Field School Week 5

This is our final entry for the field school season. My family arrived Thursday night, and Will left this morning for England. We hope you've enjoyed our missives!

The first day back at work after a big field trip is also exhausting, but it was made a bit better by a treat of basbousa made by Rasha for breakfast, and a full chicken, rice, salad, and malakhaya “lunch” at 11 provided by Shaimaa in honor of her husband Ahmed receiving his Master’s Degree. It was also Mother’s Day and the students surprised me with a lovely ring! In the work, our students went back to research and drawing, but as we were expecting a visit from the Egyptian Minister of Antiquities, Mamdouh el-Damaty, on Sunday, our day was cut a bit short due to preparations for readying the tomb for his visit. Fortunately, a visit by Keli Alberts to see the work of her former Inspectors/students Shaimaa and Peter was still able to happen. Afterwards Will and I had a light lunch with Keli, followed by a lovely Mother’s Day dinner at Hazem’s house.

Rasha's Basbousa

Peter, Will, Keli Alberts (Chicago House), and Shaimaa

On Sunday we had planned to work outside the tomb, so that it could be ready for the expected visit by Minister el-Damaty and the USAID representatives. As a result, Will showed the students how to clean their drawings, and they spent the day cleaning and joining their sheets to be sure everything aligned properly. Will, his assistant Sayed and I spent the morning “on call” ready to give the Minister a tour, and when he and his entourage showed up a little early (!) we were pleasantly surprised. The tomb was packed to the gills by all of his people, plus the media who showed up to document his visit. We didn’t think we would get a chance to show off the epigraphy work, but once again we were surprised by the Minister’s interest in the epigraphy project. Sayed and Will were able to talk him through and demonstrate the steps, and the Minister even took a pen and drew a bit himself! By later that afternoon, we discovered that all of this had been documented on the Ministry website, with pictures of Minister el-Damaty inside the tomb, and a group photo with our students. Despite the headache of preparing for this kind of high-level visit, one side benefit was that the tent and seal was removed from the front of the tomb so that the Minister could enter through the actual door. Since this was the case, we were able to keep the façade and tomb door open so that Will could spend the last few days of the season drawing the historically interesting – and previously unseen – lintel and jamb inscriptions on the tomb’s façade.

Minister el-Damaty trying his hand at epigraphy

TT110 Field School with Minister el-Damaty

So on Monday, after several failed attempts at setting up low scaffolding, we finally procured a short ladder that allowed Will to begin drawing the façade. Meanwhile, the students spent the day finishing up their last bits of drawing and research. This continued on Tuesday, with Will finishing the façade and then moving inside to finish drawing the upper left-hand portion of the Hatshepsut kiosk. These two days were the first real chance that Will had to draw in the tomb, so naturally I asked him to draw the two most important and interesting parts, both of which I will incorporate into my talk at ARCE next month! On Tuesday we were also visited by a Hungarian project working nearby, who were quite interested to see TT110. After the work day we visited Carter House and the recreation of Tutankhamun’s tomb. And then we were treated to an amazing duck dinner at Sayed’s house. An afternoon of pandemonium ensued, with many jokes and much silliness and laughing, not to mention mountains of delicious food. A true high point of the season.

Will drawing the facade lintel

The Egyptian feast at Sayed's house

On Wednesday we visited the Hungarians’ and the epigraphy work of Krisztian Vertes in TT179, a beautifully carved and painted 18th Dynasty tomb. After this, the presentations of the students’ research began, with Hazem giving a tour of his work and discoveries in TT100 of Rekhmire, the vizier under Thutmose III-Amenhotep II. At breakfast we were visited by two former students of mine from Swansea, Ken Griffin and Meg Gundlach, as well as my grad school friend and colleague Nozomu Kawai and his family. It was quite fun to see them all, though Will missed out a bit as he spent all morning madly continuing work in the tomb so that he could finish the entire upper portion of the Hatshepsut kiosk (evil director that I am!). After breakfast we had two more presentations, one given by Rasha in TT69 of Menna, and the other given by Abd el-Ghany in TT52 of Nakht. Their work was especially interesting as these two tombs are very close in time, and similar in decoration. After the presentations were done, we headed to ARCE so that we could give personal evaluations to each student who had presented, along with a gift of a book – The Tomb Chapel of Nebamun – a beautiful tomb now mostly in fragments and housed in the British Museum.

