After just over a 2 month break for the holidays, Mr. Will
and I rendezvoused at Heathrow on Feb. 5 for the direct flight via Egypt Air to
Luxor. As serendipity would have it we met in the queue to check in, and
miraculously none of our luggage was overweight (despite all the archaeological
equipment JJ was carrying). Obviously, the gods are smiling on this trip.
Lunching in the same restaurant where we have met in the past, we caught each
other up on recent events, including the Philadelphia Eagles upset victory over
the New England Patriots, which JJ was forced to miss due to flying to London!
Bad to miss the game, but good that Philly won! The flight was pleasantly
uneventful and on-time, arriving in Luxor just after 10pm local time. We were
met by not only Hazem and our driver Ayman, but Sayed also was there to welcome
us back. Those of you who have followed us before will be familiar with both
Hazem, as Project Manager, and Sayed, our Epigraphy Assistant. As our flat was
not quite ready, we went to Hazem’s house, where upon arrival we were warmly
greeted and given a meal and a bed for the night.
Tuesday morning, after coffee and breakfast, we (including
Hazem) headed to the west bank for our first round of teftish visits in order
to sort out the necessary paperwork to begin the field school. We met Sayed at
the teftish and were welcomed by our old friend Mr. Ramadan Ahmed, Director of
Foreign Missions Office on the West Bank, who instigated the required
procedures. When we entered the office we were delighted to see Sayed’s wife,
Safaa, and even more thrilled to learn she would be our inspector for the
season! Our former student Abd el-Ghany also appeared so we had a chance to
catch up with him as well. After leaving Safaa to sort our permissions with
Ramadan, we were ushered into Dr. Fathy Yassin’s office, the General Director
of Antiquities on the West Bank, for the final approval for the project to
start. Whilst there, as is so often the case, who should walk in but a blast
from the past for Mr. Will. Friend and colleague from the Giza Field School Dr.
Afifi Rohim, as well as a former student, Eltayeb Mohamed Khudary, neither of
whom Will had seen in years! We
subsequently found out that they are both part of the Western Valley Excavation
project of Dr. Zahi Hawass, and Afifi is the Field Director. Permissions
acquired, and stamp of approval given, we adjourned to the garden of Sheikh Ali
for the first masbut of the season and to discuss with Sayed and Hazem some of
the plans for the beginning of the work. As those of who have followed us will
know, Sheikh Ali is the place where Egyptologists run into other Egyptologists,
so we were not surprised that the cool-looking dude with the sunglasses coming
across to greet us was none other than old friend, and now Director of IFAO
(the French Institute in Cairo), Laurent Bavay, who is in Luxor checking in on
the work of the French at Deir el-Medina, and in Theban Tomb 96.
Wednesday we headed to Karnak to take care of business with
Dr. Mostafa el-Sogheir, and get everything prepared to begin teaching in the
Karnak Lab on Saturday. Naturally, we ran into yet another friend and former
student, Saad Bakhit, who you will recall was our Inspector at Karnak for the
digital field school last fall. While our papers were being processed who
should walk into the office but one of our new students who is an Inspector at
Karnak and was bringing Dr. Irmgard Hein in to finish her permissions. Irmgard
is an old friend of Will’s (of course!), and there was much general
rejoicing in seeing one another so unexpectedly after so many years. As it
proved, she is there to photograph objects stored in the magazine located at
the Montu Temple, and hopefully there will more opportunities to see each other
while we are teaching in the lab. After finishing up at Karnak, and meeting our
Inspector Ali Erfan, we headed for the shops – Aboudy to do a bit of book
browsing and Ragab for some more food items. By then we were hungry (again) and
headed to our standard – Oasis Palace – for our first lunch of the season. The
afternoon was spent working on the planned teaching program for the first week,
as we needed to review and perhaps revise what we had taught 2 years ago.
Happily, it turned out not to need too much tweaking!
