When we last left you, it was to wait and see what happened
once the field school officially started. Well, first off, it started with a
different Inspector from whom we had met at the Karnak teftish last week.
Instead of Ali Erfan, we have Safaa Mohamed Abd El-Moaaty,
which will either make things simpler or more complicated seeing as we now have
2 Inspectors with the same name. Malesh. We were pleased to see that our second
Safaa welcomed us at the door to the Karnak Lab already reporting for duty at
the appointed hour of 8am.
On both Saturday and Sunday Will and JJ, with Sayed’s
assistance, spent the day teaching the new students at the Karnak Lab. Mudira JJ
provided an introduction to the placement of tombs in Sheikh Abd el-Qurna
during the 18th Dynasty, which helps to situate the tomb of Djhuty in the
landscape. A second lecture introduced the students to many of the key
officials during the reigns of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III, which gives a
social and political context to Djhuty and his career. Mr. Will gave the
students an overview of the history of epigraphy as well as a professional and
anecdotal history of his career as an epigrapher, illustrated with examples of
his work from different projects. We had boasted about our famous second
breakfasts to the students, and fortunately Mostafa (the same Karnak workman we had last year) did not let us down, on
Saturday bringing fuul, tamaya, mixed salat, gibna abyad (salty white cheese),
kiri (like Philly cream cheese), aish balady (local pita bread) and aish fino
(white baguettes), mos (banana), yousef effendis (satsumas), and chipsies (UK
crisps, US potato chips), and supplementing the menu on Sunday with fresh
lettuce and tomatoes, boiled eggs, batates (US French fries, UK chips), and roasted
aubergine!
At the same time, Yaser begin his teaching course, with
Hazem’s assistance, on the west at TT 110, beginning with pottery drawing for
the 5 returning students (Nadia, Mahmoud, Abu el-Hagag, Alaa, and Sayed el
Rekaby), as well as our west bank Inspector Safaa.
Abu el-Hagag drawing a pot sherd
Our Inspector Safaa drawing pottery
This is the explanation for how Will and JJ managed to be in two places at the same time, which had initially confused all and a sundry until we admitted that in fact the teaching on the west bank was going to be handled by Yaser while at the same time as we were teaching in the east. We're good, but we don't have a tardis (sadly).
Monday we started somewhat differently by meeting at a local
coffeeshop across from the entrance to Luxor Temple because we planned to visit
the work of Chicago House artists Jay Heidel and Krisztián Verteś.
You may remember that we have visited their work with beginning field schools
in the past, and were overjoyed to find that they were still happy and willing
to explain their work to our new crop of students. We made our way to the back
of the temple and the adjacent block yard where, unbelievably, over 100,000
decorated fragments are stored. Chicago House has been involved for many years
in photographing and documenting these fragments, which now involves state-of-the-art
digital epigraphy. Jay gave the students an overview of the history of the
project and how the work is currently progressing, and he even let some of the
students practice on his iPad Pro drawing graphics tablet! This visit naturally
segwayed into the introduction to the photographer who is facilitating this project
and lo-and-behold it was our old friend Hilary MacDonald, whom many of you will
remember introduced our students in the digital epigraphy field school to the use of photography and Photoscan. It was a pleasure to see her in situ, so-to-speak. She gave a brief but excellent insight into
the type of photography needed to document these fragments without actually having
to move them, seeing as many are fragile.
Jay Heidel and Hilary MacDonald with our students
We then proceeded to the “king’s chamber” at the back of the
temple where Krisztián
has been ensconced for the last few years digitally recording the Roman frescoes.
When we first visited him in 2015 he was at the beginning of this process and
developing a revolutionary methodology to apply digital epigraphy to these
scenes, which entail multiple layers of surviving paint over the ancient pharaonic
carved relief. Documenting this type of painting was something that Chicago House
had never attempted in the past, it was frankly beyond the means of traditional
epigraphy. Krisztián
is at the forefront of developing new techniques to meet this challenge. And we
and our students were the beneficiaries of his knowledge and experience, as he
is now close to completion and the methods he has employed have evolved from
what were first introduced to us.