Rasha giving her report on TT69 of Menna

Abd el-Ghany receives his book following his evaluation

Thursday was our last day! We had the final 3 presentations, by Alaa in the early 19th Dynasty tomb of Userhat (TT51) – Will’s favorite tomb, and Shaimaa in TT55 of Ramose, the vizier under Amenhotep III and Akhenaten. We were joined by Shaimaa’s husband, Ahmed, himself an Egyptologist. Following this we had a wonderful breakfast provided by our West Bank driver Abu Hamada of traditional Egyptian fatir, a flaky filo dough eaten with cheese or sugar cane molasses, and misha homemade delicacy of rotten cheese – definitely an “acquired” taste.  Following breakfast we gave out team t-shirts to many of the archaeologists and others who had helped us in our work throughout the season. After this was our final presentation of the season, given by Peter in TT192 of Kheruef, the steward to Queen Tiye in the reign of Amenhotep III. We returned to TT110 to say good bye to the tomb, which elicited a frenzy pf photography of the students in front of the walls they had drawn, and posing together on walls drawn jointly by more than one student.  Will and I both said a few closing words, and the end of the day proved to be quite emotional. The day at the tomb closed with the students presenting a wooden statue of Djhuty (the god Thoth in ibis form) to Will, to which had been an added a special plaque carved just for him; more photographs ensued. Not quite done, we returned to ARCE so that the students could receive photocopies of all their drawings to place in their portfolios, and so that Will and I could give the final 3 evaluations of the students, again with book-giving, plus an evaluation and gift of a book to Sayed, a truly remarkable assistant. Will, Declan and I finished our day with drinks and dinner at Chicago House, and Declan fell asleep in the courtyard listening to Egyptology “gossip”.

Will receiving his Djhuty statue from the students

The final good bye was saved for Saturday evening, when we all gathered together for one last time for an evening of certificate presentation and dinner at the marvelous Sheikh Ali / Marsam Hotel (see attached photo). The hotel is comprised of a lovely set of buildings of historic interest as it was the original site of Chicago House, and has a wonderful outdoor garden restaurant. Since it was on Saturday, my family joined us (they arrived late on Thursday), as did the families of our students. We were also joined by Yaser Mahmoud and his family, which was a treat as Yaser helped us select the students for the field school, and although not able to work with us, helped us give out the certificates. Shaimaa had put together a short photo presentation, which she showed us and was truly heart-warming. The evening proved a perfect closing to a wonderful season and a marvelous opportunity to share for one last time the collegial spirit of an extraordinary group of students.

Inspector Asmaa Abd el-Mahfouz, Shaimaa, Rasha

Dr. JJ, Hazem, Mr. Will, and Sayed

Students with their graduation diplomas

Field School Week 4

When we last left you we had been shut into our tomb, survived a week of foul weather, and become truly impressed by our students. This week we remained shut in our tomb, but the weather was much nicer, and our students continued to impress.

On Saturday we were the only team working at the site (the conservators and archaeologists usually take Saturday off), and since the weather was lovely and the breeze minimal I decided to open our tomb door to let the fresh air in. What a difference! Group 2 made the most of it and had an excellent drawing day, while Group 1 returned to their research tombs to begin the next portion of the project - checking the walls against the line drawings in the tomb publications. At the end of the day we went to ARCE for an afternoon session on cartouche re-carving. This is because we discovered that both cartouches on each stela lunette – the top portion of the stela – had been partially or fully re-carved, so the students would need to look very carefully to see if there were “trace lines” of the original name of Hatshepsut that could still be seen. I walked them through what we might expect to find, and how the Hatshepsut cartouches are usually re-carved.  And afterwards Will did a drawing session of examples of various hieroglyphs which are often tricky to draw, showing the students the key elements to look for.

Epigraphy in action in TT110

Sunday and Monday were relatively uneventful days, with the two groups switching places on Monday, so Group 1 went into TT110 to draw, and Group 2 returned to their research tombs to begin checking the published epigraphy against the walls. One of our Group 1 students, Shaimaa had accompanied her husband to Cairo where he successfully defended his Master’s thesis, so we decided to make Tuesday a Chicago House research day for Group 1, since she was returning that morning. Group 2 mean while went back to TT110 to draw and they switched places on Wednesday. Both Tuesday and Wednesday were long work days for everyone in order to maximize our remaining time – staying until 3 in both the tomb and the library. Wednesday we also had a surprise visit at the tomb from USAID, a main funding agency for ARCE.  Will handled it marvelously, and impressed them so much that they specifically asked for a student demonstration when they return next week with various Egyptian officials!

