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Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Katie supervising work crews
Katie is supervising three crews at the southeast corner now. With Betsy down for a few days, there is no activity in the front of the temple until Saturday, so the work leveling this area and making test trenches can proceed more quickly. Here you see Katie's second qufti Imad and his pick men working to level out the corner, as Katie watches the men moving stone. The “siba” was moved to this area yesterday, as we showed, and today they are lifting large architectural slabs onto the outer wall. These temple parts are lying in the east ambulatory (exterior corridor of the temple used by priests to move behind the sanctuary areas), and they include large blocks that once roofed sections within the temple.
Siba crew lifting architectural slabs

 

Richard Fazzini visits Katie
Richard Fazzini comes back to visit Katie during the morning. She is standing on the outer wall where the blocks are being placed from the corridor to the east (right). Richard is pointing to the brick wall behind the rear of the temple and explaining what the Brooklyn mission learned about this area when did clearance twenty-five years ago.

 

Kent Severson and Ramadan tour the temple
Kent Severson is back with us briefly this year. His remarkable conservation skills, combined with those of Hiroko Kariya and Lotfi Hassan, have resulted in the great stone block restoration of the Thutmoside temple parts we retrieved last year. He is touring the temple with Ramadan, a conservator from the SCA (Supreme Council of Antiquities), who will work with him for our short remaining time. Kent will be conserving the bronze jug that was excavated last January behind the Sacred Lake . We'll be sure to show you a photo of his work on Saturday.

 

Workers in the morning at Mut

Katie's area directly behind the temple is really looking good now. It will be a fine area in which to build our “open air museum” of podia (mastabas). The workmen are moving quickly and efficiently now, and to add to it, the morning atmosphere of the Mut Temple precinct continues to be visible in Jay's photographs.

Area cleared for the Open-Air Museum

 

Katie's second trench

Katie's second trench, a larger one of around five by two meters, has only begun when some bricky surface appears, running east-west across the south side of the trench. It will be interesting to see whether there are the remains of a mud brick wall here, a meter or so north of the later (Roman) temple enclosure wall. We may also look for it on the east corridor.

Katie's second trench

 

Inspector Fawsy helps guide block over the wall
After the area is cleared
Our inspector from the SCA, Fawsy, has taken over the supervision of block moving, and helps guide the large pieces onto the east wall. By the end of the day, this area is nearly entirely cleaned, and more progress can be reported. Look at this picture from January 20 (below) of the same area! Can you believe the difference five days can make?
Picture from January 20, before clearing of area

 

 

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