25th
Back into the routine!
Thursday 24th March
Today we headed back to the same area and after re-checking our main total station points from the previous day, we started a drill core (the Arabic for which is ‘burrima’). We descended to just over 4m in the time that we had, and were able to identify archaeological material down to the bottom of the core, and two major changes in the sediment coming up in the drill.
Extracting of one of the drill cores
It was a very cold and also rainy day! We looked up at one point to see a black sky and moments later the heavens opened. We were, thankfully, sheltered by a few trees and everybody quickly leapt into action to cover papers etc., and then we kept on going. The raincoat that I brought from home will be joining us after the day off tomorrow!! We had great help from two workers in the village in addition to the two Egyptian colleagues who are working with me this season. The combination kept the drill moving and work proceeded very smoothly. A girl from the village was intrigued with what we were doing, and by the end of the afternoon had become quite an expert in extracting small pieces of archaeological material from our plates of sediment! We promised her chocolate on Saturday!
There is a very nice working atmosphere at the moment and things are proceeding pretty much as normal. Everyone is, as ever, very interested in what we are doing and also very friendly and we had the pleasant surprise of a visit from two previous inspectors who had joined us for training in 2010! On the way home after work we stopped at the local market to acquire fresh fruit and vegetables, and again it was very nice to see the stallholders again since we had done a lot of shopping in the market on Fridays during our 2010 seasons! We did some washing of clothes and cleaned the kitchen this evening, and we have been invited for lunch in a nearby village tomorrow - the day off – which will be pleasant, as ever, and then there is some work to be done on the computer and a visit to some of the shopkeepers in the main shopping street in town!
Wednesday 23rd March
Today was the first real day of survey work - we set off from the apartment at 7.30am, a later start than usual, as we have to ensure that our inspector can travel from Tanta in good light! We met as usual under the bridge at Quesna and headed off to the area of el-Rimaly where we made our first stop - as usual on the first day of survey in a new area - in the town centre for tea, to await the arrival of our colleague. Our colleague having arrived, we began to walk around the area, which is in close proximity to the Delta Survey sites of Tell Mustai and Umm Harb. The fields are mainly planted at the moment, although there are a number of clear fields, giving us the opportunity to take a closer look at the range of ceramics that have been turned up through ploughing. A selection of diagnostic sherds will be examined by our ceramicist, Ashraf el-Senussi during the last week of this short season. Tell Mustai was once a high kom and has been heavily built upon; Umm Harb is the highest point on the kom, surmounted by the tomb of the Sheikh Umm Harb (Arabic for ‘mother of war’). We also worked with the total station surveying equipment, and were able to plot the fields that were examined and measure the height of each of the remaining koms. The living room of the appartment - with the EES hand auger equipment on the left!
After work, we were invited to the house of one of the villagers for a feast offateer (best described as a cross between an oily bread and pastry - but much tastier than it sounds!) served with varying degrees of aged cheese and black honey - delicious! We then headed back to the apartment where we unloaded all of the equipment and met the policemen from last year - who guard a bank at the bottom of our apartment block! It was a cold evening again but it is pretty warm inside if a little blowy when the balcony doors are open (this flat would have been very useful last summer!!).
