The cleaning of the shaft discovered a few days ago has been conducted very diligently in the last two days. We have been very lucky to have Sergio still with us –he leaves tomorrow morning– to produce one more photogrammetry of the current state of the shaft; Jesús will soon take the total station inside to prepare a proper plan of the chamber before we continue cleaning and documenting the shaft.

The fact that the vertical hole was filled with large pieces of limestone (probably from a sarcophagus!) has contributed to the expeditiousness of the task. In fact, the depth achieved up to this morning has made our work very intricate and has forced the moudir and rais Ali to give some directions to instal a lifting system with three wooden beams and a pulley. Only five minutes later, the rais himself was already swinging in the pulley, hanging on the rope, calculating how to land on the bottom of the shaft without causing any damage to the few remains on it. Once the pulley system was proved, Antonio descended the shaft to check –together with the satisfied Abu Saidi– the remains of a stone and mudbrick wall blocking the entrance into a burial chamber. It was clear that the chamber had been previously robbed, though Antonio’s access to its interior allowed him to identify remains of Middle Kingdom models of boats and offering carriers, fragments of a red painted limestone statue, and (unfortunately), newspaper pages, tobacco packages, and boxes of matches. It is still soon to offer a coherent interpretation, but the original burial might have been produced in the New Kingdom, considering the remains in the shaft and the possibility of using the nearby materials from the tomb of Djari to build his “place of eternity”.

Regarding our work in the tomb of Dagi, Raúl has continued with the careful documentation of the morter production area. We hope to apply plaster to the feet and hand marks and get a cast out of them.

On the other hand, Carmen and Jaime have left the “Dagi team” and have moved to the tomb of Ipi where they have initiated the selection of special objects from the mummification deposit, which must be moved to the Carter Magazine and the Museum of Luxor. The deposit materials will be moved to the museum so that, when the replica of the deposit arrives to the institution, we can prepare the small exhibition that we have designed together with the director of the Luxor Museum, Dr. Alaa, and will be opened in some months.

In the tomb of Dagi, Ella, Jaume and Lily were involved in lifting dozens of mural paintings that were rediscovered mixed with the sand on the ground. The presence of other materials mixed with the paintings, such as deceased animals and a flash bulb from the 60s, suggests that unknown individuals during that time may have handled and discarded the mural paintings. Once the fragments were lifted, they directed their efforts towards cleaning, consolidating, assessing, and documenting the wall paintings. These fragments, covered in layers of dirt accumulated over thousands of years, required meticulous cleaning to reveal the stunning iconography and texts beneath. Additionally, some fragments needed consolidation to stabilize their fragile edges, which involved applying dilute adhesives. These essential steps ensure that the photography team captures all the intricate details for future study and publication.

In the tombs of Djari and Dagi, Reed and Olivia persisted in applying their specially crafted emergency mortar to the areas most in need of repair. These crucial interventions now pave the way for the conservation team to strategically plan future actions for these archaeological treasures. With their expertise and careful attention, the team can ensure the preservation and continued study of these remarkable ancient paintings.

As it is usual with most of missions in Luxor, Friday is a day of time off for the teams’ members to relax and do whatever they would like to do. For this reason, it is normal that several plans show up at the same time, depending on the preferences or necessities of each person.

Yesterday Thursday, these plans were getting into shape for those who wished to consider the options: on the one hand, some members of the team decided to visit the temple of Medinet Habu (Ana, Jaume, Ella, Carmen, Lily and Ana) and later go to the swimming pool of Al-Moudira, where they also join the rest of people who went there directly and got some nice lunch outside our hotel. Several people who had been in the temples of Edfou and Esna (Jaime, Reed, Olivia, Laura), where they learnt more about the Ptolemaic temples. On the other hand, a small group of four people left yesterday Thursday to visit some sites in Middle Egypt (Meir, Al-Hammamiya, Fraser tombs). To these alternatives we must add the option of Raúl, who left to see several Old Kingdom cemeteries to consider some possible options to initiate his own project in the area of Al-Minia.