Krisztián Verteś with our students
We left Luxor Temple 2.5 hours later excited about and
motivated by all we had learned, and certainly hungry, but not before the
obligatory photo at the entrance to the temple. And just after the phot was
taken we realized that the scaffolding above our heads surrounded one of the
Ramesside colossal statues which was being restored and re-erected, and
supervising the work, suspended over our heads, was none other than Reis
Mahmoud from Karnak!
Piling into multiple taxis, we made our way back to Karnak
and directly to 2nd breakfast, somewhat later than usual. The delicious spread
was wolfed down by our hungry, young epigraphers-in-training, and after teas
and coffees we returned to the Karnak Lab. Having realized that this year all
of our students come from areas other than the west bank of Luxor, and thus
have little experience or knowledge of Thebaid tomb design, JJ gave them a
brief overview of Theban Tomb architecture and decoration in the 18th Dynasty.
Lecture concluded, it was time to reward the students by giving them each their
drawing kits, which were received with much enthusiasm and excitement. As with
Russian nesting dolls, the students discovered bags, within bags, within bags,
each one with specific drawing tools from pencils, pens, markers all the way to
triangles and tape measures. This seemed an appropriate point at which to
conclude our work at the lab, in order to eventually reassemble on the west so
the students can put their kits to use.
Kits arriving in the blue box
Kits distributed
Now empty blue box gets carried out
But before heading west, on Tuesday we spent the day at
Chicago House, where we were joined by Yaser and his group of students. The Librarian,
Anait Helmholz, warmly greeted all of us and gave the new students a tour of
the library, taking them through both its history and its collection, including
the photographic archives. To be sure that everything was clear, Sayed then
repeated the tour in Arabic. As in previous years, JJ gave each student a “treasure
hunt” of items to find in the library, allowing them to put into practice what Anait
and Sayed had discussed and shown them. Once the students had all found their
books and journals, JJ also introduced them to some of the basic reference works that are
useful for conducting any kind of Egyptological research. Before breaking for
lunch at 12, when the library closes, Will showed the students various
historic examples of published epigraphy in books by de Garis Davies and
Chicago House, with the understanding that after lunch we would continue with
more recent epigraphic publications. While Will and JJ were working with the
new students, Yaser and his students examined different published types of
pottery and object drawing, discussing the various kinds of conventions used.
Since we had not taken a mid-morning break, everyone was
quite hungry, so at noon we headed for Café Marina, where we could have cold
drinks and fuul and tamaya sandwiches delivered to us. Our group numbered
nearly 20, so we took over a large and shady portion of the outdoor restaurant.
Unbeknownst to Sayed, we had arranged a surprise birthday celebration, with
Hazem ordering a cake and our driver Ayman secretly delivering it to the restaurant.
Sayed seemed honestly surprised since his birthday had actually been the day before!
And our large unwieldy group serenaded him with a particularly tuneless
rendition of “Happy Birthday”. Hazem attempted to cut pieces of the cake for
everyone, making as bad a mess of it as he had done previously with roast duck
and chicken! So, Mr. Will commandeered the knife, which looked more like a
light saber (!) and cut the appropriate sized pieces so that everyone managed
to actually have a slice of cake, with one left over for our driver Ayman as a
reward for services rendered. At 1pm we returned to Chicago House to finish
examining a selection of recent epigraphic publications. The multitude of
questions had to be curtailed so that we could leave the library by 2pm, since
we were re-grouping only a few hours later, at 5pm, at the Luxor Museum. Many
of the issues of conventions under discussion would get an additional airing
looking at a variety of carved and painted blocks in the museum.
At 5pm we re-grouped, this time without Yaser and his
students, outside the Luxor Museum. The purpose of this visit was to examine
actual carved and painted blocks to look at how one would actually draw them.
This allowed further discussion that had been begun in the library on conventions
for raised and sunk relief, paint, and particularly issues of damage and
re-carving. It also gave the students the opportunity to look at the carved “bevel”
(the angle made by a chisel), as well as the overlapping of raised and sunk
relief within carved areas. It was nearly 7:30 when we finished, the students having
had truly a long school day.