Thursday was a special day: we handed out the team shirts to our students, and they were thrilled to see the logos they had designed stitched onto them. We had photos taken of us by the ARCE photographer, Eyman, standing in front of the “Davies’ House.” This is the house that Norman and Nina de Garis Davies built to live in while they worked on recording the tombs in the necropolis – including ours! We also were able to visit the nearby tomb of the 18^th Dynasty vizier Useramun, which offers some interesting parallels to our own tomb, and see the conservation being done by an Egyptian team.

Dr. JJ, Hazem, Sayed, and Mr. Will with the new team t-shirts.

Friday was our big field trip to the site of Gebel el Silsila, an important ancient sandstone quarry about 2.5 hours south of Luxor. Along with our group, we were joined by our Inspector, Esmaa, Shaimaa’s husband Ahmed, and two of Sayed’s colleagues, Hussein and Ahmed (see attached photo of the boys in the back of the bus). We had arranged for the trip through one of Will’s former students, Moamen Saad, who is now doing an epigraphy project copying the Ramesside shrines for his PhD. He kindly put us in touch with the Gebel el Silsila Epigraphic Project, run by Maria Nilsson and assisted by John Ward, who welcomed us to their site and gave us a tour of the epigraphic work they are doing. They are recopying much of the earlier Caminos epigraphy but expanding the documentation of the site to include the graffiti and nearly 3000 carved ‘quarry tags’ dating mostly to the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. Maria explained how these large scale symbols provide links between particular areas of the quarry with both protective deities and specific temples. They are also studying the quarries themselves to understand the chronology of their use, and the different techniques employed to remove the rock. Here is a link to their remarkable work: http://gebelelsilsilaepigraphicsurveyproject.blogspot.com/

The shrines at Gebel el-Silsila

Part of the reason for taking a trip to Silsila was to show our students the 18^th Dynasty shrines built by a number of officials who served under Hatshepsut and Thutmose III, like Djhuty of TT110. In addition, one of the shrines (of Sennefri) has excellent examples of how Hatshepsut's name was re-carved by Thutmose III, providing useful comporanda for TT110. So it was both fun and a little work, with epigraphic “pop quizzes.” We had a great time climbing around these mostly eroded shrines, which were carved quite close to the river’s edge along the west bank of Silsila. In order to see the particularly famous chapel of Senenmut, Hatshpesut’s “right-hand man,” the students and I had to jump into one shrine (of the vizier Useramun), the roof of which had collapsed, in order to pass over a deep crevasse in the rock above the river to reach the next shrine (of the high priest of Amun Hapuseneb), which then allowed access along a shallow ledge to the shrine of Senenmut. We packed ourselves in like sardines, completely disappearing from view from above. We now know that you can fit over a dozen epigraphers into one Silsila shrine! 

Silsila Shrine 13 of Sennefri, showing Hatshepsut's pre-nomen, Maat-ka-rere-inscribed with Thutmose III's pre-nomen, Men-kheper-re

Quizzing the students at Silsila

Field School Team in Senenmut's shrine

After we had finished our shrine-climbing excursions, Maria and John treated us to coffee along the water’s edge in the area where Moamen is working, and he gave our students a tour of his own work. Seeing Moamen at work copying an enormous lintel nearly 30 feet above the ground, perched on precarious scaffolding accessed via a single shaky metal ladder was quite a sight! And Will was quite proud to see Moamen employing all the skills he had taught him, and which we are teaching our current group of students. Since we had walked quite a ways along the river’s edge, Maria and John kindly gave us a lift back towards the entry to the site in their motorboat, and we had a chance to see the amazing 19^th century Egyptian-style houseboat, known as a dahabiya, which they live on while working. Will and I were both a bit envious! We ended our day with a picnic under the dom-palm trees before piling back into the bus for the ride back to Luxor. A fun and exhausting day had by all.

Gebel el Silsila Epigraphic Project and TT110 Epigraphy and Research Field School

Moamen Saad working on his scaffolding

Stay tuned for the final week of the season.

Field School Week 3

This week's entry is a little shorter. Happy reading!

