Since ElKab is a few hours drive south of Luxor, and we wanted
to start the day before the worst of the heat, we collected everyone by 6:30 am. We also planned a slight variation from what we have done in the past.
We had invited our students from the previous field schools to join us, and
three of them – Abu el-Hagag, Mahmoud Hassan, and Nadia Latef – were able to do
so. In addition, seeing as our colleague Ana Tavares is working on the salvage
and rescue excavations at Kom Ombo, and where our former student Sayed el-Rekaby
is participating, we invited them to rendezvous with us at ElKab at 9 am. Kom Ombo
is fairly close to Elkab, located just a little to the north, so since we are
to the south we were able to meet in the middle, as it were. However, we did
need to collect one of our students en route, as Mahmoud lives in Esna he
joined us at about 7:30, bearing an enormous crate of fresh yousef effendi and
mos (bananas). Apparently, the Esna mos are thought to be the best in Egypt by
other Egyptians, so therefore there was much rejoicing when Mahmoud arrived
with his crate, and they did indeed prove to be very delicious! Yaser had
organized that we be joined by one of the ElKab inspectors who was a friend and
colleague from previous field schools, Mr. Ashraf Harb, who yet again we collected
along the main road, and thanks to his local knowledge we were all able to take
a mini-break just before reaching ElKab at a local tea and coffee shop. Orders of
shai and gahwa (tea and Egyptian coffee) were taken, and biscuits brought out,
but because they normally don’t get tour buses stopping the half-dozen coffee
cups had to be relayed around the group. So it took somewhat longer than we might
have expected, which turned out to be fortunate as it allowed us to fine-tune
our arrival at ElKab to the same moment as Ana and Sayed el-Rekaby, who were
accompanied by another of the Kom Ombo team, Hassan el-Atar, a colleague of Sayed el-Rekaby.
Arriving at ElKab everyone piled out of the minibus to greet
Sayed, and Will was particularly pleased to see Ana, who is an old and
dear friend from the Giza field school days, and in fact she was the individual
who talked Will into teaching the illustration component of the AERA field
schools back in the mid-2000s! Because of Ana’s involvement in
creating the AERA field schools, we had visited her in Giza at the very beginning
of our field school journey, before our first season had even begun to ask for
any pointers and advice she might give us regarding what we had got ourselves
into! So, it was nice to show her the outcome and current crop of students.
After all the greetings had been made, and the obligatory group photos taken,
everyone piled back onto the buses to head up the wadi. The plan was to travel
by bus all the way to the furthest point, and begin our visit at the chapel of
Amenhotep III. We had provided the students with hand-outs, which we distributed
on the bus, of some of the published epigraphic examples of not only the
chapel, but also the New Kingdom tombs, so that they would be able to take
notes and make comments for future reference.
Boys' Group
Girls' Group
TT 110 Field School with our Kom Ombo friends
We arrived without any mishaps up the desert track at the Amenhotep
III chapel which stands in splendid isolation very much as it would have been
in antiquity. Because it has been known for centuries, and was never actually
buried by the sands, it is covered in both ancient and modern graffiti from
travelers, some of which dates back as far as the early 1800s. Because of it accessibility,
it was planned, photographed, and drawn in the 1890s by J.J. Tylor and Somers
Clarke, and it was these early examples of epigraphy which we had provided to
the students to critique. Considering the early date of the project the results
were exceptionally good, making it easy to see just what ancient remains they
had seen and where modern additions to the site had been made. It is also epigraphically
interesting due to the fact that although built by Amenhotep III, it was
restored in ancient times, first by Seti I who added his name and re-carved the Amarna destruction, and then again under
the Ptolemies, who re-painted and re-carved the images of the goddess Nekhbet. The original publication has an excellent section-elevation showing
the placement of the scenes in conjunction with the architecture, something
unheard of at the time. And lo-and-behold, it turned out to have been drawn by
the young Howard Carter, on one of his first assignments in Egypt, while
working for the EEF, and well before his heady days as the discoverer of
Tutankhamun’s tomb. An amazing example of just how far ahead of his times he
was, if any further evidence was necessary.
Amenhotep III Chapel
Graffiti on the paving slabs around the chapel
After finishing at the chapel, we headed down into the wadi by
foot in search of rock-carvings, with Yaser leading the way and directing the
students’ attention to an extraordinary collection of petroglyphs from all periods
hidden along the back of an outcropping that we would otherwise have driven by.
Both Yaser and Sayed el-Rekaby discussed the inscriptions with the students,
with Sayed who has experience drawing this type of material form his work at
Silsilah, explaining his methodology. We carried on towards the legendary “Vulture
Rock”, famed for the unprecedented number of carvings located in one single
place. The rock juts up from the wadi almost like a galleon under full-sail, with many
points at which we might board in order to climb up to look at the inscriptions
at close range. The students, again led by Yaser, clambered up, down, and
around the complete circumference of the rock, finding images as diverse as Predynastic
boats, herds of giraffe, oryx, gazelle, antelope, and cattle, while interspersed
were hundreds of hieroglyphic inscriptions, many dating to the Old Kingdom, and
later more elaborate New Kingdom and Graeco-Roman inscriptions, highlighting
the long tradition of pilgrims and travelers frequenting the Wadi Hillal.
