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!