On
Wednesday we finally headed to the west bank and the tomb, where we were able
to re-join Yaser and the illustration students, bringing our total group to nearly
20! JJ had to leave the group in Will’s care as she had a breakfast
meeting with the new Cairo Director of ARCE, Dr. Louise Bertini. This proved to
be no problem at all for Mr. Will seeing as Saad Bakhit spent the entire
morning giving the students a lengthy powerpoint presentation of the
archaeological work done in the forecourt and surrounding area of TT110, of
which he was one of the Field Directors. How did we accomplish this on the west
bank you might ask? Fortunately, there is a small, undecorated glorified tomb/cave behind
the ruins of what were once houses, and near where we set up our tent, that served
admirably for this purpose. After second breakfast, Saad took the group down to
TT110 itself, where Sayed took over and explained the archaeological work that
had been done inside the tomb, including clearing the back room of fill, and
discovering and excavating the burial shaft and chambers. By the day’s end all
of the students had a thorough understanding of the archaeological history of
TT110.
Saad Bakhit giving the lecture on the archaeology of TT 110
Yaser teaching the illustration course
Wednesday evening JJ and Will were pleasantly surprised to receive
a call from Eugene Cruz-Uribe, a colleague and friend who had been working in Aswan
and was now spending a few days in Luxor. We teamed up for dinner at Pizza
Roma, and
en route we ran into another colleague and old friend of Will’s – Piet Collet (a
Dutch illustrator and epigrapher working for many missions, and currently part
of the MMA mission at Malqata) – who
was on his way to have Thai food with other friends. Naturally, we all exchanged
numbers so that we can plan to see each other soon!
Thursday dawned grey and overcast, keeping it nice and cool
for what we had planned – a walking tour of the necropolis in order to show the
students what JJ had already discussed in lecture and drive home the spatial,
chronological, and political relationships between the tombs. First though, we
visited the work of Chicago House at the nearby tomb of Nefersekheru (TT 107),
an official under Amenhotep III. This is a tomb we have visited in previous
years with the students, but we were fortunate this year to actually observe
the work of one of the artists, Sue Osgood, who was drawing fragments digitally,
as well as epigrapher and Egyptologist Jonathan Winnerman, who was collating
and checking earlier drawings. Dr. Brett McClain explained the history of the
documentation of the tomb from the time of its first discovery by Champollion and
Lepsius, through to the current work being undertaken by Chicago House. Sue then
talked about her digital work to the students, who were already somewhat familiar
due to the earlier visits to the work of Jay and Krisztián at Luxor Temple, and Brett finished the tour by
discussing the different roles played by the epigrapher and the artist in documenting
the tomb.
The tour of TT107 concluded, the group returned to TT110 so
that JJ could provide the students with more information about Djhuty and his
career and the particular scenes he chose to decorate his tomb. After a hearty breakfast,
it was time for the walkabout so we set off for the upper terrace of Qurna,
stopping to have a look at an example of a Middle Kingdom saff-tomb re-used and re-imagined during the early 18th
Dynasty, a concept already explained in lecture by JJ. From there we made our
way further up and further east along the necropolis, stopping at various tombs
that had been discussed in lecture so that the students could gain a better
picture and understanding of the necropolis’s development. We finished the day
at the magnificent lower tomb of the vizier Useramun (TT 131), emphasizing his
use of the natural landscape to construct this monumental tomb and align it
with the pyramidal top of his upper tomb (TT 61).
Examining the ceiling of TT83
Group shot in front of Useramun's upper tomb, TT 61
We finished the first week exhausted but satisfied with all
we had accomplished, and celebrated by having lunch and a cold beer at Sheikh
Ali / Marsam. We also took this time to have a staff meeting with Yaser, Sayed,
and Hazem, reviewing the first complete week of teaching to see if there were
any concerns, issues, or suggestions, and also examining all the students’
notebooks. We were very pleased with how the notebooks looked, and the quality and
organization of the note taking. Many included drawings and sketches to help
them visualize points mentioned in lecture by both JJ and Will, and took notes
in Arabic to keep up, while in the evenings re-writing and annotating what they
had learned. It was certainly clear that all of the students were understanding
and following the teaching instruction and taking our advice about treating the
notebooks seriously and using them as a study aid. Staff meeting and lunch
finished, we headed home to rest before spending the evening at Casa Italia on
the west bank at a party organized by Francesco. Eugene and Piet joined us, and
it was a lovely time spent chatting and catching up with colleagues and
friends.