Our work week began on Saturday with the discovery that our door had been shut and sealed with wood, plastic, and a tent due to the discovery of the new tomb and the excavation required to understand the relationship in the use of the forecourt to Djhuty’s tomb. So now we must enter through the adjacent tomb, TT42, and carefully make our way past the conservators working in the passage. One side effect of such an amazing discovery …

Abu Gomaa making the morning tea

Planning the day at our on-site work space

Nonetheless, we split our team into two groups as planned, with half joining Will in the tomb to begin drawing their assigned walls, and the other half with me to begin researching their assigned tombs in the necropolis. Group 2 (Sayed, Peter, Rasha, and Alaa) started with Will and they spent the first day making drawings and hand copies of their areas, checking the wall against the early publication by Davies, checking the hieroglyphic sign-list for difficult or unclear signs, checking for areas of damage, etc. Essentially doing everything necessary to understand the wall before beginning to draw. Meanwhile, Group 1 (Hazem, Shaimaa, and Abd el-Ghany) went off to their assigned tombs and spent the day checking the walls against the entries in Porter and Moss – a compendium of tombs in the necropolis that provides plans and basic descriptions of the decoration for each known tomb. For anything not mentioned, they took copious notes and made hand copies as necessary. Here too they were preparing for their research by seeing what had been left out or was now lost since the publication of Porter and Moss in the 1940s. By the second day, Group 2 was ready to prepare their walls, put up their sheets, and begin their first real drawings, and Group 1 continued their work making notes. Sunday we treated ourselves to dinner with Jen Kimpton (a grad school friend) and Keli Alberts, colleagues at Chicago House, at the lovely Lantern, and good eats, many drinks, and lively conversation ensued.

Discussing damage and inscription issues

Shaimaa working in her research tomb

On Monday, the original plan was to head to the East Bank and Chicago House with Group 1, but this had to be changed as we were expecting a visit by the Governor of Luxor! So instead I had to stay on the West which meant that the Groups needed to switch places a day early. So Group 2 began their individual tomb research while Group 1 started in the tomb. Despite making all kinds of plans for the governor’s arrival (which included the removal of our fans and some lights!), he opted not to come, a rather irksome, if not entirely unexpected situation. Monday the students (and we) also finalized the logo for the Field School, which will be utilized on both the project shirts, and the certificates that the students will receive at the end of the project.

Front and Back logos for the Field School T-shirts

Tuesday continued with Group 1 in the tomb, now starting to draw their walls, and Group 2 likewise continued their tomb research. In addition, a second new tomb was discovered by the ARCE archaeologists, Ali and Saad, and thanks to our assistant Sayed, Will and I were able to crawl on our stomachs into about a foot and a half gap between the ceiling and fill and view the beautifully painted walls of the transverse-hall. Particularly exciting is that this tomb, like the one discovered last week, also belonged to a door-keeper of Amun, named Samut and his wife Takhat. The painted decoration is remarkably similar in both program and style, suggesting – to me at least – that they were decorated quite close in time, possibly by the same artist(s) or workshop, and the owners may even be related in some way, in addition to being colleagues! Here is a link to the new tomb’s discovery:

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/aancient-egyptian-tomb-unearthed-luxor-containing-husband-wife-sa-mut-ta-khaeet-photos-1491397

Wednesday the foul weather of the week – dust, overcast and temperatures hovering around 100F (37C) – peaked. Group 1 stayed at the tomb to finish their work, suffering, while Group 2 went to Chicago House with me for their library research day. This arrangement – 2 days in the tombs and 1 day at Chicago House – is the program for the remainder of the school to allow the students to take advantage of the library and begin to collect bibliography for researching the historical, art historical, architectural elements of their tombs, as well as the family and career of the tomb owner.

Thursday dawned an entirely different day – beautiful blue skies, a fresh breeze, and a good 10 degree drop in the temperature. Egypt like it should be this time of year!  The two groups switched today, with Group 2 returning to the tomb to finish their drawings – interrupted by the governor’s non-visit on Monday, while Group 1 joined me for the research day at Chicago House. So by the end of the week we were back on schedule with both groups at the same place in both research and epigraphy.