At the end of the day all os us returned to the Marsam Hotel to get an early dinner or jump –almost directly– into our beds to prepare ourselves for a new day full of activity. It seems that the coming week will be hard, intense, and full of objjectives to be achieved in the few days of our mission. The intensive work has provoked a couple of sunstrokes and stomach issues, but we can say that the members affected are getting well and ready to continue their work at the site of Asasif and Deir el-Bahari.

The discovery of a funerary shaft in the tomb of Djari has added a new incentive to the multiple tasks of these days. After the yesterday visit –and aproval– of the head inspector of the area, Dr. Abd El-Ghany, we have continued with the excavation of the shaft, which originally emerged as a concentration of mudbricks.

The depth of half a meter that has already reached the shaft allows us to think that again –as it happened with the coffin niche that broke into the stela niche of Djari– the transversal hall was reused, a very well-known phenomenon in the area of Asasif where tombs dating to the Middle Kingdom, New Kingdom, and the Kushite and Saite Periods mount on each other. In any case, the materials found by the archaeologists indicate that the shaft is not intact. In the southern corner, we continue removing debris to reach the gebel. Once we have documented the entire area, we will be able to dismantle the block of cement at this spot and get access into the structure.

On the other hand, in the complex of Dagi there has also been some news. Raúl, Jaime and Carmen have continued with the final cleaning of the eastern sector of the transversal hall, where they have found out an interesting question: some of the mudbricks used by the Coptic monks in the monastery of St Epiphanius had stamps. These stamps date to the pharaonic times and are partially readable. A detailed study and high resolution photographies (including the RTI methods) will contribute to the documentation and understanding of these features.

Other promising news came from the complex of the vizier Ipi where Miguel Ángel, in his last day of work, has explained to us the sequential steps for the construction of the funerary chamber. Miguel Ángel, who has been one of the few specialists working in this complex together with the inspector of the northern sector, Dr. Said, has developed a great work in the tomb together with the other specialists therein: Elsa Yvanez. In the previous season, Elsa already documented and studied the textiles from the mummification deposit of Ipi, but the high number of bandages, wrappings, shrouds, shawls, and other types of linen pieces for the mummification of the vizier have forced her –and she is happy to do so– to return to continue with her analysis.

Regarding the conservation team, our five colleagues have worked diligently in the tombs of Dagi and Djari today. In Djari, Reed and Olivia continued their experiments with mortar recipes, successfully discovering the perfect one for emergency mortars to be used on the mural paintings in both tombs. Meanwhile, Lily, Ella, and Jaume focused on consolidating the most fragile parts of the walls before applying the mortar and prior to the removal of the wooden planks that still cover the majority of the paintings in the tomb of Djari. This crucial process ensures the protection of the paintings from further damage. By faithfully replicating ancient practices, we strive to preserve these remarkable pieces of history for future study and the benefit of generations to come.

After completing the consolidation of the visible areas, the team, assisted by the moudir, embarked on a delicate task—carefully removing the first wooden plank from one of the paintings. In the selected side of pillar D, according to the photos taken by the Met expedition led by Herbert Winlock, there are two wrestlers fighting in front of the tomb owner, a traditional scene that expresses the prestige and consideration of the deceased by the community. Regarding the removal of the first plank, anticipation filled the air as nobody was truly aware of the state of preservation hidden beneath. With precision, they skillfully cut through the joints of the wooden panel using a saw and lifted it away. And then, like a breathtaking revelation, the millennia-old ancient painting resurfaced, captivating everyone’s gaze.

