Today our real photographer, Jay, is under the weather, so yours truly is filling in. This will not make for exciting action, but I try to do my duty. Ashley, Meredith and Katie’s trenches needed an early morning shot showing the large expanses of brick ramp running north and south. We will be going down in square 10 (right) on the south to try to clarify the brick west of it, so now is a good time for photography.

Maggie continues to have a spread of very ancient pottery garbage, and she and her qufti Mohamed are removing some of the large near complete pots today. She has clearer brick features now next to which the pottery dumps are found. Maggie is documenting her square here, and frankly we rarely get a photo of her face, because she is always working – the energizer bunny.

Marina’s trench with so much discolored soil surface was always promising us a large pit of garbage. Now it is visible both from the surface (the large lighter area in the center of the square) and in the profile where the pottery sherds are visible in the baulk. On the perimeters, however, she has walls, and Emad is working to expose them.

Katherine and Gaultier are working with Chris in the south area where an enormous brick feature continues to defy definition. A shot looking south shows that we are on a slope, and we have this feature, at least partially, in all of them – but nowhere a clear edge or corner. The brick has been cut into in many areas – something you see all over Egypt where walls and other large structures were reused by later population for housing or work environments. We went down in one of those areas where the brick continues for some 15 meters, and the brick continues. Interestingly, these reuse areas also are found beneath the top brick layer, which all along appears to be only one brick thick. Beneath is an earlier brick structure (wall?).