With 45°C in Luxor, today was the hottest day of week! This situation made most of our team members seek for a working place in one of the tombs, which provide a cool shelter from sun and heat. Therefore, Sebastian and Raúl prepared a photography lab in one of the chambers in TT 313 where they set up a table, a special light environment, and camera equipment. Their task was to prepare the photographic documentation of finds made in the last field season such as natron bags and fine textiles. In contrast, Sergio and Ana spent the day outside setting up nails, measuring squares, and preparing a new excavation unit in the lower part of Henenu’s courtyard.
Meanwhile, Kelly was taking pictures of the uncovered strata and supervised the excavation of the trenches in the northwestern and northeastern corners. Since the courtyard of Henenu is very steep and elongated, the workers had to position themselves in a queue to pass baskets of rubble and stones to one another. In order to find small finds and objects easily overlooked during the digging, the rubble and sand from the trenches was carefully sieved.
In TT 315 our archaeologist Mohamed was taking care of the excavation area located at the west façade section. There the trench has been widened in order to analyse the newly discovered layers and structures in a more appropriate way. Apart from this, Mohamed was also in charge of the documentation of the sarcophagus in the burial chamber of Ipi with the infra-red camera. We cannot wait to see the results! In the meantime, Rawda continued with the treatment and documentation of unearthed small finds such as colourful pieces of cartonnage.
Being in the field for almost 2 weeks now, we actually started wondering how our local workers reach the archaeological site everyday. Then we found that a cachette in the Deir el-Bahari lower area of the hills worked as a parking full of bikes! What might have the ancient Egyptians thought of this use (?!)
As we came home from our field work we were heartily welcomed by our animal sidekick Antoñito (a cute dog living in the hotel who was only “accidently” named after our moudir…), and enjoyed a cool coke while the dog accompanied us!
