Oh, looters

I heard an interesting story from Nadine, who heard it from one of the temple guards. Our first day back, we noticed that part of the road adjacent to the temple was gravel, not cement like the rest of the road. We didn't think anything of it- it is Egypt after all. Apparently, there was a really good story behind it though.

A few months ago, some locals got the brilliant idea to tunnel underneath the road and into the tell, searching for treasure. They were able to do this without notice because they started the tunnel on the other side of the cemetery walls, which are just across the road from the temple. About halfway through their project, the road collapsed, obviously tipping off the guards that something was amiss. We don't think anyone died, but some people definitely got in trouble. This sort of thing happens pretty often in Egypt actually- a few people died up in the delta last year doing the same sort of thing. There's no treasure at Tell Edfu though- just a lot of pottery and dirt. Mostly dirt.

No more dirt...

Well, we’ve officially ended excavation at Tell Edfu. There’s another three weeks to the season, but from now on I’ll be doing other, more boring things, like sorting and drawing pottery. I’m really quite proud of what I’ve done so far though- I excavated almost two meters of stratified material, all by myself (okay, so Ahmed helped a bit…). Here’s my area before excavation:

And here’s my area at the end:

That wall wasn’t even really visible when we started excavation, and we had no idea we’d find the collapse of the silo area wall where I was digging. The hole in the wall we’re still trying to figure out- I’d love to continue excavating it next season, but we’ve officially ended in the columned hall area. We’re moving on to the Old Kingdom area near the temple next season. Tasha couldn’t be happier- there’s still a mountain of pottery to sort, categorize, and draw!

Tourist Tales

Tourists can be very entertaining. Of the Edfu team, I’m probably one of the more tolerant team members of them- I enjoy talking to them about my work if they ask. But sometimes, tourists just do crazy things in Egypt, things you think people would never, ever do.

For instance, last Thursday, I was the only team member up in the silo area- everyone else with me was either a local Edfu worker or one of our specialists from Luxor. Ahmed, who works with me, speaks a little English, but other than him everyone spoke only Arabic. I was working in my area, and suddenly Ahmed stands up and starts yelling “Not permitted!” I turned around to see a guy wearing a red scarf on his head, standing IN one of the silos. I started yelling at him to leave, but he just kept standing there. I quickly walked over to him, waving my arms, pointing, and saying “No! You have to go down!” He didn’t seem to understand, so I asked if he was Italian, and he said he was Spanish. He kept telling me “I don’t understand” in Spanish. Generally waving of arms and “No” is usually universal, at least I thought. Nadine came over to see what I was doing, and he handed her a camera and tried to put his arm around me! Finally our head workman came over and got the guy to leave. The guy was really confused about how to get down from the tell, which had us all wondering exactly how he got up in the first place. I’ll never understand why people want to climb up on the tell- it looks dangerous, with falling mudbrick walls and steep slopes.

We had another interesting tourist experience at breakfast today. First off, we saw a guy climbing up on the far side of the tell just as we sat down. Greg, always happy to go yell at someone, ran off to get the guy off the tell. Apparently, he told Greg that there wasn’t a sign, so he should be able to walk up there. Then, while Greg was on his way back, he saw a woman climbing up on top of a Horus (the falcon god) statue like a horse for a picture. I’ll never understand what about Egypt makes people think that they can do things like that. Would you do that to a statue in Greece? France? Just because it’s not roped off doesn’t mean you can ride it like a pony. There seems to be this attitude with some tourists that just because they are on vacation, they can do whatever they want, be that dress inappropriately for a Muslim country, or climb all over archaeological material.

That said, the majority of tourists are perfectly well behaved. I guess there are a few bad apples in every bunch.

I found something!

Well, not really. Not anything important anyways, but something cool. I found a 2,500 year old footprint! It was in a floor level I was excavating in my area. I guess even in ancient times people liked to leave their mark- much like writing in wet concrete now. Sometimes we archaeologists forget that we're excavating the daily lives of real people. It's strange to think that I was in the

exact same spot the person who left that footprint walked, 2,500 years ago. Who were they? What was their life like? How did they see the world? Were they anything like us?

I know I can't answer those questions, but trying to is why I love archaeology.

Hiking!