Beyond the determination to fulfill our tasks, document everything and achieve each of the season goals, our work also implies to adapt ourselves to each circunstance and find pleasure in searching for the past in these conditions. In the last days we were so interesed on getting more information about the southern corner of Djari’s courtyard and the recently discovered access to a subsidiary structure that no one listened to the jokes of one of our best moostareens, Abu Saidi, who told everyone around that Amenhotep III Neb-maat-Ra (“Ra is the Lord of Truth”) himself had told him –seating on his shoulder– some great news: “you will find a shaft in the entrance of this tomb”.

Precisely one of the selected photos from Monday shows him concentrated and cleaning the concentration of mudbricks… from which he reiterated, laughing at us, that we were going to find a shaft in his area of work. Said and done! José Alba and Laura, team members who supervise the cleaning of this area –together with Abu Saidi– have found today a shaft that presents some interesting questions: does it belong to the original plan of the tomb of Djari? Have we found a shaft that was build later in the New Kingdom when the monument seems to have been reused? Is it an intact shaft that has not been previously identified or is it a looted burial?

Surely, these questions will be answered in the next days, though we can anticipate a couple of compelling issues: on the one hand, the material that appears as part of the filling in the superficial layers include modern findings (a package of cigarettes Melachrino & Co., a small metalic key, a page from a German newspared from the early twentieth century, etc.), which means that someone must have previously visited this shaft. This does not mean that we found ancient remains such as a large fragment from a limestone sarcophagus or mudbricks that were once used to seal the shaft. On the other hand, however, none of the previous workers in the area (e.g., Winlock, Davies, Roehrig, Kampp) has included this shaft in the plans of the monument, which means that they had not seen it, or they thought it was not interesting enough. No matter the answers, in the next days our team will investigate in detail this shaft, which will for sure offer interesting surprises.

Regarding the work in the tomb of Dagi, the team (Raúl, Jaime and Carmen) has identified an area with a basin for the preparation of the whitish plaster and for the covering of the walls of the monument. This type of finding –which is very useful for approaches such as those of the Material Philology– will help us to understand the way in which the decoration was designed and prepared by the ancient Egyptian workers. We should take into consideration that we have found fingerprints and even a footprint of the workers of the monument, which is a kind of material that requires more evaluation, documentation, and even chemical analysis of the samples from the basin.

Regarding the conservation team, in these days they have been working together with the restorqtion inspectors (Karima, Fatma, Ahmed and Salah) to find the best components and quantities for the composition of morters and plasters. They have created three types of morters, which we hope to employ the next seasons in the consolidation and restoration of the walls and wall paintings in the tombs of Djari and Dagi.

Today was an exhausting day because of the large number of open fronts at the same time as well as the continuous surprises coming up in the last days. Archaeology implies some mystery, improvisation, and investigation… and the uncovering of unsuspected structures require new responses and duties. At the end of the season, the way in which one has adapted to the novelties, surprises, and changes ensures the resolution of the problems and the completion of the tasks proposed at the beginning. 

In the tomb of Djari we have continued –already with the permissions to open the blocked entrance of the subsidiary structure– with the search of the gebel and the lowest level of the entrance. We will still need a couple of days to break the sealed surface prepared here by the authorities in 1995 (according to the inscription therein). On the other hand, the cleaning work in the transversal hall continues with a good pace, what has allowed us to document the gebel and ponder about the concentration of mudbricks –in an unexpected area– under one of the stelae niches of Djari.

In regard to Dagi, our work has concentrated on the cleaning of the inner section of the eastern sector to document by means of photogrammetry. Here we have located a shaft that was not mentioned by Davies in his excavations and study of the “vizier Daga”, which requires previous consolidation of the surrounding paintings before even starting to remove any material from the area of the possible shaft. We will probably continue cleaning this shaft by next season.

As concerns the tomb of Ipi, Miguel Ángel has continued with the study of the design of the chamber and the installation of the sarcophagus and the (stone) canopic box, providing interesting interpretations about the disposition of these items in the chamber.

On the other hand, in relation to the work of our restorers and photographers, we have received some good news: we will be able to use a nearby storage where we will be able to leave some of our collection of materials and they will be able to work there with the findings.