Declan enjoys the beautiful weather

By the end of this week Will and I realized that the students are exceeding all of our expectations, even down to how they organize their work stations in the tomb (see below)! Despite the heat, difficulties of access, and conditions in TT110 with the sealing of our door and the need to enter through TT42, they have done brilliantly. So much so that it seems that we may have underestimated the amount of epigraphy they would achieve, and at a higher level of proficiency. This is mirrored in their individual tomb research, where again they have been noticing all kinds of things missed by both Porter and Moss and the tomb publications, and are truly understanding and analyzing the early epigraphy of these tombs.

Sayed using the light string to hold his equipment: pens, ruler, torch, cotton swabs

Stay tuned for next week's adventures in epigraphy...

Field School Week 2

When we left you all last Friday Will and I were busily trying to stay ahead of our students.  And it’s a good thing too, because this week they surpassed our expectations for so early in the field school!

After having planned our program for the week on Friday, we discovered Saturday morning that 2 of our students were missing - Shaimaa was not feeling well, and Rasha’s cousin had died.  So first thing Saturday we had to, yet again, re-think our day.  And this after a delayed start since we moved Will out of his hotel in preparation for the move to Betsy’s flat at the end of the work day, which also required packing up my own things and making a great pile of luggage to be brought along at the end of the day.

On Saturday the entire team returned to TT110 and the students were finally able to begin practicing on the actual walls of the tomb.  Since the interior of the tomb has many difficult areas to draw (more on that later), we chose to have them start on the façade, or exterior front wall, of the tomb, where the inscriptions are in an easy to see sunk relief. After practicing putting up and taking down plastic on the wall at the end of last week, they were able to begin actually drawing the inscriptions. And since we were down 2 students, it meant the remaining 3 could each have a space to draw, albeit one in an area of the wall that was never carved – but there was plenty of damage to draw! At the end of the day we moved into our new home – Betsy’s flat on the East Bank, had a big shopping trip to the local grocery, sorted out how to make sure Declan doesn’t fall off the bed at night, and dined at Hazem’s house so we didn’t have to cook on our first night in our new digs. Declan likes the new place, and it turns out I needn’t have brought any toys, as Declan’s favorite thing is to take all the books off the lowest shelf and place them onto the floor, multiple times a day.  And Will has had an insight into the world of babies as he gamely returns the books back to their shelf, also multiple times a day.  A great amount of fun for both of them!

Abd El-Ghany, Peter, and Alaa working on the facade of TT110

Sunday morning we discovered we needed to work out a routine that allows us to make and drink the coffee made in the 4-cup coffee press left by Betsy. This is of particular benefit to me, since now I don’t need to drink my coffee in the taxi, while Will, when at the Etap, would have already finished an entire pot produced by the Etap staff each morning. The new tatib is to leave enough time to finish our coffee, drop Declan at Hazem’s house and pick up Hazem along with various members of his family who we drop off at school on our way to the boat. In fact, the transfer of Declan is much easier than I expected. He seems thrilled to return to his Egyptian family each morning – where he is the star attraction and has made his own gang of friends from the neighboring houses – adults and kids alike. Shaimaa rejoined us, but Rasha is still obliged to be with her family for another day. We moved two of the boys inside to work on drawing the raised relief, and set Shaimaa up outside with our fourth student to continue on sunk relief. As the conservator, Khadiga, was kind enough to give our students a tour and explanation of her work last week, Will and I reciprocated by giving her students a historical tour of the tomb, and an explanation of the epigraphy. At the end of the work day (1pm) we went to the ARCE office, where Khadiga gave our students a talk on the conservation documentation. So it was a long day for everyone as we didn’t finish until about 2:30. Will and I dined at one of the best restaurants in Luxor – The Lantern – where we were invited by Keli Alberts (of Chicago house), to celebrate Peter Lacovara’s (an Egyptologist working with the Metropolitan Museum  at Malqata) birthday, along with Ellie Smith (also Chicago House). The menu, which is English-cuisine based, is extensive, the food delicious, and the desserts – sticky toffee pudding, lemon meringue, and apple crumble - amazing! It was an enjoyable evening for all. And the owner of the restaurant even came over to ask if Peter was the “famous Peter Lacovara, world-renowned Egyptologist”, as apparently one of the other dinner guests recognized him!

