Despite the tiredness after the trip to Abydos, today the activity at the site has been more intense than ever. It is already noticeable that we are at the end of the campaign and we want to make the most of every second we have.
At Henenu’s tomb the excavation of the courtyard continues apace. Several grids have been opened in the upper part of the courtyard. Nisha has been in charge of taking measurements and drawing the profile of one of these grids. Meanwhile, David took photographs and documented the excavation. Iria has been working with the total station, taking points and dimensions. The shabtis also received a lot of attention at Henenu today, as Carmen was drawing some of the shabtis found in previous campaigns while Ella was in charge of the restoration of the most damaged ones.
Just when it seemed that the action of the entire site had turned to Henenu, the subsidiary chamber of the tomb of Ipi has provided another surprise. Winlock documented a shaft located on the Western side of the chamber that Mohamed located this morning. However, the profile seems quite different from the one drawn by the American and, in addition, very interesting materials are being found such as large quantities of textiles, which are already being analysed by Elsa.
Enrique and Manuel continue to analyse bags of bones, separating them into animal and human remains. Today they have been able to locate the remains of birds in several very interesting contexts.
At E1, Sergio and Raúl have continued with the excavation of the chamber. The new strata that are appearing are still quite difficult to excavate due to the numerous rocks (most of them large) that flood the chamber. Several workers are needed to break them up and move the fragments out of the tomb.
After breakfast Sergio stayed at Ipi’s tomb together with Hazem and Didi. The three of them are trying to create a geolocation database to share the information that is being collected thanks to the trimble with Alberto Gonzalez Garcia-Saavedra, a new member of the MKTP who is working with the GIS team from Spain.
As it was Jaume´s last day, he spent his time on site finishing his ongoing conservation projects at Ipi. Lily also spent the morning at Ipi, as she began cleaning up the garland of leaves we found at the entrance to the subsidiary chamber. After breakfast, Reed, Rawda and Lily went to Dagi’s tomb where they documented more fragments from the tomb wall.
In the afternoon at the Marsam, Rawda gave a talk on a new technique that has started to be used in the world of conservation: hyperspectral imaging. Rawda thinks that this technique could be used on the Ipi sarcophagus with good results. Hyperspectral imaging can process information from the entire electromagnetic spectrum and therefore traces of decoration or marks from the artist which are invisible to the human eye might be seen.
In this job you have to be constantly learning new techniques and methodologies to improve. That’s why every campaign we like to have our specialists give us a few classes on a specific topic. We are lucky to have great researchers and we are very fortunate to be able to learn from each other.
