The Amarna Royal Tombs Project
- Dig diary 1999
by Paul Sussman
The Amarna Royal Tombs Project
Today was one of those days where you really struggle to muster any energy. I didn't get to sleep till past eleven last night after a farewell dinner for Piers and Jenny, and felt very snoozy when I woke this morning. It would have been better if there had been loads to do on site to keep me active. As it was it was another day like yesterday with very little archaeological action, and I spent most of the morning languishing beside the large sieve, struggling to keep awake. The workmen continued to extend our site southwards, dumping basket after basket of rubble into the tractor trailer, which, when it was full, is taken down and out of the Valley and emptied on an area of waste ground near Howard Carter's former house. I sieved the rubble the men brought up, but found very little: an ostracon with an indecipherable design on it, a tiny faience bead, and some broken fragments of pottery, probably modern.
To keep ourselves amused Jenny, Ian, William and I wandered along the cliffs on the west/north side of the valley looking at graffiti. There are a lot of ancient doodlings here, as well as some more modern ones. What particularly interested us were the initials HC, which appeared in several places, accompanied by the date 1917. This was Howard Carter, who in December 1917 returned to dig in the Valley (Carnarvon gained the concession for the Valley in 1915, but it seems Carter spent the first season exploring the West Valley). It was nice to stand by the graffito of a man whose endeavours have had such a direct impact on our own. We also found an early 19th century graffito by Henry Salt, the man who sponsored Belzoni's work.
At the end of the morning we were supposed to have a brief ceremony in the tomb of Horemheb replacing the missing sarcophagus corner we found last year (see dig diary 1998). Mr Mohammed el-Bialy, Director of Antiquities for the West Bank, and Mr Ibrahim Suleiman, Chief Inspector of the Valley of the Kings, turned up. Unfortunately, however, the local conservators discovered they didn't have the right adhesive to refix the piece, so the job was postponed until tomorrow.
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