Posted by Rebekah Miracle

Even though I’ve been back home from Giza for over a week now, my work with the AERA geographic information system (GIS) isn’t over– it has just shifted into a new phase.

During the excavation season, my priority was the daily digitization of new features as they came out of the ground. Over 900 new archaeological features were digitized this season, which kept me very busy! I worked closely with the excavators and our archivist to make sure that all of this season’s data was properly recorded and to provide team members with a quick, accurate, and integrated visualization of the KKT & HeG sites.

Now that the season is over, all of the new data… READ MORE »

Posted by Dr. Claire Malleson

After a busy season of work on materials from four areas of the AERA excavations, the Giza lab is now winding down. The ceramicists have finished their recording and drawing, the objects are all registered, sketched, photographed and stored, the animal bones have been identified, and the sealings are all stored for future seasons. The work this season was conducted mainly by the SCA Inspectors, who have trained with the AERA/ARCE field schools and graduated through the advanced levels to become specialists, working alongside the international specialists. They have all been looking at the materials from the Gallery, Menkaure Valley temple and Khentkawes Valley temple – all very interesting, and there have been several special… READ MORE »

Posted by Ashraf Abd el-Aziz, SCA archaeologist

I was talking to Ahmed Ezz, one of the team members, about when I excavated Gallery III-4 at Madient Het el-Gourab when I realized that excavation was 10 years ago and no one excavated in the gallery complex until this year, 10 years later. One of my dreams was to excavate in these galleries again and I’m very pleased to be back to the galleries this season.

I was alone with four workmen only when I excavated Gallery III-4. We excavated the entire gallery except its northern part in squares which we had excavated in 2001. My Gallery III.4 excavation was almost 150 square meters. The AERA team said to me, “You… READ MORE »

Posted by Hanan Mahmoud

Working in excavations requires you to be patient and record everything stratigraphically starting from modern to old. But working in trenches enables you to answer specific questions. Sometimes archaeologists have to make “shofi holes”.

An interesting thing happened to me with my team members during our excavation in Trench G in Menkaure Valley Temple at Giza 2012. We were working behind one of the limestone core blocks that dates to Menkaure; suddenly we heard a loud yelp. It was one of our workers crying when he fell down into an unseen hole our excavations had uncovered. The depth of this hole was about 3 meters and 0.41 meters in diameter. Luckily, our worker was not hurt.… READ MORE »

Posted by Alexandra Jacobsen

I was given the wonderful opportunity to return as a volunteer this year. I realized very quickly that only knowing a few words in Arabic from my last trip was not going to be enough this season. Archaeology itself is difficult but learning archaeology in Arabic is extremely challenging. I was fortunate to find two wonderful Egyptian archaeologists from the field school, Mohamed Elkhateeb and Hanan Mahmoud to give me lessons.

I am slowly building my vocabulary. There are many different dialects. Mohamed and Hanan are teaching me what you would call their “slang”. I write down everything I learn in my notebook and… READ MORE »

Posted by Mohamed El-Khattib

Being an outsider and not being able to communicate with the people around you makes you feel very alone. I know English but I am Egyptian and my native language is Arabic. I was given the opportunity to go to London and work with the British Museum last year. This experience gave me the realization that a person who does not know English and visits London would experience a lot of loneliness.

When I met Alex Jacobsen, I quickly realized, that she was an outsider. I felt that teaching her Arabic would change that. I did not want her to experience the feeling of loneliness that I associated with my trip to London. Being an… READ MORE »

Posted by Rabee Eissa, SCA archaeologist

One of the most interesting things that I noticed in my excavation, in what seems to be a storage building that dates to the Old Kingdom in Giza, is a concentration of ash. This ash surrounded circular mud brick silos that had been constructed beside each other forming an L. The ash itself was very dark, dense and soft. Thinking about the silos and the ash, I remembered my mother and her storage methods for the butter. She put the butter in a big aluminum jar and surrounded the jar with a layer of soft ash to prevent the ants from reaching the butter. My colleague Hussein Rekaby, an excavation supervisor, told me that… READ MORE »

Posted by Essam Shihab, SCA Archaeologist

Modern life provides clues to the past. I started the 2012 season by cleaning the houses in the north side of the Khentkawes causeway in order to record them. We defined the walls, exterior and interior, that form the houses, we defined the earlier phase of usage of the houses and the later phase that witnessed the modifications and additions, which are represented in the blocking events and new dividing walls. But I found something that made me think about modern life in the villages.

Frequently, in modern villages the level of the ground of the streets is higher than the entrances of the houses, and the people must do something to prevent… READ MORE »

Posted by Ashraf Abd el-Aziz and Dan Jones

The 2012 excavation season sees a return to the Gallery Complex at AERA’s main site of Heit el-Ghurab. The immense size of the complex, which is divided into four sets of elongated galleries, is a defining feature of the site. Previous excavation of parts of these enigmatic structures, by the AERA team over the years, has given rise to the idea that they could have been built as accommodations for the workers who built the Pyramids at Giza.

This is an exciting idea and one of our aims this season is to see whether we can find evidence to support this view. We also want to gain information on how these structures… READ MORE »

Posted by Ana Tavares, Joint Field Director

With the New Year we open a new excavation season in Giza. We have been preparing for weeks: equipment, archives, travel, and housing. Traditionally, we started on site soon after the Coptic Christmas Holiday on 7th of January. We spent a week removing the protective sand we had left at the end of our previous seasons from four excavation areas in readiness for the team. Saied Salah, our Reis (overseer of workmen), monitored and photographed the entire process, which ranges from removing modern thick, sand deposits, to light trowelling of delicate areas.

This season we have, essentially, an Egyptian team. This is the culmination of many seasons, when Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA)… READ MORE »