Winter is slowly arriving in Egypt. The nights are getting cold and the contrast with the morning heat is causing the first colds.

At Henenu’s tomb, David opened two new shafts located in the burial chamber. There he found large blocks of sandstone and limestone, possibly from a sarcophagus. In addition, other materials such as textiles, cartonnage and wood were found and recorded by Iria. Carlos and Sika are still working together with Reed and Ella to consolidate, clean and join some relief fragments.

At Ipi’s main courtyard, Mohamed is concentrating on the southwestern part, from where very interesting Middle Kingdom ceramic sherds are being extracted. Ceramics are the best method we have to date the contexts we work with, which is why Bea has been photographing the ceramic fragments from this season, in order to get an idea of the different levels of occupation of the courtyard.

Jaume has also been working with ceramic pieces from Ipi’s courtyard together with Fathi. Together they have managed to piece together some fragments and identify a total of four different jars.

In E1, Jose and Carmen have identified, at the end of the corridor, what appears to be a new chamber. However, it is filled with sand and full of large rocks that require the effort of several workers to drag them out of the tomb. It seems that the cleaning of this chamber will take several days. 

Tonight, we have a new member joining the restoration team, Lily Griffin, also from the University College of London. With her help we hope to make much faster progress on the many conservation tasks we have planned for this campaign.