The restoration team has continued with the preparation and testing of the plasters and morters, which they seem to be working very well in the case of Djari and likewise in the tomb of Dagi. Besides, in a couple of days we will proceed to remove the wooden panel covering the painting in one of the sides of the tomb pillars. This is a very special moment for us since the protected paintings have not been seen since almost a century ago.

Since very early in the morning, our two photographers Ana and Patri wander around to capture (digitally) each of the most picturesque or scientific episodes that the project might offer at that point. From the balloons packed with tourists that float around with the first morning rays to the initial shovelful of the moostareen (“he of the trowel”), each of the gestures observed in the site helps to portray the progress, efforts, and dynamics of the team members. Our Digging Diary is a clear proof of the superlative work they perform and their continuous (and funny, in occassions!) struggle to catch the best moments, scenes, and happenings.

As temperatures have started to rise, the morning has been very hot. In the complex of Djari, José Alba and Laura have continued with the cleaning of the southern sector in the N passage of the transversal hall. In front of one of the two niches that once decorated the two sides of the tomb façade –and housed two stelae of Djari–, we have found a concentration of mudbricks and a medium-size block of sandstone; we believe that this block was used to seal a burial cut in the rock where one of the two niches were, probably in the New Kingdom. After fatur (i.e., breakfast), the visit of the General Manager of the Central Sector, Mr. Ezz Er-Nooby, allowed us to request permission to continue with the opening of the sealed subsidiary structure in the courtyard of Djari.

In the tomb of Dagi, we continued cleaning the transversal hall where a shaft has been identified, and collecting painted wall fragments and Coptic remains from the later monastery. Any work in the located shaft requires to consolidate and protect the paintings around the structure before taking any step forward.

As for the conservation team, today they finalized a recipe for the repair mortar they plan to use for emergency stabilization on the wall paintings in both Djari and Dagi. They have also established recipes for two other mortars with different properties which they will be able to use in other areas of the wall paintings – one to strengthen the stone substrate, and the other for aesthetic fills. During their testing they have learned the best way to source and process the local materials they are using with the help of the inspectors, which means they can now prepare larger quantities of these materials in preparation for future treatments.

Regarding the conservation work at Dagi’s tomb, as cleaning progresses in Dagi and more wall painting fragments are uncovered, the conservation team has been on hand to perform emergency stabilization and block lifting of these fragile objects. They are working with the archaeological and photography teams to make sure that every fragment is recorded, cleaned, and photographed before further treatment will take place.

In the afternoon, we have organized a mid-season meeting to clarify objectives, reconsider strategies, and modify some plans to reach the original (and new) goals. In this meeting the members of the project have discussed the various difficulties and confident steps they have found in these two weeks and have presented some adjustments to the previous plans to secure the achievement of the goals.

The inquiry What do you feel when you discover an object that has not been seen by anyone in thousands of year? allows for many kinds of responses, from the often flamboyant and pompous answers to the much more serious and informed replies. Beyond the good vibes and splendour of a significant discovery, the perform of a researcher in a project such as ours requires documenting, analyzing, and assessing the context, nature, and characteristics of the finding. This makes very complicated –even if it seems humanly impossible– to get captivated or let emotions appear. However, any researcher understands and celebrates a good discovery, which in most cases is the result of an investment of time and research, on the one hand, and the collaboration of other people before and during the fieldwork.

Today we have continued with our investigations in the funerary complex of Djari. We are interested on getting access into the subsidiary chamber, though we do need permission from the Ministry of Antiquities and its local authorities in the taftish. It is very clear to us that we must improve the documentation kept for this tomb, its façade and courtyard. No doubt, this structure –which has gone unnoticed by most of scholars publishing plans of the monument TT 366– will provide new information about the architectural typology of this kind of complexes and the ritual activities performed in them. In addition, in the complex of Djari, over the hill where the tomb is located, we have stationed one of the most skillful workers, Antar, who is preparing an enclosure wall for access and protection of the monument that might have been the delight of the ancient Egyptian architects.