Today the three of us- Susan, Janelle, and myself- went hiking on the West Bank. We started the day at Medinet Habu. We had some fun getting a driver- we ran into the guy who found us a cab last time (“here, my brother will drive you”) who was really nice. Of course, he had to wake his brother up to take us, which we felt bad about because it is Eid. Our sleepy driver took us to Medinet Habu and came back to pick us up an hour later. Medinet Habu is the mortuary temple of Ramses III, and it was used for many hundreds of years later as settlement, because of the huge enclosure walls which provided protection. To Egyptologists it’s famous for the Sea Peoples reliefs, which depict a battle against marauding peoples looking to settle in Egypt.

After Medinet Habu, we went over to Deir el Medina to see the tombs and the settlement of the community of workers who built the tombs of the Valley of the Kings. Then we started to hike up the gebel. The stairs up are really steep, and they tired us out a bit.

Photos don’t really capture how beautiful the view is from the gebel, or how quiet. We went two hours without anyone hassling us, which was heaven. But also it’s near silent, except for the occasional birds (and once in a while a police man at one of the guard towers higher up on the gebel whistling at us, which we ignored). We got beautiful views of the valley, and of Deir el-Bahri, which was our final stop for the day.

We hiked down to Deir el-Bahri, to find a somewhat angry guy waiting for us at the bottom. It turned out he was one of the chief inspectors, and once we showed him our antiquities passes, he was much nicer. It turned out he was a relative of Aslam, our reis at Edfu. He had to take us to the Director’s office though with our passes, and we thought we were in trouble. You aren’t technically supposed to hike the mountain, and we did come down behind the security gates. For some reason they thought I was the mudira (excavation director) and we couldn’t really get across that I wasn’t. After showing our passes to the director they let us go, but for a moment we thought we were going to have to start making phone calls to Nadine and to Aslam! We checked out Deir-el Bahri, which is the mortuary temple of the really famous female pharaoh, Hatshepsut, and found the famous Punt scenes. We were really tired by then, so we called our taxi driver and went back to the ferry.

The ferry is a great way to get across the Nile since it costs about 15 cents in USD. However, you do get harassed before you get on and after you get off by men with little boats who want to take you across the Nile. They will say it’s only a pound, but then they will get you halfway across and ask for more money. This happens often too on camel rides. When you are in Luxor, everyone is trying to sell you something. Taxis, statues, trinkets, carriage rides, etc. It can be exhausting.

Now we are off to take advantage of the lovely pool at the hotel!

Livin' it up in Luxor

We are staying at the most awesome hotel I've ever been in- the Sonesta St. George. You should check out their photos:

http://www.sonesta.com/luxor/

It's a 5-star hotel with western showers and flatscreen tvs in the rooms. It's fabulous. We're having a good time.

Today, Susan, Janelle and I got up early to take the ferry over to the Valley of the Kings. We get hassled a lot, but as soon as a little Arabic comes out of our mouths (usually Arabic for "we don't want any") they leave us alone and go harass other tourists. The taxis and kadesh drivers are a little more forceful, but usually go away eventually. You can tell that they are fairly hard up for cash right now- the horses drawing the kadeshes are much skinnier than usually found in Luxor, and the taxis will stop as they drive by which didn't really happen last year. There are tons of guys outside the big hotels (like ours) trying to get you to take their taxi or their kadesh. There are also a lot more people coming up to you to sell stuff. We're dealing pretty well though. Because much of the Valley was closed (for security reasons?) we ended up visiting Karnak too. We had a lot fun playing there, and got to visit some of our favorite places. I'll post about that some other time.

Tomorrow our plan is to go to Medinet Habu (of Ramses III), and from their walk to Deir el-Medina (the workman's village) and hike up the gebel over to Deir el Bahri (of Hatshepsut). It will be long but the view of the Nile is well worth it.

I am NOT Indiana Jones

I could spend all day excavating (if it weren’t so hot in the afternoon anyways). I’m having a great time supervising my own area. I have one worker as my assistant. Ahmed speaks a little English, and is very helpful. And he is a VERY fast excavator. Today, we were excavating a few pits (roughly 70 cm in diameter), and before I even had the paperwork done for one pit, he was on to the next! He’s an excavating machine. Nadine also showed him how to use the total station, so he helps me with mapping and taking heights.

Archaeology isn't all fun and games though. There's A LOT of paperwork involved. I have to record a bunch of information about each layer I see, and how it relates to every other layer (called a Harris Matrix). I also have to keep track of what Ahmed is doing, record the finds, organize the pottery to send to Tasha Town (where it sits to await our overworked ceramicist), and understand all the archaeology to be able to explain it to Nadine and/or Greg. When we get home I have to work on the Edfu blog, and then draw top plans and profiles in Illustrator. Archaeology takes a lot more work than I think anyone realizes! We’re not all running around dodging boulders and booby traps while searching for treasure!

