The Amarna Royal Tombs Project
- Dig diary 1999
by Paul Sussman
The Amarna Royal Tombs Project
My stomach still wasn't very happy today. Despite that, however, I had a fantastic day on site. Nick, Yumiko and I worked together sieving material from KV 56 as it was brought up from the chamber below. We have two types of sieve, one with a large mesh, and another, smaller type with a much finer mesh. I worked on the big sieve, checking for larger objects. Nick and Yumiko then sieved the material that fell through my sieve, looking for smaller things. We made a number of excellent finds, including several 'curls', or parts of the head-dress inlay from an ancient coffin (faience, badly faded); two dozen small shreds of gold foil; a beautiful gold bead, and two faience beads.
Nick was very interested by these finds. Some of them would seem to date from the 19th Dynasty, like the other objects Ayrton found in the tomb when he excavated it in 1908. Others, however, might belong to an earlier, 18th Dynasty burial there. Nick's theory - and remember, in archaeology theories can change by the minute - is that the tomb was originally cut for an 18th Dynasty occupant and was subsequently cleared out during the 19th Dynasty and reused. Interestingly, another object that was found today was part of a beautiful alabaster canopic vase, from which the name of the original owner - in fact the surface on most of one side - seems to have been erased. This could be hugely significant, since one characteristic of the Amarna period is the way in which later generations tried to obliterate the names its rulers. Could KV 56 have been used as a burial place for one of the transferred Amarna dead? The idea is both thrilling and disappointing - thrilling because we could actually be standing in the tomb of Nefertiti or Kiya. Disappointing because that resting place was obviously stripped of its contents in extreme antiquity, and as a result we shall probably never find their bodies or burial goods. Sometimes I find my mind running riot, trying to make sense of it all, searching for answers, struggling to peer back through the mists of time …
'If I were you I'd just concentrate on the archaeology,' advised Nick.
The day ended with a Halloween Party at Chicago House, the home of the University of Chicago mission in Egypt (they've been here for over 50 years painstakingly recording all the reliefs and inscriptions on the mortuary temple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu). It was a slightly surreal affair -Egyptologists from all over the world, all in fancy dress. Costumes included a French group as Snow White and the Seven Dwarves; the Chicago House librarian as Captain Kirk; a group of Polish Egyptologists in mountaineering garb (they are currently doing work which involves abseiling down the cliffs at Deir el-Bahri); a Frenchman in stockings and suspenders; and a Polish professor in a shirt, tie and tin foil Amun head-dress. Who says archaeologists are boring?
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