Regarding the tomb of Dagi, today we decided to expand the investigation of some stratigraphic units from inside the transversal hall into the outer section; one must consider that in antiquity there was no mid-wall dividing up these two sections, but when the Ministry of Antiquities rebuilt the monument, they decided to build a mid-wall to impede access through them. The cleaning of the outer section of the area in-between pillars has confirmed that the architects designing the monument use mudbricks as part of the eastern section to level the irregular floor of the gebel therein.

Besides this, our expert on stone restoration Miguel Ángel has continued with his work in the funerary chamber of Ipi, where he has identified marks of stonemasons, which could be very useful to understand how the sarcophagus was cut and prepared for this chamber. The weight of this sarcophagus is, approximately, 12 tons.

Regarding the conservation team, today Jaume and Ella worked in Dagi to clean the wall painting fragments prior to their photography. Some of the painted fragments need cleaning to better see the beautiful iconography and texts underneath the thousands of years of dirt. This enables the photography team to capture all their features for future study and publications. Other fragments needed consolidation, which is the application of dilute adhesives in order to stabilize the fragile edges of the mud and plaster.

At the complex of Djari, on the other hand, Reed and Olivia continued testing mortar recipes based on hib, a local clay. They have now tested three different kinds of hib from different sources within the necropolis. Since each type of hib has it’s own unique properties, they are considering the different kinds of mortars they can make. For now they are focusing on one kind of hib in particular for use in Djari, and they have collected a large amount from the source near the tomb, which they are now preparing by hand. This process mirrors what ancient craftspeople probably would have done to source and prepare the material we see preserved on the walls today.

One of the most common features of the ancient Egyptian monuments is their capacity to face the passing of time through the overlap of multiple layers of use. A well-known example is the case of the famous temple of Luxor, whose function as a cultic place for Amun-of-Ipet came to vanish and then became a fortress for Roman legionaries in the 2nd century BCE and later –during the Fatimid Caliphate period (909-1171 d.n.e.)– it gave place to a mosque dedicated to the sheikh (i.e., saint) Yussuf Al-Haggag, a local figure of whom it is said that he was the introducer of Islam into Luxor. The complex overlapping of societies, cultures, and materials poses a convoluted enigma for historians, philologists, and archaeologists, although the search for “the historical” through the material strata and social episodes is one of the incentives for research. Surely, this feeling is what has taken us here…

Today we got a very productive morning. The southern corner of Djari’s courtyard has revealed the lower part of the sealed entrance (closed in modern times: 23/12/1995), which we found last week and hope to open and examine soon. According to the extant plans, this sector of the complex included a subsidiary structure (maybe a tomb for a dependant of Djari?) with a short corridor and a small chamber. We will examine and document the structure so that we can include it to the latest plans and reconstructions of the tomb.

José Alba and Laura will supervise the cleaning of this sector and the documentation of this subsidiary structure. They will also continue cleaning the northern side of the transversal hall, in which some mudbricks marking a later burial chapel have been found.

In the tomb of Dagi, Raúl, Carmen and Jaime continued at full speed with the documentation and cleaning of the entrance space between pillars 2 and 3. On Thursday, they almost finished the cleaning of the floor between these two pillars, and today they completed the task, revealing bricks that were once used to level the surface where the gebel descended dramatically, as well as a kind of perforation in the floor, probably produced by Coptic monks from the monastery of St Epiphanius who modified several rooms for their incorporation into the activities of production, exploitation and seclusion that characterize their lives in this place.

This morning the conservation team were joined by our restoration inspectors for the season, Karima and Ahmed. They work in the Manager Restoration Office supervising the inspectors of the area. They both visited the site last week to discuss plans for the treatment of the wall paintings, and today they helped the team to refine their recipe for a repair mortar. Using the mixture they had developed on Thursday, the team began making slight variations to the composition in order to identify the ideal working properties, strength, and color of their plaster.

