6 m in the Southeastern Sector outside of the main defense wall (fig. 8). 2