For today we had secretly planned and long awaited a surprise birthday party for the moudir! After another successful day in the field working on TT 313 and TT 315, we “kidnapped” Antonio and took him on a boat trip on the Nile with a fancy picnic. After three hours on the Nile, having delighted in a pleasant trip through the waters of southern Luxor, drunk some nice wine and enjoyed a birthday cake, the team members went to Luxor to have a walk through the markets and visit a book fair. It was a great afternoon!
After three weeks in the field, for many of us tomorrow will be the last working day in Deir el-Bahari. The plans of the moudir included a shift of teams in the third week and some new people will be coming for the last ten days of work, including two architects and a geologist. So, today the ongoing work in the tombs concentrated on finishing some of the excavation units and developing some ideas for the next year excavation. In TT 313 the excavation in the northwestern unit and the documentation of the bedrock layer in the courtyard was continued by Kelly and Sergio, who have almost finished with it. Ana and Jónatan continued recording and sorting materials proceedingn from the opened trenches, while Dina proceeded with the recording and documentation of graffiti in the tomb of Henenu. During the morning, Raúl –who is usually engaged in sorting and analysis materials from Ipi– passed by the tomb and took pictures of some selected decorated relief fragments.
In TT 315 Mohamed continued with the documentation of the features uncovered in the western part of the courtyard, while Sebastian finished the cleaning of the tomb for Meseh and started with the photogrammetry of the tom. In the haima, meantime, our conservator Ali proceeded with a series of cartonnages that needed some protection, and focused on one of the pieces with much color, for which a especial box has to be prepared.
