Field School Week 1

This year’s students, like last year, were chosen by Will and me through an interview process in November, and once again it seems we have a good team. Two of the students come from Inspectorates outside of Luxor: Mohammed Abu el-Yazid (fondly referred to as Abu el-Yazid by one and all) from Sohag, near the ancient site of Abydos, and Sayed el-Rekaby (who we have taken to calling el-Rekaby to distinguish him from our Assistant Sayed Mamdouh), from Kom Ombo near Aswan. The three other new students are all from Luxor: Nadia Abd el-Latef from Luxor Temple, and Mahmoud Hussein and Abu el-Hagag from the West Bank. Also joining us are our assistants: Hazem Helmy (Project Manager and Director’s Assistant), Sayed Mamdouh (Epigraphy Assistant), and new this year Yaser Mahmoud (Drawing Assistant), who is also a former student of Will’s. We are referred to by the students as Mudira JJ, the Arabic word for “boss”, and Mr. Will.

2016 Field School on the roof of ARCE.
Back row, left to right: Nadia, Sayed, Abu el-Yazid, Mr. Will, Mudira JJ, Hazem, Yaser.
Front row, left to right: el-Rekaby, Abu el-Hagag, Mahmoud

The first full week of the field school started on Saturday, with orientation to give the students a lot of background about the tomb and epigraphy before we do any drawing. Through ARCE’s generosity, we again were able to use their facilities for our lectures, but since their offices are full, this year they created a “Wendy House” on the roof for us to use. We ended up with an ideal setting complete with a tea and breakfast anteroom and fully enclosed, via tents, lecture room. Much better really than last year when we “borrowed” Afaf’s office for this purpose and then had to give it back. And, unlike last year, the electricity grid cooperated and allowed us to give all of our PowerPoint presentations without any serious interruption. This meant that Mr. Will and I could go through our entire lecture program: Mudira JJ talking about the landscape of the Theban Necropolis in the 18^th Dynasty and on the second day (Sunday) a more detailed analysis of the officials during the reign of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III and how our tomb owner Djhuty fits into this, and for Mr. Will a lecture on the history of Epigraphy going back to the Description de l’Egypt, followed on Sunday by a discussion of the different methods of epigraphy he has practiced and how it led to the system that we are teaching our students. During Mr. Will’s lecture on Sunday we also learned that our inspector had been changed and we were assigned our own inspector just for the Field School, rather than sharing with the larger ARCE project at the tomb. The new inspector, Ahmed Hagag Hussein, had previously worked in the Luxor Temple on the East Bank, where he was a colleague of our student Nadia. Sunday evening we also met with our two returning students, Peter Fady and Shaimaa Mandor, who along with Hazem will be learning object drawing this season from Yaser Hussein. The meeting allowed all of us to sit down and better describe the plan for how the object drawing and epigraphy program would be integrated into the Field School, and to discuss in more detail the painted areas of the tomb Peter, Shaimaa and Hazem will be drawing.

Mr. Will teaching in the "Wendy House"

Monday we had the opportunity to bring our students to Luxor Temple to see the work of Jay Heidel, an artist at Chicago House. This resulted in the – only to be expected – confusion of arranging for all of us to meet in a coffeeshop (yet again) prior to entering the temple. Sayed, Mahmoud, and Mohamed Abu el-Yazid were late because they had been patiently waiting for Abu el-Hagag, who however had left early, something Sayed swears was unheard of in the past! Once we had all managed to gather inside the temple, we quickly realized that Sayed el-Rekaby was lagging behind taking pictures because, not being native to Luxor, this was his visit to the Luxor Temple, and he was appropriately awestruck. We met up with Jay in the Amehotep III sun court where he gave the students a brief introduction to Chicago House’s work in Luxor generally, and then brought us out to his work area in the block yard. Rather than traditional facsimile, Jay works with a Wacom graphic tablet to create precise digital drawings of the reliefs. He explained the method to our students and then graciously allowed each of them a turn with the tablet. For Nadia this was familiar territory since she had been trained by Jay in this type of work when she was his Inspector in the temple. Once we finished at Luxor Temple, we walked along the Corniche (the road along the Nile River) to Chicago House in order to introduce the students to the library. Like last year, the CH Librarian, Marie Bryan, gave them a tour of the library, which was translated into Arabic by Sayed, and then Ellie Smith introduced them to the photo archive. We then assigned each student several items to find in the library – a kind of book treasure hunt – and an exercise we devised last year that proved to work very well.

