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Elaine with Brick  Baked Brick with Stamped Cartouches
Elaine today found a baked brick at the southeast corner of her square, on a floor. The excitement mounted since the brick is stamped with cartouches (the rings that contain the names of rulers). The brick turns out to be stamped with the name of the High Priest of Amun Menkheperre of the Twenty-first Dynasty, ca. 1000 B.C. He was the ruler of the Theban region in the period, as were other High Priests of Amun at the time, and it is in his rule that baked bricks seem to make their appearance. By the way, The JHU Archaeological Collection has a complete baked brick stamped for Menkheperre. Come see it!
Finding the Ramesses III Head
Okay, the day we hoped for (but didn’t dare admit it) has come. We have the head of that beautiful statue of Ramesses III found a week or more ago. It is beneath the floor of the back sanctuary of the temple of Ramesses III and, like most of the pieces retrieved, in excellent condition.
Displaying the Head of Ramesses III
Qufti Fikhry and his crew display the head of the statue of Ramesses III they found this morning. The statue is of the king wearing an elaborate pleated shawl and kilt and the so-called Double Crown (Upper and Lower Egypt combined) atop a round wig. The king holds a small statue of a god before him. That god is mummiform and could be the ithyphallic Amun-Re or Osiris, since we know there is a cult of that god of the next world in the Ramesses III temple.
Close View of the Head
The head of the statue of Ramesses III in greywacke, a sedimentary stone quarried in the Wadi Hammamat, some 40 miles from Thebes. The statue appears to be one of the most beautiful ever made for Ramesses III, and it was the cult statue for the temple, because it is actually depicted in relief in the back sanctuary’s statue niche. Chuck Van Siclen began work here to look for earlier New Kingdom, but this has been illuminating about the temple as it stands. Hooray! Because we have found so many pieces, we will be able to reconstruct all but the feet and one shoulder of the statue.
Elizabeth Drawing the Bricks  View of the Trench
Elizabeth working in her and Violaine’s square to draw the bricks that have recently emerged. Elizabeth is atop the unusual plaster or mortar surface under which the bricks run. Today we removed the mortar area, and there are more brick walls running beneath it. The area outside the gateway is just about to be addressed. Tomorrow.
Yasmin's Square, Below the Gate Level
In Yasmin’s square she is below the level of the gate itself (Twenty-fifth Dynasty, ca. 700 B.C.) and on the south side is an arc of stones. Within that arc was a quasi-circular area of sand, and a second one just next to it emerged today. We believe that these are tree pits and are now looking for organic material to appear beneath the sand. Look at the left side of the square across from the stones. The soil is lighter and beginning to form a roundish pattern. Later in the day after this picture was taken, that light soil became clearer and outlined a circle. Tomorrow we expect to have a pit of some type. We’ll see what it becomes.

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