This December morning has dawned with the sky covered with hot air balloons. Some of them flew so low that we even had the feeling that they were going to land in Ipi’s courtyard.
Today there has been less activity at Ipi’s tomb as the workers have already moved to Henenu and E1. Mohamed has spent the day finishing the documentation of the subsidiary chamber and Bea has started to organise the storeroom, separating this season’s finds by materials and contexts and placing them on the large shelves that occupy part of the tomb corridor.
Today was Elsa’s last day at the site. In two weeks, she was able to analyse 247 bags of textiles, most of which came from the mummification deposit. Today, she finished studying some significant pieces, as well as a quick analysis of the textiles found in the shaft of the subsidiary chamber.
At the tomb of Henenu, the excavation of the middle courtyard has continued. Today, we have reached the east wall that limits the complex, where several stratigraphic units have been identified. Carmen is in charge of directing the excavation in this area. Meanwhile, David continues to supervise and document everything.
The conservation team has been working to finish all of their ongoing treatments, mainly on ceramics and cartonnage from the tomb of Ipi. They are starting to take an inventory of objects from the special finds boxes at both Ipi and Henenu in order to organize the objects they treated this season as well as the most important finds they will treat in seasons to come. They had already looked through the many beautiful cartonnage fragments at both tombs in order to prioritize their treatment, and will now design a storage system to ensure they are safe and secure until next season.
Since yesterday the activity at E1 has only increased. Today Sergio and Raul removed one of the contexts blocking the entrance to what we can now confirm is a descending passage. They have started to descend in the direction of this corridor which was filled with medium sized blocks, quite well placed. This suggests that it may have been the original backfill of the shaft. They have also been able to identify another context that could constitute the area through which tomb robbers gained access in antiquity. Most importantly, this corridor appears not to have been worked in modern times, which makes it a very promising area.
However, it is most likely that we will have to wait for the next season to solve all the unknowns hidden at the end of this corridor. Even so, we will work as much as possible during the three days we have left at the site, and who knows if there are more surprises in E1?