Happy Halloween!

Though Halloween doesn't exist in Egypt, we did find time to celebrate. We took a one-day break from excavation on Saturday-Sunday to head up to Luxor for the annual Chicago House Halloween Party. Chicago House invites all the Luxor excavations plus Edfu (the Director, Ray, being an OI colleague of Nadine’s) for drinks and dancing at their beautiful house. It’s not even really a house- it’s more like a walled compound of multiple buildings with gardens and even a tennis court. We had a wonderful time at the party. I wore devil horns and a tail ;)

We took the opportunity while we were in Luxor to handle visa extensions, which was a surprisingly quick process. We also did some shopping, picking up both gifts and necessities (like chocolate bars!), and ate a lot of good food. I think I’ll be doing my Christmas shopping in Luxor again this year. We buy all our souvenirs at the fair trade centers, which sell crafts made by local women or Bedouin, who receive fair prices for their work. We also had a lot of fun playing around Luxor Temple- we pretended to be tourists and took funny photos. We’ll be heading back to Luxor at the end of the week for the Muslim holiday Eid. We’ll get a few days off work to travel, and we are very much looking forward to it.

On our way to Luxor, we saw camels in a pickup truck!

We had some fun running around Luxor Temple:

Here's Janelle having some fun in Luxor Temple:

And here's Kat checking out some reconstructed columns:

The Battle of Kadesh!

An ode to men's clothing

Men's clothes are awesome, at least on a dig. Women's hiking clothes are just far to impractical for me- the shirts are too short, the pants don't give enough range of motion (especially when you have to climb up and over unstable walls), and in general just don't fit right for an excavation in the Middle East. My men's clothes though are awesome- I have two pairs of pants (one by Eddie Bauer, one by Kuhl) which fit just right. They give plenty of range of motion- that's probably because men's pants leave room for um, parts- and in general seem to hold up better. It's hard to find one that fit a girl though- I tried on so many pants at REI this year trying to find something that would fit my hips and my waist. And the men's shirts are usually longer, which allows me to easily bend over without showing any skin (a no-no in such a conservative Muslim country). Also, sunburn on your lower back is not fun.

People also always say that I must be hot wearing long pants and long-sleeved shirts in such a hot country (tourists especially look at me like I'm nuts). But I like not getting skin-cancer. And it really isn't that hot. Only 90 something today ;)

Another fun day on the tell!

It took me three days, but I finished my first profile drawing! I know the paper looks really dirty- but it’s vellum paper, so it can be washed with a rag without smearing the pencil. I’m quite proud of it.

Nadine and Greg have decided to give me the area as my own to dig and supervise. My first task (today) will be to describe and interpret the layers I drew. I will also draw a top plan of the upper level silo by using the points Susan and I took today with the total station.

We use the total station to take the x-y location of the four corners of each brick, and use that to make a plan. It should be interesting to see if I can even do it- I wasn’t sure I was taking the points right. Nadine also had to come take some for me, because they were on the edge of the tell
and I was rather nervous about anging over it to take the points of the edge of the wall. Nadine says it’s better that she fall off the edge of the tell than one of the students. Not many dig directors are that awesome- most would rather a student get hurt than themselves.

It was a dirty, dirty day...

Today was my first day back onsite after a several days of illness. Nadine proceeded to give me the dirtiest (and really, pretty awesome) job of cleaning and drawing a profile. Because cleaning a profile requires a lot of vertical scraping with a trowel and brushing, I was covered in dirt from head to toe- dirt even got down my shirt. My face was very, very dirty because the dust sticks to your sweat. Everyone laughed at me at second breakfast (below).

Also, one (rather disgusting) note: you will sneeze black stuff for HOURS after cleaning a profile.

Egypt just isn't agreeing with me...

I've not been onsite since Wednesday, because apparently Egypt just does not like me this year. First, my cold gets much, much worse (lost my voice and coughed a lot). Then, I broke out in hives on Friday- we can't figure out what I got into which could cause that reaction. And this morning, literally 10 minutes before we were supposed to leave for site, I got a terribly upset stomach and spent most of the morning ill in the bathroom. So yeah, Egypt hates me right now. Hopefully I'll be back to work tomorrow!

Of fleas and hoarders...

Seeing as how Nadine kept me home today (because I'm sick), I have nothing really cool to report. We are starting excavation proper on Saturday, which is exciting.

