Past the halfway point of the season, things are getting interesting. Excavation in the Henenu courtyard is about to begin, while the Ipi courtyard is yielding unexpected surprises.

At Henenu’s tomb, David has continued with the cleaning and documentation of different parts of the tomb. Iria and Óscar have been taking reference points with the total station in the courtyard. In addition, Daniel has been checking the plans of the tomb and has drawn some of the main shafts.

The conservation team has also been working in the Henenu tomb. Reed, Ella, Lily and Jaume have been documenting and labelling stone fragments that have been found in various pits.

At Ipi’s tomb, Mohamed excavated the shaft that was found yesterday in the courtyard. Unfortunately, it was fairly shallow and had no associated materials. It is likely that someone started digging a shaft and abandoned it, perhaps because of the quality of the rock in that area.

The good news is that a subsidiary chamber that Winlock had noted has been found in the eastern area. It is likely that the chamber had been plundered earlier but, based on photographs from the 1920s, it seems that the American archaeologist did not completely excavate the chamber.

Bea has been recording a large amount of pottery that has appeared in the southern part of the courtyard, while Hazem has been sketching an offering table that appeared a few years ago.

At E1, work is slowing down due to the amount of sand and rock in the tomb, but is progressing safely.

In the afternoon, the team celebrated Mohamed’s birthday. In addition to the typical celebration at the Marsam (including singing, dancing and cake), the team went to Luxor to enjoy dinner together. These are the moments that really bring us together as a team and make MKTP our second family.

Last night three new members arrived to join our team: Raúl, Inma and Daniel. Despite their journey of over five hours, none of them lost any time and were ready to climb the mountain first thing in the morning.

Raúl and Daniel went to E1 together with Carmen and Antonio. At the site they learned about the progress made this season, and some of the challenges facing the work. Daniel, an architect on the team, has been busy checking the structure of the tomb and will work over the next few days to produce detailed plans of the space.

Inma, an industrial design engineer, has set up in the tomb of Ipi to scan all of the jars from the embalming cachette in order to produce 3D models of each one.

Óscar has joined the team at Henenu´s tomb. He is working alongside David to take points using the total station to geo-reference the shafts. Meanwhile, the cleaning of the tomb is continuing, while Iria is registering and inventorying all of the finds being uncovered.

At the tomb of Ipi, the conservation team is continuing to join fragments of Middle Kingdom pottery uncovered during this season. So far, they have been able to identify at least five different jars. They have also been working on the cleaning and consolidation of cartonnage found in previous seasons.

The excavation of the courtyard of Ipi is almost finished, and in the next few days the majority of the workmen will be transferred to Henenu´s tomb to begin working on the courtyard there. Therefore, Bea has spent the day making sure all of the finds are perfectly organized, registered, and inventoried.

At the end of the day, however, what appeared to be a new shaft appeared in the Northwest section of the courtyard. For now there are not many finds being uncovered, but Mohamed is planning to fully excavate it tomorrow, so we will see if anything significant appears!

After the weekend, the return to work has been harder than usual. But there is nothing better than a good tea from Naggar to cheer us up and give us the energy we need to get down to work.

At Henenu’s tomb, David began with the cleaning of the burial chamber, as well as one of the descending corridors and two of the shafts. In this cleaning, large stone fragments were found, which the conservation team has recorded and labelled. Some significant finds were also incovered, which Iria identified and classified.

The epigraphers, Carlos and Sika, finished their classification of the fragments with reliefs and were able to join some more pieces together.

Today we made the decision not to excavate in E1, but instead wait for Raúl who will join us tomorrow to continue the work there. That is why Carmen stayed at the tomb of Ipi for the day, drawing shabtis found in past seasons together with Hazem.

The excavation of the courtyard at Ipi continues apace. Bea continues to record all the materials bring uncovered in the inventory, while Mohamed leads the excavation in the western area.

The conservation team continues with the treatment of the papyrus, and has begun to unfold some sheets with very good results. Jaume and Lily have also been working to join fragments of pottery from the Middle Kingdom that were recently found.

This was the last day at the site for Carlos and Sika, who are leaving in the evening. In just two weeks the epigraphers have made incredible progress, especially in relation to the Henenu sarcophagus. Their work will continue in Alcalá thanks to all the documentation they have produced these days, which will allow us to get to know better our beloved “Overseer of horn, hoof, feather and scale”.