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


The Amarna Royal Tombs Project

Day 8, 24 November 1998

Today we finally began work in the Valley of the Kings.
For Nick it's the culmination of years of painstaking research, and although he played it cool, I could tell he was very excited.

"So how are you feeling?" I asked him.

"Oh," he shrugged non-committally. "Pretty good."

For people whose impressions of archaeology are based solely on films like Raiders of the Lost Ark, the reality might come as a bit of a shock. It's not nearly as glamorous you'd think. In fact it's a long, slow, laborious process, quite unlike the early days of Egyptology when people simply dug holes looking for treasure (the 19th Century Italian archaeologist, Giovanni Belzoni, discoverer of the tomb of Seti l, used to knock down the doorways of tombs with a battering ram). Nowadays excavators are far more technical and precise, examining and logging every inch of the ground they are digging and literally looking under every rock for evidence of the past.

Equipment - compass, metal stakes, measuring tape etc

"Even the tiniest fragment of evidence is useful," explained Geoffrey. "So it's important to be as accurate as possible."

Nick, Peter and Mohsen surveying the site 

Before we can even start digging Peter and Mohsen have to map-out the site. This involves hammering a series of iron stakes into the side of the slope. These will then be joined with string to form a grid of squares. Dividing up the site in this way makes it far easier to survey, and to accurately log anything that might be found. It's essential work, although like I said, hardly the stuff of action movies.

(Talking of movies, a BBC film crew have arrived to film the dig. There's only a couple of them-Steve on camera, and Patrick on sound. They seem like a good laugh. Patrick, with his long hair and earrings, looks like the sixth member of Status Quo, although he probably won't thank me for saying so. Steve seems perfectly nice, although he does keep telling an excruciatingly dull story about a screw that once broke on his camera).

Most of the work today was done by Mohsen and Peter. The rest of us squatted in the shade of a wall in the middle of the Valley, eating bananas and watching them toiling in the heat. I don't think I've ever been anywhere where the sun burns so fiercely. And this is the Egyptian winter. I'd hate to think what it's like at the height of summer.

View into Tomb of Ramesses VI 

In the early afternoon I popped down for a quick look at the tomb of Ramesses VI, which is right beside the area we are digging. Ramesses VI (1151-1143 BC) was a pharaoh of the 20th Dynasty. By the time he came to the throne Egypt was no longer as prosperous and powerful as it had been a hundred years previously. You wouldn't have guessed from his tomb, however.

Paintings in tomb of Ramesses VI

So, the dig's started at last. Everyone's in very high spirits. And tomorrow, according to Nick, we're actually going to begin moving some earth. I feel, in my own little way, like I'm a part of something very significant. It's not everybody, after all, who gets a chance to excavate in the Valley of the Kings, the most famous and romantic archaeological site in the world. I wonder if we'll actually find anything tomorrow, even just a few bits of ancient pottery? Fingers crossed!

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