Conservation tour of TT110 by Ms.Khadiga Adam

Monday we returned to the East Bank with a full group of students to work in the library and visit several of the projects Chicago House is working on at Luxor and Karnak Temples.  The morning began in a local coffee shop by Luxor Temple, and once all had arrived we went off to hear a discussion of the drawing and digital work that Krisztian Vertes’ has developed to record the Roman frescoes towards the rear of the temple. The students and we were amazed at the drawings he is producing. He passed us on to Jay Heidel, who talked us through the on-going project to record and identify miscellaneous blocks excavated from around the temple that belong to either the Luxor temple walls, or other monuments, and from a variety of dates. The project has been revolutionized by the introduction of digital epigraphy, using a WACOM drawing tablet on site. Jay kindly gave all the students an opportunity to draw on the tablet. And Rasha, who has had some experience with this, proved herself quite adept at it – even Jay was impressed! Hazem had efficiently organized lunch orders, so we returned to the coffee shop for some local sandwiches of fuul (beans) and tamaiya (like falafel), along with cokes and coffees. Having already assigned the students individual tombs to research based on the work Will and I did on Friday, we went to Chicago House so the students could have an opportunity to find the primary publications for their tombs.  We chose tombs that are open, so they can visit them, published, and epigraphically recorded so that they can analyze the epigraphic style that was used. After 2 hours at the library, we continued on to Karnak Temple for a tour of the work being done by Keli Alberts at the Khonsu Temple there. She is drawing a particularly difficult re-carved block, so it gave our students a real sense of the challenges that can be faced by epigraphers. And since Keli initially taught two of our students, we took a group photo including Keli.

Visits with Chicago House work

Krisztian Vertes, Roman frescoes at Luxor Temple

Jay Heidel, Luxor Temple block yard

Keli Alberts, Karnak, Khonsu Temple

We returned to the tomb on Tuesday to discover, as many of you will have, that a NEW tomb had been found, located just next to TT110. It belongs to a gate-keeper of Amun named Amenhotep, and from the painting likely dates to the reign of Amenhotep II, the son and successor of Thutmose III. Here is a link from the ARCE website with more information:

http://arce.org/news/2015/03/u153/new-tomb-discovery-east-of-tt110

This was Rasha’s first chance to draw, and she quickly caught up with our other students, working first on the outside, and later on the inside of the tomb. Since each student had found their research tomb publications, I began taking each student individually to their tomb so that we could discuss the project in more detail while looking at the tomb walls. We also had a long, animated discussion about the necessary conventions for the type of plaster use and damage the students were discovering on the walls in areas that Will and I had though were relatively simple to draw. We have since learned that there are NO simple inscriptions to draw anywhere in the tomb! And our students have proven very adept at discovering, inconsistencies, irregularities, and exceptions to the usual epigraphy rules. All of this is especially satisfying for Will and I as we realized that we have 5 REAL epigraphers on our course who take great pleasure in trying to understand the tomb’s decorations and inscriptions. Anyone overhearing this lengthy hour+ long conversation would have found it hard to believe that it involved 5 students who had only been drawing for less than a week! We are amazed and impressed by the passion our students are bringing to the field school. To celebrate Declan’s 1st birthday, we went to the local pizza joint, Pizza Roma, recommended by Betsy and many others, where Declan ingratiated himself with the entire kitchen staff. This is apparently a regular thing for him, as he did the same at Maison Thomas in Cairo! We all ate heartily of the delicious salad, garlic bread, and pizza.

At Pizza Roma

Wednesday found us again having to re-jig things due to the discovery of the new tomb. Since it shares a courtyard with TT110, we learned that our built-up staircase and protective tent covering must come down so that the archaeologists can understand the architectural relationship between the two tombs. This also means closing the TT110 door, so we must enter through the breach in another adjacent tomb – TT42 – and walking through the conservation area to enter the front of TT110. Hopefully this will only take about a week, and fortunately we had a day to prepare before the work to remove the stairwell, etc. started. But for the work of the day we had our own exciting things. One student – Alaa – found a portion of an inscription not recorded correctly by Davies in the 1930s which seems to be an unusual epithet of the god Anubis, and a spelling of Re-Horakhty’s name not used elsewhere in the tomb. Rasha discovered that in addition to carving and painting details within signs, the ancient artists also used modeling to suggest interior details. And Peter drew attention to the difficulty in recognizing the edge of a carved sign when the paint had been applied beyond the carved edge. Each of the students was able to present on their discovery to their colleagues – a procedure we will now follow each time a question or discovery comes up so that all can share and learn from it. We are really working together as an epigraphy team! And two more students had a chance to visit their research tomb with me. Hazem’s mother had made us a lovely ground beef béchamel pasta dish that we enjoyed back at our flat for dinner.

