On Saturday morning, Will and JJ awoke to find a message
from Alaa Talaat and Rasha, along with a photo of their first morning tea at
Abydos. We were delighted to see they were using the mugs we had given them the
day before. In fact, when we checked the time of the message, we realized we had
been having our morning coffee at the same time!
Marco Repole, our Italian photographer from last year,
returned to Luxor on Friday night to continue his photographic program in TT
110. So, on Saturday morning, after finishing our coffee, we picked Marco and
Hassan up from their hotel and all went together to Karnak so we could introduce
Marco to the new group of students. After teas, coffees, and introductions, we
left Hassan to get on with the digital epigraphy teaching, and took Marco by
boat across to the west and TT 110. We spent the remainder of the work day
going through TT 110 with Marco, discussing the photography he would be doing
and the plan for his work to make high resolution RTI (Resolution Transfer
Image) photographs of the blackened walls from which we would try and tease out
the images and inscriptions still covered by soot. Marco, with Hazem’s help,
began a series of test photos, and we left with plans in place for the rest of
the week.
Marco's delight at being back at TT 110
On the boat journey back across the Nile, we mentioned ot
Marco that we were invited for an opening of a new art gallery on the West Bank
at 5pm, as well as dinner afterwards at Pizza Roma with colleagues we had
bumped into at Karnak the previous week. He was more than welcome to join us,
though we explained that this was not a typical work day, and we did not usually
have gallery openings and dinner dates on a regular basis. In fact, the gallery
opening was an extraordinary event and would be an opportunity of seeing many friends
and colleagues, as well as a variety of artworks created by Egyptian and
foreign artists based in Luxor. So, at 5pm we, along with Marco, joined a group
crossing the Nile from Chicago House to see the exhibition, which as you can imagine
was a lovely way to arrive at an opening. There was food and traditional music,
as well as amazing paintings in variety of styles and mediums, including oil,
watercolor, prints, engravings, and also wood sculpture. We were even able to
speak to many of the artists whose work we particularly admired! Below are some
of our favorites, and if you’d like to see more, check out their website:
luxorartgallery.com
Wael Nour
Manal Shuaib
Aliaa El-Tayeb
We left slightly later than the Chicago House group, so had
to find our own back across the river, but we were fortunate to hop onto a
leaving motorboat only to find an Egyptian friend, Mina Megally, whom JJ had
met at the Halloween party and seen momentarily at the opening, already seated
on the boat! Seeing as we didn’t have any small money, he kindly stood us the
cost of the fare. A real gent! Back on the east, Ayman collected us from the
ferry landing and off we went to Pizza Roma, unbelievably dead on time. We had
no sooner sat down than in walked the Karnak crowd: Bettina, Aurelia, and Maria,
all ceramicists working on the pottery from Karnak. Maria we had only just met,
but both Aurelia and Bettina were, guess what, old friends of Will’s, of
course! As we were finishing up our delicious pasta and pizza dishes, who
should walk in but the project director, Angus Graham, a delightful Scotsman,
even down to the twinkle in his eye! Having found one another, promises were exchanged
to try and fit in a shisha or a beer before both of our seasons ended.
Sunday found our small group of Will, JJ, Marco and Hazem back
on the west at TT 110, while our students continued at Karnak with Hassan and
Sayed. The end of season dinner at Lantern with Keli and Jen was scheduled for
the evening, and while unfortunately Jen was unwell, we went anyway! Hopefully
there will be another opportunity of catching up with Jen before the end of the
season. Monday we had arranged in the morning to have both Marco and Hazem stop
by the flat first thing, in order to evaluate the sample RTI photos Marco had
taken, so that we could be sure they would prove useful for further digital
epigraphy work. The results were amazing, with Will and JJ oohing, aahing, and exclaiming,
and gave us both hope that results could be achieved via this technology. Full
of renewed optimism, we headed back to TT 110 to look once again at the
blackened walls in light of Marco’s photographic discoveries. While Marco, with
Hazem as his assistant, set to work photographing one wall, Will and JJ began
making hand-copies of another, with the idea being that these, in conjunction
with Marco’s images, would enable us to digitally record the painted scenes.
That evening all four of us celebrated the day’s work with shisha and beers at
the Sunset Cocktail floating bar on the east bank of the Nile, directly across
from the Etap Hotel.
On Tuesday, the work continued much as it had the day
before, except that Will and JJ, rather than continuing their hand copies, were
instead engaged in creating video footage for the ARCE website. Meg Martin, ARCE
Communications & Outreach Manager, and Dana Smillie, ARCE Filmographer, intervidewed Will and JJ, asking us to explain the
history of epigraphic work generally, speak about the historical context of the
mid-18th Dynasty and reigns of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III, and the
placement of TT 110 and its owner Djhuty within this, and discuss our field
school work. We spent a long day at the tomb, and afterwards Will, JJ, and Marco
joined Hazem’s family for a late lunch at their home, including of course mashi,
which Omm Hazem knows we prefer over all of her other excellent offerings! It
was an opportunity also to introduce Marco to mulakhaiya, which he had not as
yet tasted, explaining that this was a traditional, homemade Egyptian delicacy.
He liked it instantaneously, covering not only his rice, but also his chicken
in it! Marco is becoming more Egyptian by the day …
Wednesday found the entire group back on the west bank at
TT110. It felt like “old home week”, with all of our students together again
with us, if only for the day. We collected Hilary McDonald and Owen Murray, who
once again agreed to teach our students methods for photographing walls and
objects using targets that would enable them to run the photos through the Photoscan
program and create rectified images usable for digital epigraphy. Marco, as
last year, assisted them with the teaching, and we split the students into
groups of 3 in order to facilitate teaching the use of targets both in the tomb
and with objects. ARCE made a re-appearance, this time focusing on interviewing
both Hazem and Sayed, who talked about their work for the field school and its importance
for the training of Egyptian inspectors.
Marco and the boys in the back of the bus
Hilary and Owen teaching at the tent
Measuring between the photography targets
Object photography for photogrammetry
On Thursday the students returned to Karnak, along with Hilary,
Owen, Marco, Hazem, and Sayed, in order to work in the lab teaching the
students to run their photographs through Photoscan, leaving only JJ and Will to
go to the west. We spent the day completing hand copies of the north wall of
the passage, finishing in time to meet the rest of the staff at Marsam for our
Thursday staff meeting. Since for the previous week the school had been broken
up into so many components it was a good opportunity for Hassan, Sayed, Yaser, Marco,
Hilary, and Owen, to explain what they all had been doing and give their impressions
of how well the students were understanding and progressing. This was
particularly important for JJ and Will who had been only on the west all week,
and for Yaser whose Scientific Center photographer had joined us over the last
two days to obtain some additional photographic training. What was a relaxing
as well as useful time in the Sheikh Ali garden had to be shortened somewhat when
JJ realized that her family was soon to arrive at the Luxor airport and she
needed to be there to welcome them. We all piled back into the bus and headed
east to be met by Ayman and a second taxi and, after dropping of Marco and
Hassan, make our way to the airport alatool. Thankfully everyone arrived happy,
if tired, and with all their luggage, and were shepherded through customs by
Hazem’s sister Ahlam who works there, and her colleagues. Excited and happy
reunions were had, and after a feast laid out by Omm Hazem, everyone quickly
dropped off to sleep. Declan didn’t even make it into his bed!
Working with Photoscan at Karnak Lab
