The Supreme Council for Antiquities has begun to remove encroaching buildings and fields from historical sites all over Egypt. At Meidum, for example, authorities have demolished housing which threatened to spread onto the archaeological area associated with the pyramid and mastabas there. At Luxor, on the west bank, numerous houses have been torn down in Qurna Village and their occupants relocated to the new residential area of El Rawajeh, some two kilometers north of Carter House. It is planned eventually to remove all of the human habitation on Qurna hill, the site of scores of known tombs, many of them open to the public. Whether this removal will be good for the tombs, ultimately, and an improvement to the aesthetics of the site, remains to be seen; the Qurna villagers, however will certainly be the better off, with brand-new houses equipped with all necessary facilities.
Egypt is starting a course in restoration for persons from the Syrian equivalent of the SCA, who will be spending time in Egypt receiving training in monument and artifact restoration and conservation. The two countries are also planning to exchange expertise on police protection of antiquities, as there is a growing concern about the illegal trade in ancient artifacts affecting both Egypt and Syria.
The number of foreign archaeological and epigraphic missions working in Egypt has been considerably curtailed by the Permanent Committee of the SCA. Fewer than half of the applications for new concessions and concession renewals were approved by the Committee for the 1996-1997 winter season and the 1997 spring and summer seasons. There is some debate as to whether individuals and missions who have been refused already will be allowed to resubmit their proposals for reconsideration, or, even if so, whether such second applications would meet with any success. Needless to say, this move on the part of the SCA has created no end of furor in the foreign archaeological community.
Near Zigazag a farmer digging foundations for a house recently came upon a limestone statue of a seated woman with three young children (two girls and a boy) standing on her lap. The womanOs inlaid eyes are still in place, and details of her hair and collar are finely carved. The statue is uninscribed, so the identity of the mother(?) and children is unknowable.
At Quesna, Menufia, a huge Graeco-Roman cemetery was discovered recently, with the tombs yielding sarcophagi, jewelry, gold plates, utensils, ushabti, scarabs and amulets. Quesna was not previously a registered archaeological site, and the first find was made purely by accident. The cemetery would seem to antedate its use during Greek and Roman times. When official SCA excavations commence, it may be possible to determine the cemetery's earliest interments. The discoveries made so far will be stored at Tanta and Zigazag, then will be sent on to the regional museum in Shebin al Kom.
Dina Faltings of the German Archaeological Institute - one of the lucky ones whose concession was renewed- started work at Buto in mid-March. This season the DAI team is working in the temple area in hopes of finding traces of the early niched mud-brick temple dating to the Predynastic period. Meanwhile, Peter French of the Egypt Exploration Society is working on the Late Period pottery already found at the Buto site.
Changes are afoot in Cairo's Egyptian Museum. Rooms are being reorganized, new display cases built and various objects moved about. The famous diorite seated-figure of King Khafre now has a new raised dais, so that the statue is away from the groping hands of museum-goers, especially school children. The recently restored gilded-cartonnage funerary mask of Yuya (see KMT, Summer '96) is now being displayed in the same case as that of his wife, Thuyu, and it is possible to view both masks from every angle. William Ward has returned to the Museum to work on the jewelry displays and the Tutankhamen material. An Italian team from the University of Lecce has started a papyrus-restoration project, in conjunction with their Egyptian colleagues at the Museum. The plan is to clean, photograph, frame, study and publish about fifty papyri of the pharaonic period.
Out at the Giza Plateau, Director Zahi Hawass [see interview this issue] and his American colleague, Mark Lehner are continuing work at complimentary (and neighboring) projects. Lehner and his crew continue excavating at the site of the Workmen's Village and a few hundred yards away, HawassOs men are clearing and recording yet more of the tombs in the WorkmenOs Cemetery. At this point the latter site is divided into two main areas, an upper one consisting of the better-quality stone-built tombs, and the lower one where the tombs are primarily mud brick. A ramp/ causeway connects the two, in the area where Hawass is planning to begin excavating in the hopes of finding an intermediary level of tombs. He is also planning to reactivate work around the base of the Pyramid of Menkaure, where last year the unfinished pair-statue attributed to Rameses II was found.
Lehner's activities have been concentrated in an area which appears to have seen large-scale food preparation and processing, apparently for the workforce building the pyramids. He is opening up new squares in an effort to trace the limits of the mud-brick wall surrounding this area so that a better understanding can be had of the alignment of the various structures already excavated.
