Today all the squares are busy producing architectural remains – well almost all. Marina is reviewing how to take levels for her square, number 8, but she and her Qufti, Emad, are still waiting for bricks to appear. Instead they have a large burned layer with considerable amounts of pottery, probably indicating an ancient industrial reuse atop a brick surface that has been badly destroyed. The other three squares show some signs of this but largely escaped it.

Ashley is working with the Super Qufti Mahmoud Abady in square 9, and here regular mud bricks were visible from the first level. A wall is running east-west across the north end of the trench and another north south on the east side. A large sandstone column drum sits in the center of the “room” framed by the walls. In the northeast is a brick pattern with dark soil within and could indicate an oven beneath, but we will not know for a little while yet.

It is early yet, and Maggie is recording in her notebook how the day begins. She has an active trench with much pottery left on a surface. Despite it being only a ten centimeter level beneath the surface, the pottery is largely New Kingdom.

Chris and Katherine are working in the far south area with the large mud brick feature. Gaultier is also on their team. They are watching the mud brick structure that Abdullah is uncovering grow and grow and must extend the trench for him more than once. Meanwhile they also add another square south of where they have been working in the hope that we will find the edges of this large feature. Cross your fingers.