Posted by Amelia Fairman

This is the second week into our attempt at examining the Menkaure Valley Temple, last seen with archaeological eyes by George Reisner, one hundred and one years ago.  Excavation goals aside, re-visiting a site for which there are countless photographs, backed up by (geo-rectified) plans should be relatively simple…  Should.

At this point I should state that, as a rule, I don’t judge previous fieldwork by the archaeological standards of today.  There are many different ways of digging and recording/excavation methods have advanced dramatically over the past century.

HOWEVER, I would be lying if I said I hadn’t cursed Reisner’s name repeatedly over the past week for one simple reason: his  lack of backfilling of the… READ MORE »

Posted by Mohsen Kamel and Ana Tavares, joint-Field Directors

We have just started excavations again at Giza, after a hiatus last year. During this busy hiatus we prepared material for publications, held an Analysis and Publication Field-School in Giza and a second Salvage Archaeology Field-School in Luxor.

This season we are excavating in both concession areas at Giza – the Workers Settlement (a.k.a the Lost City, a.k.a. Heit el-Ghurab) and the town of Queen Khentkawes. Both sites date from the mid 4th Dynasty (circa 2529 -2471 B.C.) although the town of Queen Khentkawes and the village inside the Valley Temple of Menkaure seem to have functioned until the end of the Old Kingdom (late 6th Dynasty, circa 2154 B.C. Click… READ MORE »

A small group of us had dinner with Mark Lehner last night and I caught up with him at the dig site this morning. One of the fascinating stories he told today was about the apparent pattern of occupation, abandonment, and then reoccupation of the Menkaure valley temple (MVT) and perhaps the Khentkawes town (KKT) as well.

AERA is re-excavating areas that Reisner and Hassan both recorded. In general, those researchers, however, did not do an in depth study of the phasing of the two sites, which was not common in their era (although Reisner did two phases in MVT). Phasing refers to an examination of the relationships between stratigraphy or layers of archaeology to determine when structures were built… READ MORE »