Posted by Steve LaPidus

I have spent the last six weeks as a volunteer on the AERA Giza Plateau Project with some of the most interesting and knowledgeable people I have ever met. I went on a site tour set up for the team early on in the schedule. We had a chance to walk through the sites, to listen to presentations and to ask questions on the project’s operations. It was easy to understand why there was a requirement by the Egyptian Government and AERA to submit your security paperwork six months in advance. It is obvious how much thought goes into the selection of the team members because there are multiple openings on the project and for each… READ MORE »

Anubis was the ancient Egyptian god of embalming. He is often pictured on tomb walls attending to the deceased during mummification. The inspiration for the god’s identity probably came from the wild dogs that roamed the ancient cemeteries.

The AERA osteo team uncovered a Late Period (747-525 BC) burial this week with five well-preserved canines. They are actually better preserved than many of the Late Period human burials.

These are not the first Late Period animal mummies (if we can call them that; they appear to be mummified) but they are the first from the cemetery at the Lost City of the Pyramids. Experienced as the diggers here are, the dogs generated quite a bit of excitement on the team.… READ MORE »

With her blond, surfer-girl looks and vernacular, it would be easy to mistake Jessica Kaiser for just another cute denizen of the California beach … until she starts talking osteo-archaeology.

Osteo-archaeology is the archaeology of human and animal remains, particularly skeletal remains. Jessica is completing her PhD based on her research of the Late Period (747-525 BC) burials that overlie the pyramid settlement at Giza. Born in Sweden, she lives in California and speaks flawless Californian, along with Swedish, Arabic, and other languages.

Jessica wants to examine the origins and diet of the people buried in the LP cemetery. Were they from the area or were they buried here because Giza was a pilgrimage site? She also has done a… READ MORE »

Driving back to the hotel from the main dig site today, I was reminded of two features of the daily commute during my month digging with the AERA team in 2004: driving through the crowded suburb of Nazlet es Saman past the Sphinx and hearing three or four languages spoken at once in the microbus. French, Polish, Swedish, English, and Arabic were the interwoven music of drive time.

Today I heard almost exclusively Arabic because I was on the bus with Egyptian field school students.

All of these students work for Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities as inspectors. Most of the 1,500 or so inspectors in Egypt are trained in Egyptology, the study of the language and culture of ancient… READ MORE »

The excavations at Giza are off to a roaring start. One of the challenges of excavating the Lost City at Giza is that there are hundreds of Late Period burials (747-525 BC; see A Girl and Her Goddess) above the 4^th Dynasty layers.

They’re fascinating to study but they slow us down, as each one must be excavated and recorded. The osteology team, led by Jessica Kaiser, is very busy, as you’ll see from the excerpts below of team member Scott Haddow’s field report of but two of many excavated burials.

The burials mostly cover an area of our main dig site near the Wall of the Crow. We also find them in the… READ MORE »