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!