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)

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.

The Giza plateau viewed from the southern knoll, view to the northwest. The Khentkawes and Menkaure Valley Temple excavation areas are on the bottom left beyond the modern cemetery and trees. Photo by Yasser Mahmoud.

This season we have, essentially, an Egyptian team. This is the culmination of many seasons, when Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) archaeologists have joined the AERA Giza team, working side by side with foreigners. This process was accelerated with the AERA/ARCE* field-schools, which we have been running since 2005. The Egyptian graduates, in archaeology, survey, ceramics, illustration, osteology, became teachers and now run aspects of the field-school themselves. This season, just two months after we completed the Mit Rahina Beginners’ field-school, we are running a ‘training-on-the-job’ programme for Giza SCA Inspectors.

Hanan Mahmoud, in charge of the excavations in the Menkaure Valley Temple, explains the area to her team. Photo by Yasser Mahmoud.

We are excavating in both in the workers settlement Heit el Ghurab (Lost City) and in the Khentkawes/Menkaure area. In the workers settlement we investigate Gallery III.3. We hypothesize that the galleries are barracks for housing the pyramid builders (http://www.aeraweb.org/lost-city-project/royal-guard/). Exactly ten years ago, Ashraf Abdel Aziz excavated one gallery in its entirety (http://www.aeraweb.org/publications/monographs/ ). This season we investigate the adjacent gallery to test our ideas about the construction sequence and the elements which constitute a gallery.

Gallery GIII.4, excavated in 2002 by Ashraf Abdel Aziz (sitting on the left) has enough room to house 40 workers. View to the north. Photo by Mark Lehner.

In the upper town the recording of Houses A, B and C, excavated by Selim Hassan in the 1930s, would bring to near completion our meticulous recording of the Khetkawes settlement. In the lower town we investigate the stratigraphic link between the Silo building and the basin.

First day - the team arrives on site as workers remove the sand protecting the Silo Building. The Khentkawes basin is now filled with water due to the rising water table. In the background, closer to the Queen’s stepped monument, is our mudbrick reconstruction of a priest’s house. View to the west. Photo by Yasser Mahmoud.

Four imposing alabaster column bases in the vestibule of the Menkaure Valley Temple. The team is recording at the end of last season in March 2011. View to the northeast. Photo By Mark Lehner

What a great way to start the year!

*American Research Centre in Egypt (ARCE)

After an intense eight weeks of excavation, we reached the end of the Mit Rahina field school. So, just like the palm date pickers at the end of the harvest season, we move on…

Kom el-Fakhry site as we left it, protected with sand. Photo by Saied Talbeah.

In August, the date pickers set up their reeds enclosures in the ruin field of Memphis for the harvest season. These simple, rectangular enclosures are built entirely of reeds with palm logs uprights. They are open and have one single entrance with a reed screen for privacy. Inside, the whole area, open to the skies, is spread with reed mats, on which different types of dates are drying. Sun ripening the dates draws out the sugar and makes for a beautiful patch work of colors: from yellow, through orange to dark red and rich brown.

Our neighbours: a small boy inside the reed enclosure, where his family dry dates and lives during the harvest season. Photo by Saied Talbeah.

Each family and household animals (often one water buffalo (gamousa), one horse or donkey, one or two goats and sheep) lives for a few months in the enclosure; the children scampering around, the women cooking and living inside, the men sleeping across the entrance wrapped in blankets.

Our neighbours: activity outside the reed enclosures. Photo by Mark Lehner.

In late October, at the end of the season, when the dates have ripened and have been sold, the whole family packs, dismantles the reed enclosure, and moves back to their own fields with their livestock. Within a few days there is hardly any trace of their presence.

The northeast corner of the site with a complex sequence of rooms and installations. Photo by Saied Talbeah.

In early November, we have also reached the end of the Memphis season. We have intensively drawn, photographed and excavated part of the Middle Kingdom settlement in Kom el-Fakhry. The sequence of buildings, floors, and domestic installations is very intricate. This part of the city may have been built on an ancient island, the lack of lateral space forcing the inhabitants to build vertically. They often re-use earlier walls, creating a compressed, and complex, stratigraphic sequence. This created a challenging teaching environmental. But the team enjoyed the archaeology and they all would like to return to the site in a future season.

Final day on site; last drawings and photos. Photo by Saied Talbeah.

At Mit Rahina, we run a Beginners’ field school. This is part of the AERA/ARCE field school programme which includes Advanced, Salvage, and Analysis and Publication Field-schools (Link). The graduates practiced the basics of archaeological survey, excavation techniques, site recording and illustration, photography, and burial excavation. They have had an introduction to the study of ancient ceramics, archaeological illustration, object recording, conservation, animal bone (faunal) and archeo-botany (flora).

Learning to draw objects. Photo Yasser Mahmoud.

We also spent almost two weeks completing the final recording of the site and writing the final report, known as the DSR – a Data Structure Report. The DSR, based on the reports submitted in contract archaeology in the UK, provides a comprehensive format for assembling the archaeological data. It forces us to check carefully all the forms, drawings and the matrix (a diagram showing the sequence of archaeological features). We then packed the excavation equipment, computers, and library, ready to move back to our Centre in Giza.

Covering the site with sand to protect the archaeology. Photo by Saied Talbeah.

Finally we spent quite a few days covering the site with sand. But why bring in sand to cover the site when we will have to remove it again, if we return for further excavation? Well, backfilling is a basic archaeological obligation. We need to leave the archaeology protected. A site should only be left exposed if the structures have been consolidated and prepared for visitors. With mudbrick structures the best protection is to bury them in a protective layer of clean sand.

On Thursday 3rd of November, students and teachers assembled at the SCA offices in Zamalek for a graduation ceremony. The field school was addresses by SCA officials, as well as representatives of ARCE and USAID. The students were honored to receive their graduation certificates from the new director of the Supreme Council.

Some of the graduates and teachers of the Mit Rahina Beginners’ Field School. Photo by Saied Talbeah.

We then had the traditional photo sessions on the front steps of the Zamalek office. Amongst excited cries of ‘FS3 only’, ‘the Alex team here’ and ‘now the drawing team’, we took endless rounds of photos. After exchanging contact details and the web address for the field school group we said our good byes. Little by little small groups of students and teachers left for their homes and the Feast holiday (Eid el Adha).

Photo by Yasser Mahmoud.

… so like the palm date pickers of Memphis, at the end of the season we pack up and leave, with hope that we will be back again next season.