Yaser speaking about the rock inscriptions
Sayed el-Rekaby explaining drawing techniques for rock inscriptions
Heading to Vulture Rock
Boat and Animal Petroglyph
At this point we re-boarded the buses, which, thanks to
clever organizational planning, were there to collect us, so that we could resume
our journey down the wadi, stopping briefly at a Ramesside and Graeco-Roman sanctuary,
terraced and built into the cliffside, along with a small chapel dedicated to
Thoth. Seeing as it was approaching noon, we needed to be back at the rest
house so that there would be the opportunity for noonday prayers and a chance to
have a brief break before ascending the cliff to look at the rock-cut New Kingdom
tombs. Although 4 of the tombs are open, we chose to focus on 2 of them, where
there was a strong familial association and published epigraphy that we could
critique. These were the tombs of Paheri, which was drawn initially by J.J. Tylor, and Paheri’s grandfather, Ahmose son of Ibana. Ahmose’s tomb has recently been re-examined and drawn
by Vivian Davies, the former Keeper of the Department of Egypt and the Sudan at
the British Museum, who has worked for many years at ElKab and just happens to
be married to Renee Friedman, whose work across the river at the twin site of Hierakonpolis
(ancient Nekhen) you will remember we visited on a previous field trip. The
Elkab tombs provide an excellent comparison for our own TT110, as while the
scene types are similar, the architecture is different, needing to conform to
the sandstone cliffside found at Elkab, as opposed to the limestone gebel we have
in Thebes. In ElKab, rather than the Theban “T-shaped” tomb, we have decorated single-room
tombs with vaulted ceilings and undecorated side chambers leading to the burial
shaft. As a result, the students were able to understand how the ancient Egyptians utilized
a smaller wall space to contain all the necessary images for presenting the
life of the tomb owner and the requirements for the afterlife. The tombs also
provided the students with an excellent comparison for who was able to have decorated
rock-cut tombs in an important provincial town, in this case largely the local
elite of the area, who were also part of family groups who controlled the
highest local government and temple positions. In terms of the epigraphy, in the
tomb of Paheri there was a serious fissure or crack running through the tomb,
which had been drawn in the 19th century, but the students noted that there
were details from some scenes near the crack in the drawings which were not on
the wall. This led to a discussion regarding why this might be the case;
whether Tylor had reconstructed the scenes, or identified fragments which may
have joined and drew them accordingly, or possibly the crack had widened and
these details had been lost in subsequent years. This drew attention to how
important epigraphy can be through time, because without these drawings from
the 1890s we would have potentially lost this information. In the tomb of Ahmose
son of Ibana, there was a peculiar situation of half-finished walls where part
of the background stone had been removed in order to create sunk and raised
relief. This work was clearly unfinished in that you could still see evidence of
the painted grid guidelines over many of the scenes, and the carving, where it
occurred on some walls, was very rough. In contrast, one completed scene of the
tomb owner was extant, with both raised and sunk relief, and paint. The students
became intrigued with how best to depict this unusual and complicated situation.
Fortunately, Will had actually inked the drawings for Vivian prior to
publication, but had not seen the tomb, working instead from notes and
photographs. He devised a system of conventions which seemed suitable allowing
for both the unfinished as well as the completed scenes, incorporating dashed
and dotted as well as solid lines, and leaving out the damage entirely. The
students seemed highly skeptical regarding this system, and when confronted,
Will admitted that were he to draw it today he may have decided on a different
set of conventions. There was a sense of unspoken agreement from the students,
further evidence of the degree of self-confidence they have gained regarding
epigraphic decisions in the course of the field school.
Ramesside / Graeco-Roman sanctuary
Will and Ana
Hot, tired, and hungry, an end was put to further questions,
or we would still be in the tomb of Ahmose son of Ibana today! We retired to the
rest house for a well-earned picnic lunch. It was all hands to the pumps as the
food magically appeared from the buses, mats were spread out on the floor of the
rest house, plates, cutlery, mounds of bread were spread so that all could sit
cross-legged on the floor together as a group. Following the meal, the guards
brought everyone shai bil nanaa (tea with fresh mint), and our guest Inspector brought
traditional pastries, which was much appreciated by the group. The festive
atmosphere continued through mass, hysterical group photographing of all and
sundry before we needed to separate to our 2 respective buses and resume our
return journeys in opposite directions.
Although everyone was tired, we found time for much
merriment and more teaching on the bus. Sayed devised a game involving
answering questions about drawing pottery and objects, or epigraphy, and within
30 seconds someone needed to describe the steps involved, with the reward being
a Cadburys chocolate bar! This boisterous, chaotic, teaching tool proved an
effective distraction so that we were on the outskirts of Luxor, dropping
people off one-by-one before we knew it! Home in just 2 hours. It was a
marvelous day; hot, tired, dusty, but buzzing, we all decamped in Luxor knowing
we all needed to be up early the next morning to return to work, but also
excited to get back to drawing.