Epigraphy discussions in TT110

Thursday was a bit discombobulated as we had to work around the removal of the staircase and sealing of our entrance. Since this wasn’t to begin before breakfast at 10:30, we maximized the morning by having everyone draw. After breakfast, once the banging and clanging of staircase removal had begun, we grouped together under our tent and informed the students which group (1 or 2) they would be a member of, and which section of the tomb they would each be drawing. They were all very excited to get their epigraphy assignments. I took the final two students to visit their research tombs – one first thing in the morning, and the other after the epigraphy assignments had been handed out. And we ended the day at TT55 of Ramose which served as a useful teaching tomb to further discuss the stages of carving – from smoothing the walls, to outlining the figures, to carving the figures –, the process of using plaster to infill areas of poor stone, and the use of modeling for interior details; all features we have in our own tomb. In the evening we finished off the béchamel dish and had our first laundry disaster as our efforts to do our first load in the new flat backfired due to the drainage tube not being properly connected and the bathroom floor flooding with wash water! Fortunately, Will caught it before it poured out of the bathroom and into the hallway and quickly opened the floor drain and started pushing the water towards it. I was fetching Declan when this occurred, so rapidly returned, borrowed mop in hand! Tube re-inserted, we were able to finish the load and hang it to dry on our balcony.

Today (Friday), we had a leisurely morning while Delcan napped and we sorted out the printer situation. Or, at least, tried to. A comedy of errors ensued, as first I blew the fuse for half the apartment, and then half of my brand new computer cable – purchased in Heathrow because I forgot mine – decided to stop working! Fortunately, Will quickly discovered the fuse box, and managed to find the correct kind of cable to replace the one that died. So we got everything up and running again only to find that for some reason the printer drivers won’t install correctly. Several coffees later, Declan finally woke up so we gave up on the printer, dropped Declan off at Hazem’s, and headed to Chicago House to do some research on the Anubis epithet and spelling of Re-Horakhty’s name, and take advantage of their delicious lunch. We finished off the day at Hazem’s so we could finish preparing for the upcoming work week and celebrate Declan’s birthday with Hazem’s family by having a fullEgyptian dinner there. The dinner was delicious and the cake wonderful. Declan enjoyed it, and his fabulous presents – 2 tiny camels, a green race car, and an orange and pink bear as big as he is!

Celebrating Declan's 1st birthday

Until next week …

Field School Week 1

With the first, preparatory, week accomplished, Saturday morning found us ready to cross the Nile on a private boat that Hazem had arranged, which will take us back and forth from the east bank – where we are living – to the west, where we are working, each day.  As two of our students – Peter Fady and Al-Shaimaa Mohamed – also live on the east, they join us for the river crossing. We crossed a bit after 7am, and were met at the other side by our private minibus, which will drive us to-and-fro on the west each day.  We collected the rest of our students and made our way to the ARCE offices, as the first few days were set aside for more “classroom style” teaching. John Shearman, Director of the Luxor ARCE office, had very kindly arranged for a lecture room to be prepared for us. We kicked off to a great start with my own talk on the development of the necropolis in the 18^th Dynasty.  But after a break for breakfast a lengthy power outage resulted in Will being unable to give his powerpoint lecture.  Instead, we moved to the roof and Will masterfully re-jigged his talk to give a great discussion of the history of epigraphy and also introduced the students to the 5 basic steps of epigraphy.  So already by the end to the first day we were off message. So much for the best laid plans of mice and men!

Explaining epigraphy and the tools used on the ARCE roof

By the end of the day, the power had magically returned, just in time to end for lunch. Will suspects conspiracy …

Sunday we returned to find the power still working, so Will was able to complete his powerpoint lectures by breakfast.  After breakfast we went out to the tomb, and the students were given a site tour by the Egyptian archaeologists, Ali Ahmed and Saad Bakhat, to familiarize them with the work that had been done in previous seasons. While this was happening, I went off to the opening of the sun court on the third terrace of Hatshepsut’s temple at Deir el-Bahari (and suffered a bit of sunstroke as a result!) Will was left “in charge” and following the site tour he gave the students an introduction to the architecture of the tomb.