Something funny did happen to Nadine though- she got fleas! The car left without her from El Kab this morning, so she had to hitch a ride back. On the way, she noticed fleas crawling on her! Obviously she showered and washed her clothes right away when she got back, but it was funny. I had just woken up from a nap when I heard her outside my room saying she wouldn't come in while she was infested. I was like, uh, what? She's flea-free now though.

On another note, here is my "room":

It's supposed to be cleaned out at some point, and really needs to be since other people joining the excavation later in the season are supposed to bunk with me in that room or in the other room (also full of crap). It's like an episode of hoarders. I'm rather afraid something might be living there. Until the guys get a chance to clean it out, I'm bunking with Kat and Susan. It's a bit cramped, but whatever.

Seeing as how Nadine kept me home today (because I'm sick), I have nothing really cool to report. We are starting excavation proper on Saturday, which is exciting.

Something funny did happen to Nadine though- she got fleas! The car left without her from El Kab this morning, so she had to hitch a ride back. On the way, she noticed fleas crawling on her! Obviously she showered and washed her clothes right away when she got back, but it was funny. I had just woken up from a nap when I heard her outside my room saying she wouldn't come in while she was infested. I was like, uh, what? She's flea-free now though.

On another note, here is my "room":

It's supposed to be cleaned out at some point, and really needs to be since other people joining the excavation later in the season are supposed to bunk with me in that room or in the other room (also full of crap). It's like an episode of hoarders. I'm rather afraid something might be living there.

Our First Day

Our first day onsite was today. Because I can’t actually touch anything, it was pretty chill. We went around the site with Nadine, and then toured the temple. Then I took a nap. I’ve been sick for a few weeks now, and it’s gotten worse since we made it to Egypt- I can hardly speak at all. Not being able to work is probably for the best. Nadine asked me to stay home tomorrow if I’m still not feeling well.

We had some fun last night that I should have mentioned. Before dinner, Aslam (the reis, our chief workman), took us “girls” to the bank and shopping in Edfu. I’d never been walking around the town, despite having been on the Edfu team last year. It was very interesting. You feel almost like a movie star, because everyone stares at you. We had Aslam plus one of the Ahmeds with us to discourage too much attention being paid to us. The children are funny, because many of them have never seen a white person before. Boys followed us trying to convince us to buy their food, and little children stared at us like we were aliens. Two little boys chased each other with nunchucks outside the Vodafone shop which we were waiting outside of. Once, two women walked by and said we were very beautiful as we were waiting outside a phone shop.

Edfu certainly is very different from the US. Everyone walks in the street here, and there are no crosswalks, so you just run across the street when it looks safe. Horse-drawn carrages and donkey-pulled carts canter through the street alongside cars and motorbikes. Cages of chickens sit outside shops, and whole cows or water buffalo, butchered, hang in front of other shops. There are small little shops for everything, and a big open-air market. At 9pm the town was just coming to life, and it stayed loud until past 2am. Almost everyone had trouble sleeping because of the noise. It will definitely take some getting used to living here again!

Arrived in Edfu :)

I’m alive and safe in our apartment in Edfu. But it was a long time getting here.

We got into Luxor around 8:30 last night, and after a brief fight with the horde of men trying to carry our luggage for us and get us taxis, we made it to our hotel. We stayed last night at the Iberhotel, which is quite nice. AC in the rooms and western showers, plus a nice buffet breakfast in the morning, was just what we needed after travelling for so long. We had been awake for something like 36 hours by the time we got to the hotel. Unfortunately, we forgot that we wouldn’t be able to access the Duty Free shop at Luxor Airport, so we didn’t get to buy any booze for the season. That might be a problem later…

This morning Nadine and Greg came to pick us up from the hotel and drive us to Luxor. We had a driver, and some of the guys came with us to help tie the luggage to the roof and get stuff down and everything. The drive to Edfu from Luxor is about 2 hours, but it went by pretty fast. I read and everyone else listened to iPods. We got to Edfu and to the “new house” we were supposed to have. Nadine had wanted to move further away from the police station and off the main street so that we would be a little less visible to the locals. We went to look at it, and it was really nice and clean and new- and REALLY small. We would have been packed in like sardines. The other problem was that the third apartment, for the guys, wasn’t finished being built yet. Nadine didn’t like the idea of the guys not living with us, so we went to look at the place the Edfu team had stayed at a few years ago. It wasn’t new, and was quite dusty, but we ended up deciding to take it. It gives us more space, though half of the apartment looks like an episode of Hoarders. The bathroom is… special. But we’ll deal with it. Unfortunately for me, my bedroom is one of the rooms full of stuff, so I’m sleeping in Kat and Susan’s room for the time being. My room will be the one with the rotating roommate once it’s cleaned and a fan installed and stuff. I’ll have it to myself for the first few weeks though, which is cool.

