Walking to the temple at 7 am as usual. Katie, Kate, Max, and Elizabeth lead the group, with Adam, Scott, and Peter behind. Work begins in true earnest today, and we are all excited. |
Adam and Heather are running squares near each other, and they trade information -- or perhaps gossip – in the area between their work. Each, however, is facing his and her own excavation area, so they really aren’t shirking! |
At Heather’s trench, Violaine gives instructions as the first level is removed, taking away the loose surface silt. Adam looks on, since his work is only now starting. |
Fatma, writing in her notebook, is intense and remarkably precise, as ever. Beside her to the left is her gufti, Ayman, son of our reis, Farouk. Behind her to the right stands Abdel-Aziz, gufti for Heather’s square. He’s another son of Farouk. The gufti business is a family affair, and always has been. See our previous years’ web sites for more on the profession of the gufti, from the town of Qift (Coptos). |
Adam is supervising the clearance of the “inner wall” behind the sacred lake, discovered during our last season. We are going to move our clearance efforts to the east, but also need to define the southern edge of this wall, as well as its angle. Here Violaine instructs Adam in what to look for as the mud brick begins to emerge and where to run his string line for dirt removal. |
Ok, Katie is running her own square this year, so you won’t have nearly as hard a time finding her. In other words, fewer “where’s Katie” entries. But in his urgency to send pix home of Katie, Jay has perhaps overdone it, and at this point Katie’s eye is shifting toward the camera as she says: “Okay, enough already” |
A shot taken from the rear enclosure wall of the precinct. Jay has included the entire expanse of area we hope eventually to excavate, with the area that is being cleared of grass so that Elaine can carry out her own study. Amazingly, the whole grass removal took only a single day, and Elaine has been able to lay out squares already. |
Another great atmospheric shot by Jay, showing on the right, Fatma’s trench, representing the east end of the area behind the lake. In the center is Heather’s square. |
One more incredible photo of the grass clearing at the rear of the precinct. The chaff flies into the air, along with the loose silt, and the effect is of fog and clouds. |
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Max is showing Peter how to use the “total station” kindly loaned to us by the Civil Engineering professor Ben Schafer at JHU. Peter, by the way, is a 1994 alum, soon to graduate with an MD/PhD from U.Chicago. We’re very proud of him, since he was with our expedition to Theban Tomb 92 in 1993 and 1994. |
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Kate helping to string out the squares for Elaine’s three trenches at the rear of the enclosure. She and Maria will act as supervisors for Elaine. Kate is a new addition this year and represents the conference-winning JHU Women’s Hockey Team! |
Scott explaining how to do levels for Adam who’s going to do the siting and write down the measurement. Scott still insists on wearing his Syrian kefiyah, since his home area of preference is to the northeast of us. But we keep trying to win him over to Egypt one day. |
Here Betsy and Mahmoud Abady (the super-gufti)are having an exchange. She tells him, “Stop!, you’re going to remove the floor of this granary, which is already only poorly preserved.” Mahmoud says, “No, this is just brick collapse.” The Mudira finally says, “Stop anyway.” And so they do. (But he’ll win the next round, I guarantee it.) |
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After the first day of excavation, here they are unloading the baskets of pottery already brought in. Heather won the award toway – 12 baskets of pot sherds!! Maybe we’ll make the award for the least number instead. |
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