Site of Theban Tomb (TT) 110. The tomb is in the center, behind the blue tent draped over the original entrance. The peak at the top of the photo, almost directly above the tomb, is the "Qurn", and the long rock bay in the background at the far left is where Hatshepsut's Deir el-Bahari temple is located.

Monday we changed gears completely and brought the students over to the East Bank for a tour of the Chicago House library, given by the librarian, Marie Bryan and then again in Arabic by Sayed. This is especially important as most of the students have never used a non-Egyptian library and the system of classification and ordering of books is completely foreign to them.  I devised a bibliographic “treasure hunt” for each of them, to ensure they understood how to use the library, which was such a success that Marie now wants to model it for regular use! We were also given a tour of the photo archives by Ellie Smith, which are another great resource for the monuments of Luxor. After a break of “chipsies wa cocas”, we took the students to the Luxor Museum where Will took them on a tour of several different types of monuments to discuss the style of painting and carving (sunk or raised) and the types of epigraphy that might be appropriate to record each image. In the evening we joined Betsy Bryan (my mentor and with whom Will has also worked) for a lovely meal at the Amun Gezira hotel on the West Bank.  This is a hotel that I stayed at many, many years ago and it was wonderful to see the family that runs it again. Indeed, it is such a beautiful spot we may use it as our base in future seasons!

Working at Chicago House

Tuesday we played a bit of catch up on lectures and returned to ARCE for the morning so I could present on the officials who worked during the reigns of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III, which is when our tomb owner worked. We went to the tomb shortly after breakfast so I could introduce them to Djhuty via his own tomb – his titles, career, etc. I then had the intention of doing a short walk around the necropolis but a sandstorm sprang up so instead we went into TT42 – the tomb adjacent to ours – so we could look at the painted decoration, which in our tomb is badly burned, and also discussed the types of scenes on the walls.

Epigrapher Will Schenck introducing the students to epigraphy issues in TT 110.

Wednesday proved to be a gorgeous morning so we had our “walkabout” first thing, starting at the south end of the Sheikh Abd el-Qurna necropolis and worked our way north, visiting and pointing out many of the tombs I had spoken about on the first day.  This gave the students the chance to really understand how connected the placement of all of these tombs really is.  We also had a visit from Gerry Scott, Director of ARCE, his wife, and his chief administrator, Jane Smythe, and gave them a tour of the epigraphy and research work we plan to do with the students, and told them a bit about the importance of Djhuty himself in the mid-18^th Dynasty.  Once the tour was over, Will gave the students a demo on how to properly affix the acetate drawing paper to the wall, which takes a great deal of care, patience and looking to be sure not to damage the wall. Our day concluded with a tour of the conversation carried out in the tomb by the head conservator Khadiga Adam.

Walking the Theban Necropolis. The tomb pictured is TT131 of the vizier Useramun.

ERFS Director JJ Shirley introducing the students, ARCE Director Gerry Scott, and Jane Smythe (ARCE Assistant to the Director) to the history of the tomb and its owner Djhuty. 

Thursday – the last day of the work week – we started at the tomb and spent the better part of an hour rigging up a stair system so everyone could reach the exterior door lintel reliefs which is where we decided to have them start practicing their drawing. That accomplished, we went over to nearby TT107 of Nefersekheru, an official in the reign of Amenhotep III, where we were given a tour of the epigraphy work being done by Brett McClain from Chicago House. We spent the rest of the morning letting students practice putting up sheets and beginning to draw – they were really excited to finally make a start on the walls!  Not only that, but this initial bit of work has already proved valuable as in discussion with the students about what appeared to be traces of inscription in a badly damaged and mostly broken area, we discovered an upper row of inscription.  A great end to the week!

Will explaining what the students will be doing on the facade

 Brett McClain explaining his work at TT107 to our students

With Betsy soon to leave, and us about to take over her flat, she kindly invited us to join her and Ray Johnson, the Director of Chicago House, and his partner Jay Heidel to a fancy dinner at the Japanese restaurant at the Sonesta.  We hit the town all dressed up and dinned in solitary splendor on delicious sushi, except for Will, who had the chicken teriayiki, accompanied by several bottles of Omar Khayyum’s finest red wine. 

Friday Will and I went back to Chicago House for the morning to get ready for the next week and look back over what we’ve accomplished so far. Still trying to stay one step ahead of the students!