Nadine and Greg went to the Temple to handle paperwork and stuff while we set up our rooms. It turns out that somehow three of us (including me) were left off the security paperwork, so we won’t be allowed to work on site tomorrow. We can be there, but we can’t actually touch anything. Hopefully the paperwork will be here in a few days so that we can start working!

Traveling!

Our trip so far has been fairly uneventful. In Frankfort we saw a janitor on a bike. We also gained new appreciation for German efficiency - flights were boarded in 15 minutes, very orderly like. Nice change from some other airlines!

Right now we are waiting for our last flight - to luxor - in some remote corner of the Cairo airport. We are completely exhausted and haven't slept in 24 hours. We are quite looking forward to beds and showers!

Packing is H-A-R-D

I've always tended to over-pack. I like to be prepared, particularly when in a foreign country. I'm the sort of person who brings every medication you could possibly need plus back-ups of everything. I even have a flashlight in my bag. Usually when we travel to Egypt, we can bring two bags plus a carry-on. But recently airline rules have changed, and the carrier we are flying (Lufthansa) only allows one free bag. It will be $140 round-trip for me to bring a second. To get around this, I've tried to pack light. The problem is, with all of the equipment I had to bring for the project plus the mattress pad (a definite necessary item, the beds are terrible on your back in our house in Egypt), my checked luggage bag is already full. I'm trying to get around the second-bag issue by packing all of my clothes into a small(ish) duffel bag.

More than likely Lufthansa is going to make me check my second bag, but it's worth a try.

In other news, so EXCITED to leave (and sad to leave behind my fiance and friends). And very angry at HP for not returning my laptop to me in time for me to take it to Egypt (the screen died, they fixed it, and then screwed up shipping it to me). I have to use "old rusty," my 5-year old HP laptop with only 1 GB RAM and a 1.5 ghz AMD processor. Yeah, it works real well.

Safety in Egypt

Egypt has been in the news a lot lately- in particular, there have been a lot of clashes between Copts (an ancient Christian sect comprising about 10% of the population there) and Muslims. This has been going on for centuries (and of course, that doesn't make it right). In order to stay safe while we are there, we are taking a few precautions. First of all, we are traveling in a group the entire time (there are five of us "girls" plus the dig director and her husband). Secondly, we aren't staying in Cairo at all. We are flying into the Cairo airport, and taking another flight to Luxor, where things have been very calm. We'll stay in Luxor a day at a very nice hotel (for super cheap to- $29 a person!), and the next day travel to Edfu via car. Our return trip in December will be the same way.

Once in Edfu, we will have ten very wonderful workmen living in the first floor of our house to protect us. None of us will be going anywhere besides the work site and home without an escort. We have emergency plans to return to Luxor and stay at Chicago House (which is basically a University-owned fortress on the Nile) in case of any unrest in the Edfu region. We also have plans to get out of the country if things get too bad.

Basically, we understand that we are going into a politically unstable country, and have done all we can to prepare for it. I trust the director when she says we'll be safe there, and since there has been very few issues in the Edfu region, I think we will be okay. We are also leaving Edfu before the elections (which in the Aswan area, in which Edfu is a part, will be taking place on December 14th). So, don't worry about me!

Permits Acquired!

Today we received official word that yes, we will be able to dig. I'm leaving on Sunday along with 3 other students, and meeting our director in Cairo on Monday. We'll fly to Luxor, and after a one-night stay in Luxor, head on down to Edfu. The dig season has been extended to December 10th to compensate for the delay at the beginning. I'm still so excited though!

Now if only I should shake this cold before I leave...

Permits Approved!

The Tell Edfu Project found out this weekend that in fact, after a two-week delay, that our permits have been approved and we will be excavating in Egypt! We have a lot to get done before that- in particular, purchasing tickets- but we should leave in a week or so.

What is the Tell Edfu Project? It's an archaeological expedition run out of the Oriental Institute, excavating the remains of the ancient Egyptian city of Edfu. It was occupied from Egypt's earliest times (c. 3000 BC) through to the 10th century AD. We'll be focusing on the Old and Middle Kingdom areas (c. 2700-1500 BC). I'll even have my own area to direct!