Thursday we planned to spend the morning making sure
everything was set up and the tomb was ready for the students. We got a later
than usual start, awaiting Hazem to wind up some family business before heading
to the west bank, which meant a decadently late arrival at TT110, just in time
for tea and second breakfast. When we arrived, not only were our Inspector Safaa
and Sayed already at the site, but also our former student Alaa. Much hugging
and general rejoicing ensued at the reunion! We had just finished second
breakfast only to find out that Hazem had forgotten not only the tea, but also
the chato biscuits! Since he had already forgotten (twice!) to deliver the bag
of shoes and work materials we had left behind, this amounted to 3 strikes
against Hazem and so the team voted to enact the first harama of the season. As
many of you will remember, the significance of haram in Egypt entails that when
a mistake is made a compensation much be provided to the victim. In this case
the entire team, which we counted as 9 people at breakfast! The decision as to
the penalty was given by Abu Hamada seeing as he was the individual who had to
beg tea from the gafirs at a neighboring guard’s hut. The result – cake and
cola for everyone! Safaa insisted that it come from a particularly nice bakery
– La Voche – so that Hazem could not cheat by providing a stale slab of sponge
cake. Instead, as the name implies, we had fine Parisian patisserie,
Egyptian-style, cake enveloped in whipped cream along with cold coke and fanta
for the end of the workday.
We had been invited to Sayed and Safaa’s for lunch after the work, but seeing as we had finished early, and both Hazem and JJ had a lot of work to do, it was decided that we would return early and return back to the west around 3, giving Sayed and Safaa extra time to prepare the meal as well. In the end Hazem was unable to join us as he was still collating handouts for the students, but JJ and Will enjoyed a marvelous feast of duck, Egyptian fried chicken, and a vegetable and meat tagine, all dishes that we had been treated to at their house last year. We spent a lovely couple of hours eating, talking, and getting reacquainted with their two daughters, Jana, now 4, and Malak, nearly 1 year old. The rest of the day was spent back at the flat with JJ finishing up her lecture preparations while Will learned further features of his new computer. And of course, JJ followed the Eagles victory parade through Philadelphia in real-time on her computer and through facetiming with Raphael and the boys.
Friday morning we spent working, as we have done in the past,
at Chicago House, this time by preparing for when we bring the new students to
the library. We were welcomed by the librarian Anait Helmholz, who generously
offered to be available to introduce our students to the use of the library. And
our good friend Ellie Smith offered, once again, to show the students the
Chicago House photo archive. Artists Jay Heidel and Krisztián Verteś were likewise willing
once again to let us and our students impose upon their hospitality and visit
their work in the Luxor Temple. As in the past, so many friends and colleagues
have offered their time in order to enrich the experience of our students in
the field school. We once again enjoyed lunching at Chicago House and meeting old
as well as new friends. It was particularly nice to see Susan Allen, who is
part of the Metropolitan Museum Malqata Team, and whom we had not seen in Egypt in
years. And, naturally, Will ran into former students from his time teaching in
the AERA field schools at Giza.
We managed to finish at Chicago House just in time to meet
several of our former students who we have invited to participate in an object
and pottery drawing field school taught by Yaser: Nadia, Mahmoud, Abu el-Hagag,
and Sayed el-Rekaby from last season, as well as Alaa from our first season. This
gave us an opportunity to try out a newly opened café situated along the banks
of the Nile halfway between Chicago House and Karnak, aptly named Marina Café. We
sat outside enjoying the view and catching up, and Yaser was able to present his
teaching program to everyone. The inevitable group photo followed and in exchange
for the waiter taking the photo, the manager had us hold the restaurant’s
menus. So don’t blame us for the corporate promotion!
Abu el-Hagag, Mahmoud, Sayed, Yaser, Will,
JJ, Nadia, Alaa, Sayed el-Rekaby, Hazem
Amira, Rehab, Rasha, Hala
Walid, Yaser, Alaa Talaat, Hussein, Mena (Mario), Mahmoud
Back Row: Amira Abdel Koudos Fahim, Rehab Sabry Shazly, Rasha Ahmed Hany Mohamed, Hala Ahmed Mohamed Elsamman, Mudira JJ, Mr. Will, Alaa Talaat Shams El-Din Mohamed, Hussein Ahmed Hussein Hofny, Mahmoud Abdel Wahab Mohamed Abdel Nour
Front Row: Walid Elsayed Abd el-Raheem, Hazem Shared, Sayed Mamdouh, Mena (Mario) Fahim Rezk
Photographer: Yaser Mahmoud
Watch this space to see what ensued the following morning …
