The members of the Middle Kingdom Theban Project and the University of Alcalá expedition to Luxor prepare the VI Season of fieldwork in their Egyptian concession at the cemeteries of Deir el-Bahari and Asasif. The VI Season will run from November 1 to December 22, 2021.
The cancellation of the previous season, only a week after the team initiated its duties at the Theban cemeteries in March 2020, forced the team to modify the work pace and the types of tasks to develop after the return of all its members from Egypt. Indeed, the pandemic disrupted the regular work and implied a significative effort for the members. However, the team learnt to adapt to the circumstances and focused on new aspects of its research, mainly the preparation of new plans of work, the collection of fresh data, and the implementation of new methodologies and approaches. In these previous months, the team has prepared a general plan for the VI Season and, since then, has been working in the organization of an intense and productive season in Egypt. With this goal in mind, first, the expedition team has incorporated new members to strengthen new avenues of research (see below). Second, the direction of the project has incorporated new avenues of research that do not involve direct fieldwork but imply a significant expansion of the project and its research interests in Luxor. Finally, the MKTP has prepared an ambitious period of work in Egypt for seven weeks with a large number of local workers directed by the rais Ali Farouk.
Among others, the primary tasks to develop this season are the continuation of the excavation in the courtyard of the funerary complex of the vizir Ipi –where the team will also excavate several subsidiary tombs located in its eastern side– and the completion of cleaning and study in the sarcophagus chamber of the tomb. In the funerary complex of Henenu, the team will continue with the excavation of its courtyard as well as the shaft that archaeologists started to clean in 2020. At the same time, in the eastern sector of the necropolis a group of archaeologists will continue with the excavation of the main corridor in tomb E1 (MMA 521), which will help to clarify the date of the monument and the type of inner spaces in the tomb. Finally, a team of archaeologists will clean the façade area in the tomb of Dagi (in the Asasif area) and collect fragments and objects in this sector. A group of conservators will work in all these sectors to continue with the project goal of recovering, protecting and documenting the findings.
As for the team incorporations, this year several experts will join the team to continue supporting this initiative for the documentation and study of the necropolis. Émilie Martinet (Paris) joins the team of epigraphists and will contribute to the analysis of the inscriptions found in the tomb of Henenu. In relation to ceramics, Bettina Bader (Vienna) and José Alba (Jaén) will study the pottery repertories from the complex of Ipi. Meantime, in terms of landscape analysis and GIS, the team will get reinforced with the incorporations of David Laguna (Granada), Andrés Martín (Leiden), Didi El-Behaedi (Chicago) and Alberto González (Alcalá). In addition, the specialist Elsa Yvanez (Varsovia) will initiate the examination of the large assemblage of textiles found in the embalming cachette of Ipi. Regarding archaeological work, two new incorporations –Violeta Moreno (Madrid) and Nisha Kumar (Harvard)– will bring about new input to the excavations. Finally, regarding conservation work, the MKTP incorporates four new experts from University College London (Ella Andrews, Lily Griffin, Reed Hudson, Dean Sully) and one more especialist (Jaume Vilaró), who is working on his PhD at Naples University. All of them will join the conservation team and will be responsable for the treatment, documentation, and conservation of several monuments and many findings.