Jay Heidel teaching our students how to use a Wacom drawing tablet

Jay working with his former Inspector Nadia

Learning about the Chicago House library

On Tuesday it was back to the west and the tomb. Hazem had left at the crack of dawn to bring over all of our on-site camp supplies and get everything ready by the time we arrived at 8am. After we settled in and had tea and biscuits – a morning tradition that continues from last year – we quickly learned that Abu el-Yazid is addicted to the biscuits and they cannot be left anywhere near him without them disappearing completely! Clearly, expenditure on biscuits will increase this season. Saad Bakhit then gave the students and our new inspector Ahmed an in-depth site tour of the excavation work outside the tomb, which was followed by a presentation of the tomb excavation by Sayed. This was crucial for both the students and our inspector since he is as new to the site as the students, which is not usually the case. After second breakfast we went on a “walkabout” over the gebel which began with a visit to the Norman and Nina de Garis Davies House because we were kindly invited to have the opportunity to look inside. In some ways visiting the house was touching a piece of epigraphic history since the de Garis Davies’ had lived there for many years while they worked drawing the tombs in the early to mid-1900s and Mr. Will had mentioned them as well as showed some of their drawings to the students in his lectures. It is amazing to think that something so important to the history of Egyptology is still there to be seen and appreciated. All the more so since it was the Davies’ who drew and published our tomb in the 1930s. Starting from Hatshepsut’s temple at Deir el-Bahari and continuing to the southern end of the Sheikh Abd el-Qurna hill, walking along the necropolis allowed the students to visualize within the actual landscape many of the points relating to the positioning of specific tombs and the general development of the necropolis that Mudira JJ had made during her lectures.

Setting up the on-site work space

Mudira JJ and Hazem-happy now that the site is all set up

Sayed and Mr. Will with Hatshepsut's Deir el-Bahari temple in the background

Wednesday we continued on the West, collecting friend and colleague Vincent Oeters, a Dutch Egyptologist who has been working with the Polish mission at Gebelein, and was soon to return to the Netherlands and his day job at Brill Publishers. He joined us initially for the visit to nearby TT107, to see the work of Chicago House with Brett McClain, who kindly gave a detailed explanation of the traditional Chicago House method, providing a nice counterpoint to the use of technology in illustration work that Jay demonstrated earlier in the week. Vincent ended up by staying with us for the entire day, joining the students on their first visit into TT110 to learn about the history and condition of the tomb. As is so often the case with Egypt, it proved a small world in that Sayed and Vincent realized they shared a common supervisor, and, though never having met, had heard a great deal about each other. Although 1pm would normally be the end of the work day, we met the students and Ahmed at 5pm to take advantage of the evening opening of the Luxor Museum to discuss some of the objects in relation to what the students were earning about epigraphy. As Mr. Will, Hazem, Sayed and Mudira JJ waited on the East, we learned that this time Abu el-Hagag was actually late in catching the boat from the West, meaning the other students nearly left without him. Once inside, we spent nearly 2 hours discussing everything from interpreting the carved bevel, to the intricate use of both raised and sunk relief within Egyptian carving to indicate three dimensions on a 2-dimensional plane, to drawing a double line for carving created by a chisel as opposed to a single line for inscription created by scratching or incision. As with the students form last year, this year’s group are already aware of many of the issues necessary for an understanding of epigraphy and we are very impressed with their grasp of what is, truthfully, a complicated discipline.

Tour of Chicago House's work at TT1107 by Brett McClain

The Field School, with Inspector Ahmed and Vincent, in front of TT110

Sayed and Vincent

Talking epigraphy at the Luxor Museum

The last day of the work week, Thursday, meant that Mr. Will could – finally – talk the students and Ahmed through his so-called “5 Steps of Epigraphy”, introducing them to the equipment they will be using to draw and many of the issues they would come up against in trying to do so. While Mr. Will gave a lengthy discussion at our multi-functional tent (both breakfast room and classroom) for the students, Hazem and I set up the lighting in TT 110. This allowed us to transfer the classroom to the tomb so that the students could be given a demonstration of some of the 5 steps by Mr. Will. As seems to be par for the course with this group, this quickly developed into a discussion and less a demonstration. Our initial concern that the students would be hesitant to ask us questions has certainly been put to rest!

Mr. Will teaching the "5 steps" of epigraphy at the on-site tent

Mr. Will demonstrating epigraphy in TT 110

2016 Pre-Field School "Prep Week"

Declan and I left Wednesday night the 10th, and after a mega-journey via London and Cairo, we finally arrived in Luxor at midnight on the 11th. We spent the weekend getting over jet lag and acclimatizing. This was especially good for Declan, as he re-met all of Hazem’s family and began to get to know them again. Of course, Hazem’s family has been wonderful and Declan very quickly became a part of them; he has particularly taken to Hazem’s brother Ahmed, who was working on the Red Sea Coast last year. They even made Declan a little tent in the living room, which he calls his “house.” I spent Sunday and Monday meeting with various East and West bank officials, stopping off at ARCE to say hello to everyone there, and checking that all the paperwork for us to start the school had been done. In addition, on Monday I was able to visit the tomb of the “other” Djhuty, TT 11, which is being excavated and conserved by a team directed by a good friend and colleague, Jose Galan. Their work is truly magnificent! TT 11 Djhuty was also a very important official during the reign of Hatshepsut, so it was fascinating to see all the discoveries the Spanish team has made. Afterwards, I was invited to lunch with Jose and his team, and Hazem joined us as well. It was a reunion of sorts for Hazem, as he also works for Jose.