One newly opened square to the west has actually raised more questions than it has answered, so Lehner hopes to focus work there next season. This spring animal bones were examined, the pottery from the baking area was processed, and more flotation samples were collected, for study when Lehner returns to the site next winter.
At Sakkara the EES-Leiden team, under the direction of Geoffrey Martin, conducted a study season this past winter and early spring in the New Kingdom necropolis they have been excavating since the 1970s. In particular the human remains from the Tomb of Pay, a harem official, were analyzed. Several burials were found in the tomb, but most of these seem to have been intrusive and of a later date than the tomb itself. Some interesting pathologies were observed, and these will be studied further next season. Pottery from PayOs interment was also analyzed, recorded and drawn.
Other work this past season included further study of the now-famous Tomb of Maya, and more restoration work was undertaken, such as rebuilding of the north wing of the pylon gate marking the entrance to the tomb-chapel complex, as well as the addition of new mud brick to the walls of the outer courtyard. Reliefs from some of the subterranean rooms were brought to the surface and re-installed and adjusted so that they will be accessible to visitors in the future. All of the reliefs of the newly positioned substructure were drawn. Zahi Hawass was also working at Sakkara this spring, in the area of the Pyramid of Teti, where he and his team found a pyramid of one of TetiOs queens. It measures seven meters in height.
At Abusir Miroslav VernerOs Czech team has roofed over their amazing Persian period shaft-tomb, which they found virtually intact last year. The objects - including canopic equipment, ushabtis, furniture, etc., all of a very fine quality- have now been removed and are in the process of being catalogued and studied.
David O'Connor and his University of Pennsylvania team returned to Abydos this past winter-season, despite disturbances in the area, and resumed several ongoing investigations there. Oxford's John Baines was also at Abydos, continuing his "color" project in the Seti I temple and its environs.
A new Museum of Mummification was scheduled to open in Luxor on April 17. It is located on the lower corniche, opposite the Mercure Hotel (formerly the Etap). The displays are to cover techniques of mummification through the ages, with examples of resins, natron and other materials used in the process on view. Also displayed will be the mummy of Priest-General Masaharta, of the Twenty-First Dynasty Pinudjem family of priest-kings who ruled Upper Egypt from Thebes. Masaharta was found in the Royal-Mummies Cache at Luxor in 1881, and will be on loan to the new museum from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Also loaned from Cairo will be one or two other human mummies, some animal mummies, a few select coffins, canopic jars and canopic boxes, and a sarcophagus or two. Hahn, a German firm, has made new cases for the display.
Also at Luxor, work continues on restoring the colonnaded Sun Court of Luxor temple [see article this issue], where new electrical cables have been introduced into the temple grounds. Also new there is the restored face of the goddess in the large Amen-Mut dyad just inside the entrance to the Opet festival Grand Colonnade hall. The Epigraphic Survey's Ray Johnson spotted this face when he was in the basement of the Egyptian Museum last year, and recognized it as very likely belonging to the Luxor pair-statue. A plaster cast was made and sent to Luxor, and, lo, it fit! The original was then cleaned, conserved and re-attached to the statue this winter. Johnson believes the dyad possibly dates to the reign of Ay, and that the goddess may have the stylized features of that commoner-kingOs wife, Tiy. The nose apparently had been damaged in antiquity and was replaced at some point; but, unfortunately this repair itself fell out and was lost, so that there is now a small square hole where the goddessOs nose should be.
Speaking of Ray Johnson, on March 1 he officially became director of the Epigraphic Survey headquartered at Luxor's renowned Chicago House. His predecessor in that position, Peter Dorman, has returned to the University of Chicago to assume a full-time teaching position with the Oriental Institute there.
The SCA has been very busy in recent months on the west bank at Luxor. All ticket booths (including the ones for students and for Nefertari) have been moved to near the tourist ferry. In the Valley of the Kings, the electrical-supply unit there has been moved away from KV5 (sons of Rameses II) so that it no longer interferes with work there - and provides a more pleasant view of the Valley entrance. Tomb-entrance areas have also been regraded, to keep flood waters away and to make open tombs more accessible to visitors. The small side-wadi with the Tomb of Yuya and Thuyu (KV46) has had walkways constructed, and a new path to the Tomb of Hatshepsut (KV20) has been put in, although neither of these sites is open to the public. An SCA team is making restorations in the jointly owned Tomb of Tausret and Setnakht (KV14); a Hungarian mission is investigating KV32 (whose owner is unknown); and chief inspector of the Royal Valley, Ibrahim Soliman, has been doing work on QV51, the Tomb of Queen Iset (Isis), in the Valley of the Queens.
