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.

The digitizing process

Besides working with our new excavation and survey data, this year I was also researching George Reisner’s work in the Menkaure Valley Temple in the 1930s to try to produce maps illustrating his phasing. I often found myself frustrated and wishing that his maps could have been slightly clearer about some things mentioned in the text…but I also found myself thinking how amazing it is that this work is still so useful and his archive is still being poured over 80 years later.

I can only hope that 80 years from now some researcher is sorting through the massive amount of data that we have accumulated this year and thanking (and cursing) us for it as well. Future researchers, you’re welcome (and I’m sorry)…but I hope you find the 2012 season as interesting as I did.

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 discoveries.

Pyramids shrouded by the morning mist behind the Giza Lab

My time in the lab is spent here at my microscope.

End of the Season: Our remaining lab team members

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 cannot excavate the entire gallery in a season” and even Dr. Mark Lehner was unsure telling me “Frankly, it is a lot of work for one person”. But I felt I could do it. In 4 months I excavated GIII-4 with only the four workmen and people keep asking me, “How did you excavate the entire gallery alone in one season?”

Madient Het el-Gourab: GIII-4; 10 years ago

We are very pleased to be back at the galleries

2002 was also the first season excavated in RAB. Usually funny things happen every season to change our previous plan. In 2002, (in the middle of the season) we faced a challenge when the Egyptian government decided to build a cement security wall all around the Giza plateau to protect it. So they cut a north-south trench to the west of the town of Nazlet el-Saman, which lies just to the east of Madient Het el-Gourab. We had a long trench along the eastern edge of our site. So we dove in and identified the remains of the Eastern Town for 120 m. We had to save this valuable information before it was lost forever. The company building the wall said “you have only a few days to finish your recording” because recording the archaeology was not in their plan. Fortunately, the Giza inspectorate supported our work and pushed the company to leave the trench open for a couple of weeks for us to save the information.

Both of GIII-4 and GIII-3 before our excavation this season

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. The archeologists use the hole to read the stratigraphy and the limestone foundation of the temple as a shofi hole. This pit revealed to us the courses of lime stone core block.

Two archaeologists cleaning the pit hole

Ahmed Ezz and Hassan Ramdan excavating the fill of this pit

Also, my colleague Mohamed Elkhateeb was working at Abydos when one of his workers fell down a hole exposing a Greco Roman tomb.

Bad things can sometimes be useful.

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 Mohammad has graciously given up a few of his lunch breaks to “test” me on my progress. Learning Arabic is not required since everyone on the project speaks English, but I feel learning a language can teach you about the people and their cultural heritage. Egypt especially has such a rich history; you can learn so much by just having a conversation with an Egyptian. I am truly grateful for my teachers!

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 archaeologist, you have to be able to communicate with workers, who cannot speak any English. Most importantly, some of the tools we use don’t have English names such as “Mukteef.” You must know these words to work on our sites.

The way I teach Alex is by writing out the sounds of the Arabic words in English. She writes these down in her notebook. Learning how to write Arabic is completely different from being able to speak in Arabic. We decided its best to start with speaking it rather than writing for now. I constantly quiz her everyday to encourage her to use Arabic rather than English to communicate; this is the fastest way to learn. Alex is trying to solve the problem of understanding the workers and working on site by learning local Arabic. This concept can be applied in any place around the world.

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 the people in his village near Aswan still use the same idea in their construction of storage silos. They start by spreading ash horizontally, then they put clay to make the base of the silo before building the silo itself. Hanan Mahmoud, hearing Hussein’s story, told me that she exposed a layer of ash deposit under a sequence of round mud brick silos when she excavated House E to the East of Queen Khentkawes tomb at Giza. We follow some of our ancestors’ daily life behaviors and customs.

Excavation the ash around the silos, view to the west. Photo by Yasser Mahmoud

Overview of the silo building, excavation and recording. View to the west. Photo by Yasser Mahmoud

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.

Recording House C. Photographed by Essam Shihab

House C in the Khentkawes Town, cleared and ready for recording. View to the west. Photographed by Essam Shihab

Sketch plan of House C in the Khentkawes Town, by Mohamed Abdel Basset.

Between Wednesday, February 15th and Saturday, February 18th, Ana will take part in a series of events, including:

AERA Co-Field Director Ana Tavares

• School group lectures – explaining archaeological techniques to students grades K-12
• Teacher and Member workshops
• Café Scientifique discussion, Excavating for Information: Uncovering Egypt
• Behind the Scenes Lost Egypt exhibit tours

The Lost Egypt exhibit showcases some of AERA’s work conducted over the years in Egypt. Ana, who helped develop the exhibit, will lead the behind the scene tours and provide insight into archaeological methods and the materials on display.

On Saturday, February 18th, Ana will also deliver the keynote address for the Girls In Science Event, an initiative by the SCI to help empower girls in science, technology, engineering and math and encourage their pursuit of these careers. The keynote address, as well as the Café Scientifique discussion, are open to the public.

For more information on the Scientist in Residence program and the Girls in Science initiative, go to www.sciowa.org/engage.

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Lost Egypt: Ancient Secrets, Modern Science, an interactive exhibition presenting science in archaeology, travels to science museums around the United States. Produced by the Center of Science and Industry (COSI) in Columbus, Ohio and built by the Science Museum of Minnesota in cooperation with the Science Museum Exhibit Collaborative, the exhibit conveys how science recovers and reconstructs many “lost” aspects of ancient Egypt life, from the use of geophysical survey in finding sites to facial reconstructions from human skeletons and mummies.

For more information on the Lost Egypt exhibit, visit COSI’s web site or go to www.LostEgypt.org.

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.

Gallery III.4 2002 (facing south) with the team testing the idea that the Gallery was accommodation for workers (photo by Mark Lehner).

Map of the main site Heit el-Ghurab.

The Gallery team warming up (Photo by Dan Jones 2012)