Ahmed and Karima have a lot of experience working with local materials, and were invaluable to this process. They proposed a new way of incorporating straw into the plaster, and when the team was considering how to achieve the desired color, Ahmed went to another area of the mountain and collected hib from a different source. This hib has a warmer color and finer texture which will help the plaster blend into the walls. The goal tomorrow will be to incorporate this new hib into the mixture they have developed. With every test, the team is learning more and more about these important local materials.

Today Friday was a day off for all our team members. Considering the excitement of the first weekend in Luxor and the arrival of the high temperatures, our members planned three possible options to profit from their day off. Some members thought that archaeology, conservation, and epigraphy should be replaced for a few hours with leisure and fun in the swimming pool. Because of this, the group decided to spend its day off in a swimming pool spending some hours in the water and the sun loungers of the Hilton Luxor Hotel.

Another group contemplated the idea of paying a visit to the temple of Karnak without sacrificing a good afternoon in the swimming pool with the other colleagues. Thus, they conducted their visit to the complex of Amun in Karnak early in the morning so that they could enjoy the examination of the textual and iconographic programs of a theological movement that would make it at national level.

A third group of team members decided to stay at the Marsam Hotel catching up with delayed tasks or trying to get on with their plans; in the afternoon, some of them spent some time in the temple of Ramses III at Medinet Habu. At the end, they enjoyed a cold lemonade and the amazing company of the owners of Café Maratonga in front of the temple.

In the end, it was a great day for relaxing and preparing the coming work; this week will be full of intensive work and many surprises as one can expect from such an enigmatic place as the Theban necropolis.

In Djari’s funeral, his mummified body was left in a ritual hut (wabet?), two assistants protected the corpse and a sem officiant performen the rites for his transformation and journey to the netherworld. His tomb was orientated to the Eastern Bank where the imminent cult of Amun had just emerged with the absolute support of the Theban echelons. Meantime, the builders and artists of his complex considered the most effective compositions to reflect –as a theological and social matter– the splendour of the Egyptian world and the significant impact of the cult to Hathor, patron goddess of the Theban mountain in the West Bank. These are some of the themes that governed the decorative programs that we expect to document and publish in this season and the next ones.

Today we have continued with the excavation of the section between pillars 2 and 3 in the saff façade of Dagi. This has brought about a series of nice surprises, such as the appearance of a Coptic level with a modification of the gebel, which might have been used for some kind of textile installation or the use of mudbricks in the external side of the entrance between pillars 2 and 3 to level the severe drop of the bedrock in the area.

In the case of Djari, the cleaning of the transversal corridor has also provided us with interesting information such as the order of collapse of the ceiling in various sections of the corridor; in addition, the cleaning of the southern corner of the complex has revealed a sealed gate produced by the Supreme Council of Antiquities on 23 December 1995. The GIS team has reached the second phase of the DEM and GCPs collection with the visit to Dra Abu el-Naga. Together with El-Tarif, Deir el-Bahaari and Asasif, this incorpoation allows us to expand our network of points to the north with a series of significant (geolocalized) topographical points that will be very useful not only for the project but also for other missions in the area.

As for our conservation team, this morning in the tomb of Dagi its members finished documentation of the special finds that had been sorted into boxes last season. Of course, now that cleaning has stated there will be much more work for them in the coming days!

In the case of Djari’s complex, in the afternoon the conservation team was able to beging testing different recipes for repair mortars. They have based their recipes on analysis of the original materials used in the wall paintings, which include mud from the Nile and hib, a local clay-containing soil from the Theban mountains. After many tests and conversations with rais Ali and the workmen, who have extensive knowledge of these materials, the team has selected a suitable recipe to continue developing for their treatments.