15th
The return of our workers and an old team member!
Saturday 13th August 2011
Today was a big day - we arrived at the site of Quesna just after 6am to have as many working hours as possible in the ‘relative’ cool. In fact we have been very lucky, because the weather has changed a little and it is actually quite cloudy with a good breeze going. We welcomed back 12 of our workers today, led by Ramsi, our local ‘foreman’ and we all greeted each other like the old friends that we have become. There were a couple of new faces too and everyone is well. The task that we started today was to clean the surface of an area excavated many years ago within the falcon necropolis. This was excavated by a local mission before we started our work at the site. Because we are now in the process of completing the site plan of the work carried out thus far - we are keen to include a new plan of this area of the falcon gallery corridors within our work. This will all be included within our first book on Quesna that will come out hopefully late next year or early the year after. Work progressed very well and we cleaned a far larger area than expect by mid-morning! We take the work very slowly at the moment because of Ramadan and our workers have several breaks during the morning, although thankfully we have been blessed with mild weather and plenty of clouds and a breeze. The workers finished at 10.45am and we then moved up to the work room on the site to continue with re-organisation of the room in preparation for the investigations at Quesna through September and October.
Members of the team working to clean the surface of the mud-brick in order to make a new plan
After work today, two of the team headed to Cairo to meet our geophysical surveyor, who flew in at night. We went by train to avoid the heavy traffic on the highway, as it can take a long time by car and then used a mixture of taxis and the very good Cairo Metro to run various errands - including collecting batteries from the British Council to use on our survey. The surveyor is known locally as Mr Kushery, due to his love of this particularly nice and substanial dish of rice, macaroni, lentils, tomato sauce and onions! Everyone at the site is looking forward to seeing him again!!