Declan on the plane to Cairo

Declan's "house" at Hazem's

On Monday evening, Declan and I moved over to Betsy’s flat in preparation for Will’s arrival from London that night. Tuesday was a slow start, and Will and I spent much of the day reviewing our field school notes from last year and talking about the program for this year. Naturally, the Oasis Restaurant with its delicious iced coffee was once again our working base. Our favorite waiter Ayman welcomed us as long-standing regulars. We finished off the day with a wonderful dinner at Hazem’s house.

Declan's first morning in Betsy's flat

Wednesday we hit the ground running and made our way to the West Bank first thing. Although we intended a brief stop at the ARCE office, an unexpected surprise awaited us in the form of Maggie Bryson, a PhD student of Betsy Bryan’s and working in Luxor on an ARCE Fellowship. I know here of course through Betsy, and Will had met her before in Cairo. Yet another reminder, as if we needed it (!), of how small the Egyptological world is. Then it was off to TT110 to meet our inspector, Megahad, who was incredibly welcoming, and seems enthusiastic about our arrival and the imminent beginning of the field school. Will and I spent a couple hours in the tomb to re-familiarize ourselves with what we had done last year, and also to look at the passage with the newly cleaned and conserved walls. The passage is the area that our 2 returning advanced students (Peter and Shaimaa) will be drawing. When we emerged from the tomb it was to discover that Saad Bakhit had arrived from Dra Abu el-Naga. An old friend from last year, we were pleased to learn he will be our neighbor during the work as he is in charge of excavating the shafts in the courtyard of T110. At the end of the morning, our Assistant Epigrapher form last year, Sayed Mamdouh, joined us at the tomb and we gave him a lift back to ARCE. We no sooner did that, than we saw our former student Alaa trying to hitch a ride to the ferry. Naturally, we turned the car around and picked him up, to much general rejoicing. We invited him to join us for coffee with our other assistant, Yaser Hussein, near the ferry landing. In classic Egyptian fashion (which you will begin to recognize through the course of this field school), when we stopped to meet Yaser, who should be with him, but yet another former student, Abd el-Ghany! Again much rejoicing ensued and we all made our way to a local balady tea shop.

Epigraphy Assistant Sayed Mamdouh and JJ discussing the north stela in TT110.

General rejoicing in the minibus with Alaa

After lengthy goodbyes at the ferry landing, Will and I made our way East for a brief working lunch at Oasis. Then we planned to go to yet another coffee shop to meet all of our former students for drinks. This one was recommended by Hazem, but had managed to close the previous week! No matter, as there are many of them, and we found one across from Luxor Temple, informing all of our students by phone of the change in plan as we walked. As is often the case in Egypt, the alternative proved to be an excellent choice because it offered wonderful ice cream. We had a lovely time chatting and catching up and general rejoicing ensued!

Coffee & ice cream with the 2015 students

Thursday Will and I again made our way to the West and TT110 to finish planning and preparation for the work and teaching in the tomb before the field school starts on Saturday. This also proved an ideal opportunity for Hazem and Sayed to install the lighting system within the tomb, which will be essential once we began the epigraphy. At the end of the morning we gave Megahad a brief history of our work and the historical importance of the tomb, which he was quite interested to learn. After dropping Sayed at ARCE, Will and I headed East for another working lunch, followed by a few hours of down time before heading back across the river to Marsam Hotel / Sheikh Ali’s. There we had arranged for a dinner with all the new students, so that they could meet each other, and of course also Hazem, Sayed and Yaser, so that they too could meet the new students, and we could all get to know one another a bit better. It also allowed us to give them more information about the field school and how the program would run. The dinner ended, as often happens, with several attempts at a group photo. With several photographers amongst the group, each with their own ideas about group photos, it takes a while to come to an agreement!

Dinner with our new 2016 students

2016 ERFS Students and Crew. 
From left to right, rear: Nadia Abd el-Latef, Yaser Hussein, JJ Shirley, 
Will Schenck, Sayed Mamdouh, Abu el-Hagag; 
front: Sayed el-Rekaby, Hazem Helmy, Mahmoud Hassan

Friday, like last year, Will and I spent at Chicago House working and partaking of their excellent lunch. It also allowed us to meet many of our friends and colleagues who are working now in Luxor, including Geoffrey Martin, Japp van Dijk and Julia Harvey, and of course the Chicago House folks. The day ended with a return to Declan’s favorite restaurant (where he celebrated his 1st birthday last year), Pizza Roma, where he is beloved by the kitchen staff. We were joined by Maggie Bryson and Abduallah Soliman, who entertained Declan with many pictures of horses from their ride that afternoon out into the wadis of the West Bank. It was a good end to the first week.