The Amarna Royal Tombs Project
- Dig diary 2002
by Paul Sussman
The Amarna Royal Tombs Project
If I were back in England on a Sunday morning I would be rolling out of bed at noon and stumbling downstairs for a full English breakfast with double black pudding to drive away the appalling hangover I had incurred as a result of a Saturday night on the tiles.
Since I am in Egypt excavating, however, I am up at 5 a.m. for a swift breakfast of cucumber slices, goat's cheese and coffee, and then out for a ten-hour day in the Valley of the Kings. Perverse as it might sound, the latter option makes me infinitely happier (if considerably more exhausted).
The main events on site continue to be focused on KV56/Site C. (Well, that's the way I see it - I'm sure the rest of the team would disagree.)
On Site A, which is being supervised by Andrew, the men are still digging downwards through tons of loose rubble, using sandbags to shore up the wall of debris that has built up at the south end of the site, steadily moving down towards the ancient levels. (Archaeology is, in many ways, the closest you can get to being in a time machine - you literally move through time, or at least the physical remains of time, from the present back into the distant past.)
One site B, likewise, the men are digging downwards beside the bridge - they are now about a metre and a half (about five feet) below the level of the tourist path. Ana grabbed a touria and got stuck in as well, something the men seemed to find both amusing and disconcerting. Neither Sites A nor B produced any amazing
finds - a lot of pottery, a few fragments of faience inlay, and that's about it.
On Site C, meanwhile - MY SITE! - we finally started removing debris from the shaft. There is at least a metre and a half of debris to remove, and since most of the top part of this is modern, we abandoned our trowels and resorted to careful touria-ing to speed things up a bit (everything is, of course, sieved up top).
Almost immediately, however, it became evident that although this metre-thick upper layer was full of modern intrusion, it also contained numerous ancient objects as well. In order not to miss anything, therefore, we reverted to trowels, a policy that was rewarded by the discovery of several faience beads, a length of mummy bandage and a couple of pieces of faience inlay.
Other discoveries included an old shoe, the remains of a wickerwork basket, a 19th century plate (made in Holland), fifteen corks, a shotgun cartridge and part of an English-language newspaper - the Egyptian Gazette - dating to 1931. This latter find, although hardly the greatest in the history of Egyptian archaeology, nonetheless excited me, since in 1931 Howard Carter was still working in the Valley and it is possible that maybe this was a paper the great man himself had discarded. That's the interesting thing about excavating in the Valley - you are not only unearthing things about the ancient past, but also about other discoverers.
Midway through the afternoon we had a visit from Sabri Abd el-Aziz, the former Director of Upper Egypt now promoted to Cairo, and Mohammed El-Bialy, Director of the Theban West Bank. It was great to see them - they are unfailingly friendly (unlike English officials, who always seem to sense something suspicious about me and give me a hard time as a result).
Mr El- Bialy told me how a few days ago a German archaeologist has fallen into a shaft tomb while walking over the hills.
"When I heard an archaeologist had fallen into a tomb I was very worried because I thought it was you," he said. "I know you are always walking in the hills."
Very touching.
It has been decided that we will work until 5 p.m. every day so that we can get more done. Today I finished in KV56 at 4 p.m., and then spent a fascinating hour up in the finds magazine with Ed Johnson, our photographer and conservator, who helped me go through the ten bags of pottery I had removed from the shaft of KV56.
I know absolutely s*d all about pottery, so it was fascinating to watch someone who does explain which pieces it is worth keeping and which should be discarded and why.
"This is a body sherd. It tells you nothing. No point saving it... This is modern brick - rubbish... This is part of a rim. Possibly interesting. We'll put it to one side... This looks like part of an ancient bread mould. Definitely worth a look."
I love hanging around with people who teach you things, who help expand your mind. That said, Ed does have a way of putting you in your place.
"Paul, I cannot believe you've kept all this useless pottery. You are the most anal person I have ever met!"
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