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


The Amarna Royal Tombs Project

Day 30, 15 December 1998

Today was our last proper day of work in the Valley of the Kings. After over three weeks of excavating the expedition is now drawing to a close. There's an almost end-of-term feel in the air; a definite sense of things winding down. Jiro has already left, as have Patrick and Steve, the BBC film crew. In just a couple of days Geoffrey, Nick and I will be flying back to England (Mohsen and Peter are staying on in Egypt for a while). I feel as if I'm slowly waking up from a long and wonderful dream.

I was hoping we might make just one more exciting find before we left the Valley, and about half an hour before work was due to stop today it looked as if my prayers had been answered.

Mohsen, after much pestering on my part, had allowed me to do a last bit of gentle brushing at the very back of the site, close to the rock-face. As I carefully swept at the floor of our excavation area with a paint brush-archaeologists use these when they want to brush very carefully and delicately-a shape began to emerge in the dust.

It was semi-circular, and a lovely red colour, with small, finely-cut grooves in it. It looked rather like part of a bracelet or a necklace and, convinced I had uncovered some priceless item of ancient jewellery, I called Mohsen over to have a look. He got down on his knees and peered at my discovery.

'It's........'

Yes? One of Nefertiti's necklaces? The lost jewels of Tutankhamun? Some burial item from the forgotten tomb of Kiya?

'.......a fish spine.'

Oh well, you can't win 'em all.

Mohsen and Peter still have some drawing and mapping to do on site. Nubi, Shahat and the workmen, meanwhile-all of whom have treated me with the warmth and generosity so common amongst Egyptians-have a couple of days work left building a wall across the top of the site, and shoring up the sides of the excavation trench with sandbags in case they collapse whilst we're away. In terms of actual digging, however, the expedition ended at 1pm today. I felt rather sad. I wanted it to go on and on.

I've been chatting with the team about what their favourite discoveries were of the last three weeks. For Nick it was the limestone ostracon with a beautiful winged sphinx painted on it. Jiro chose the ancient graffiti on the back wall of our site, Geoffrey the whole complex of workmen's huts, and Mohsen the remains of an ancient post-hole in the corner of one of the huts, from which he was able to deduce just what they would have looked like when they were standing. Peter, meanwhile, couldn't decide.

'Everything!' he said eventually, after I'd badgered him for an answer. 'Holy-moly, you journalists never give up!'

At 1pm today I climbed up out of the Valley of the Kings-taking paths that have been in use since ancient times-and continued upwards to the top of El-Qurn, the pyramid-shaped mountain that towers over the Valley at its southern end. Some Egyptologists think this peak was the reason the Valley was chosen as a burial ground in the first place-so the pharaohs of the New Kingdom could rest beneath a pyramid, just as their illustrious predecessors had done in the Old and Middle Kingdoms, so many centuries before.

I sat at the very summit of the mountain, the wind caressing my face, gazing down at the Valley beneath. Its tomb entrances, so big and imposing on the ground, seemed tiny from that height, like the doors in a doll's house.

© Amarna Royal Tombs Project, 1998-2002