The Amarna Royal Tombs Project - Dig diary 1998
by Paul Sussman


The Amarna Royal Tombs Project

Day 27, 12 December 1998

As I walked up into the Valley of the Kings this morning Jiro came rushing up to me.

'We've found a tomb! he said excitedly. 'Very big tomb.'

'No!'

'Yes! Maybe tomb of Nefertiti!'

I dropped my bag and sprinted up the path, heart pounding, explosions of dust billowing around my feet. Tourists looked at me as if I were mad, but I didn't take any notice. I had to see that tomb! Nefertiti we've found you!

Only when I reached the site and found everyone carrying on as normal did I realise the whole thing was a joke.

'Very funny, Jiro,' I huffed, annoyed to have been caught out so easily.

'Yes,' he agreed, chuckling. 'Very funny!'

So, no tomb of Nefertiti today. It's still been a good day, though. We've unearthed all sorts of interesting things. And when I say 'we' I mean we, because once again I've been allowed to do some troweling and brushing.

I should have learnt by now that the days which start the slowest are always the days which turn out to be the most dramatic. Aside from Jiro's little prank-feel free to send in suggestions as to how I can get my own back!-nothing at all occurred till about 10am. Then, however, all sorts of things happened.

The first was that Nubi unearthed a beautiful limestone ostracon with five eyes painted on it in black ink. There was something hypnotic about it, the way the eyes all stared at you as though out of the distant past.

Geoffrey thinks it's probably from the late Ramessid period (i.e. 20th Dynasty), and once belonged to a trainee artist. The teacher would have painted one eye on the stone, and the pupil would then have practised copying it. I could imagine him sitting here in the Valley 3,000 years ago, the sun blazing down, the ring of chisels in the air, painstakingly copying his master's original. I wonder what his name was, and what happened to him, and whether he turned out to be a good artist and worked on one of the tombs in the Valley?

Several other ostraka were also found, including one with a list of names written in hieratic-perhaps an ancient roll call-as well as a whole basketful of potsherds. We'd clearly hit a fruitful level, and I pestered Peter until he allowed me to come down into the excavation trench and get involved myself.

'Brushing' and 'trowelling' are two of the most basic, and important archaeological techniques. What you do is to scrape and brush very carefully over the surface of the ground, picking up any objects that look interesting, however small, and placing them in plastic sachets. It's hard, dusty work-by the time I stopped I looked as if I'd been dunked in a sack of flour-but great fun. There is always the possibility you might turn up something amazing.

Today I found lots of bits of charcoal from an ancient fire, four fragments of bronze, possibly from an ancient tool, and, most exciting of all, two pieces of mummy-wrapping. On closer inspection the first of these proved to be a piece of modern cloth. Mohsen is sure, however, that the second one is original. I was elated.

© Amarna Royal Tombs Project, 1998-2002