The Amarna Royal Tombs Project
- Dig diary 2002
by Paul Sussman
The Amarna Royal Tombs Project
I knew it was going to happen. It was as inevitable as night following day, and bears going to the lavatory in the woods that the moment I left Egypt the team would discover something really wonderful in the Valley of the Kings.
While myself, Andrew and Dave the Camera all flew home seven days ago, the rest of the team - Geoffrey, Mohsen, Yumiko, Ana, Ed and Catharine remained for a further week of digging.
The idea of returning to England while work continued in the Valley was not one I especially relished. But I had unavoidable commitments in England, and anyway I reasoned that all the team would be doing in the final week was tidying up the site and tying up a few loose ends.
It is far too late in the season for them to make any significant discoveries, I thought to myself. An assessment that, as with all my assessments, was proved spectacularly wrong when, the morning after I arrived home, I received a 7.30 a.m. phone call from Nick.
They've found a lintel!
It sounds dreadful, selfish, low, despicable, but my heart sank. Paul Sussman, the man who worked his socks off in the Valley of the Kings for four years and then went home the day before they found a new tomb. Ha, ha, ha!
Unfortunately, Nick couldn't give me much information. (he himself had got the news from Yumiko, by mobile phone.) All he could tell me was that while clearing down the vertical gebel face on Site B, the workers had come across an area of neatly dressed stone with what looked like the corner of a doorway cut into it. Even as we spoke they were clearing away rubble to try and reveal more of it.
Do you think it is?
I don't know, said Nick, sounding infuriatingly calm. We'll just have to wait and see.
The next few hours were an agony. I tried to get on with some work, but simply couldn't concentrate. All I could think of was what was happening in the Valley of the Kings. I tried to picture it, to transport myself there so that I was standing at the top of the excavation trench gazing down at the workers beneath as they steadily cleared away rubble to reveal more of the opening. What was it? What? What?
The answer finally came mid-afternoon. Not a tomb entrance, as I had feared and hoped, but rather a small votive shrine, about 20 centimetres (c. 8 inches) across, 50 centimetres (c. 20 inches) long and 20 centimetres deep, with painted images at the rear of Amun and Re-Harakhte sitting back to back and four other gods (including a rare image of the god Seth) lined up beneath them.
This was an extraordinary discovery. Not as overtly spectacular as a lost burial, perhaps, but still a rare and dramatic find, and one of the most exciting we have made in four years of work in the Valley of the Kings. It was subsequently compounded by the discovery, within the shrine, of an exquisite painted ostracon in red and black depicting the serpent-goddess Meretseger (the guardian goddess of the Qurn).
The final week of excavating and I know this because I kept badgering the team by phone for details was spent clearing, cleaning and drawing the new discovery. (the latter task was done by Will Schenck, a brilliant American draughtsman attached to Chicago House and generously loaned for the occasion by their Director, Ray Johnson).
It seems that the shrine was a part of the ancient workers settlement we had discovered earlier in the season. What is interesting is that it is possible to discern different phases in its cutting and painting, indicating that its shape and decoration and accessibility developed over time.
Another interesting point is that Pru the skeleton or rather the bones that we nicknamed Pru — might not be human. Could it be that this was some sort of offering? Or merely someone's lunch?
As always happens, time ran out before all the questions could be answered. Even as I write, the rest of the team are on their way home (or to Giza in Mohsen and Ana's case, to work with Mark Lehner).
Hopefully, however, we will return later in the year to find out more about shrine and its immediate surroundings, and to explore more of that uniquely rich archaeological site known as the Valley of the Kings. The events of the last week have shown just how much there is still to find there.
I'm not going risk any predictions as to precisely what we might find, but I will guarantee one thing at least. Next season there is no way I am going home early. On the contrary, I am going to set up camp in the excavation trench and remain there for at least a week after everyone else has gone, just in case!
Insh'allah, see you later in the year.
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