Nigel Strudwick continued his epigraphic and conservation work in several Tombs of the Nobles this past season; and Betsy Bryan concluded her own work in another Eighteenth Dynasty tomb in the same area in mid-February, with a TV crew from the BBC filming her there on the final day, for a forthcoming documentary series on current archaeology activity in Egypt.
Meanwhile, Kent Weeks resumed clearance work in KV5, with several additional chambers coming to light and these slowly freed of the flood debris which fills them. The already cleared passages of the immense tomb are being stabilized, cleaned and conserved. The relief decoration that is emerging is of a very fine quality, with vestiges of paint still visible. Some food offerings have been uncovered, together with fragments of human remains, although the dating of the latter has not yet been determined.
Also at Luxor a Swiss team headed by Horst Jaritz is excavating at the site of the mortuary temple of Merenptah.
At Deir el Bahari, the Polish-Egyptian mission working at the Hatshepsut mortuary temple has finished restoring the outer area of the Hathor chapel. Some of the restorations made by Ÿmile Baraize early in this century have been redone, as matches he made were incorrect. A very interesting text has come to light: the scene where Hathor offers a menat to Hatshepsut is accompanied by a hymn, a parallel to its opening lines being found in "The Story of Sinuhe," in the welcoming song sung to him by the king's children. On the temple's Third Terrace, sculptors are in the process of restoring several more of the Osiride figures [see"Luxor Update '97," this issue]. An architectural study of how the whole temple complex developed is well underway.
Renee Friedman and her University of California, Berkeley, team have been working at Hierakonpolis, south of Luxor. This winter/ spring season, focus was on clearing a Predynastic cemetery (several semi-intact burials being found) and copying and conserving the New Kingdom tombs there. A team of physical anthropologists worked on the human remains which were recovered.
W. Wendrich and S. Sidebotham had a very successful season at Berenike this winter. During the previous two seasons, they found several pieces of temple equipment in one of the squares they cleared. The area seemed to be devoted to the cult of the Roman emperor. This year they opened up a new square in the same vicinity and found a limestone block inscribed in Greek, with a few lines of Palmyran on top. This bilingual inscription gives the artist's name, but it is unclear if the block went with a statue, an altar or even a stela. The object, whatever it originally was, is dedicated to the Palmyran deity Yarchibol. The period at Berenike associated with Palmyra was the Third Century A.D., so this object is probably contemporary with that date.
The excavators also found a Ptolemaic period level of occupation, which they intend to explore next season. The area of Kalalai was also investigated, as it is thought to have been the source of BerenikeOs water supply during the First and Second centuries A.D. Although evidence of a well was found at the site, no water pipes or cistern arrangements were uncovered. In the area nearest the sea, they found a large deposit of fish bones, suggesting the possible presence there of a fish restaurant and tavern.
Out at Dakhla Oasis, Tony Mills and his team have opened up two squares in West Dakhla, revealing what seems to have been an Old Kingdom settlement site, rich in pottery, flints and botanical remains. This would be one of the few habitation areas of that period to be explored anywhere in Egypt. Meanwhile, at Earnent el Kharab, Colin Hope and his colleagues have found a series of underground chambers in the temple area, all of which are connected to a well, although the excavators are still uncertain as to their function. And they have uncovered a large Coptic church in the west part of the site, and it promises to be a truly spectacular building. In the cemetery area of Earnent, a team of physical anthropologists excavated some eighty mummies from pit graves without accompanying objects. Subsequent study of these remains shows that some of the individuals suffered from leprosy.
Also at Dakhla, Olaf Kaper continued his work on the mammisi, where a large segment of the collapsed vaulting was raised, revealing the figures of forty-seven deities, none of whose features had been vandalized by later inhabitants of the oasis. Some of these deities represented the different months. And a very unusual representation of Tutu, the local god, also came to light, showing him with a tripartite - lion, crocodile and human - head.