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Monday, June 4, 2012

Jay is here! Hurrah for you all, because the photographs (a sample here showing much of our work) will be so much better than my own; the downside is that it takes me hours to go through them daily due to volume and their sheer beauty, so that slows the website a bit.

View of the site.

Maggie, Allie, and Monika.

Now that excavation is stopping in Square 7, Monika will have the large task of drawing the walls under Maggie’s supervision. She is starting the project, and Allie, who has already had this experience, is here to assist as she begins. Later you see Monika holding the plumb bob deep in the trench while Sean pulls the tape from above, and plots the location of her string lines on the lowest walls. Mervat and Mona talk with Monika and discuss how the work will be carried out.

Monika with tape measure.  Mervat and Mona talk with Monika.

Hannah taking elevations. Betsy and Hannah. 

We have a new member from Johns Hopkins today. Hannah Carney, 2012 graduate of KSAS, Art History major, has arrived, and we are very happy to have her with us. Hannah quickly learned how to take elevations and is moving around the site learning about our work. You see me showing her several human skull bones just found in Katie’s trench 12. Later in the day Hannah was assigned to be Jay’s photographic assistant.


Marina has a bad cold at present and is staying in the shade, here accompanied by Sheri and Maggie. Her gufti Abdel-Aziz has already come upon a round silo floor in the upper levels of her square 6 central.

Sheri, Marina and Maggie.
View of square 6 central.

 Gautier and Allie.

Today Gaultier is working on drawing features in square 9 so that we can continue to excavate further. Allie is assisting him at the same time that she works on the drawing for square 11 that she and Sean have labored on so long (there are walls going everywhere!). But today is Gaultier's day for reward, for a fascinating female figurine was found in trench 9. He proudly shows Maggie where it came from, and here it is in his hand.

Maggie.
Gaultier.
Gaultier and Maggie.   Female figurine from trench 9.

An early morning shot of square 12 shows Katie’s square where we have had thick hard magloob surfaces in most areas for the last five levels. On the east the gufti found human skull fragments that were heavily burned, but he has now found a larger piece of skull that has other bones near it.  Katie and he attempt to ascertain whether this is a burial or a group of scattered bones by carefully scraping. Upon removal it appears to be a juvenile skull, turned upside down and separated from the body. The flexed long bones, pelvis, spinal vertebrae, and ribs are all now visible, while a few upper body portions are beneath the baulk between squares 12 and 9. We have not removed these bones but covered them for extraction next winter, along with many others we are now finding.

View of square 12.
Uncovering skull and bone fragments.

The glamorous finds of the day are Meredith’s in the newish square east 13. She had asked me  to change the number to 14 for good luck, but I am glad that we did not. Today from there we have mixed in discarded pottery next to a probable granary floor or work surface, an Egyptian blue object (not yet identified) with faience inlay naming Amenhotep III by prenomen, and nearby it a dark blue faience ring bezel of Akhenaten, also by prenomen! Everyone crowds in to see them, and here they are! (Not cleaned yet). 

Sheri, Meredith and Katie.
Close view of finds. Meredith with finds.

 

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