Dig Diary, January 17, 2016:We arrived in Luxor, one of the most beautiful places on earth, on Janua

Dig Diary, January 17, 2016:We arrived in Luxor, one of the most beautiful places on earth, on January 11. We started work on January 13, so there is little excavation news yet. So for this post we thought we’d introduce you to the people we are working with and who will figure in future postings.The Ministry of Antiquities and Heritage assigns an inspector to each excavation working in Egypt. Our inspector this year is Yassir Mohamed Abdu (left). He, Richard and our “rais” (foreman) Abdel Aziz Farouk Sharid discuss the season’s projects on our first morning.A majority of the skilled technicians who do the digging are from the village of Quft (ancient Coptos) and are known collectively as “Qufti”, which means “from Quft”. They have been working with archaeologists since early in the 20th century, and the tradition and training are passed from father to son through the generations. Our Rais this year, Abdel Aziz Farouk Sharid (left) is the son of our late foreman Farouk Sharid Mohamed and is a worthy successor to his father. The two Qufti with us this year are Yehia Farouk Sharid (top) and Abdel Hamid Abd el-Salaam (bottom).Dr. Jacobus (“Jaap”) van Dijk from Groningen is with us again this year as epigrapher and object registrar. Even though we’ve only been digging 2 days at this point, we have a few small finds. Jaap and Richard are discussing the fragmentary terracotta figure of a man on a horse found on January 14 and shown on the right.Our main goal this season is to try and trace the paving of the 25th Dynasty road that runs west from the Taharqa Gate, visible in the background of this photo The first square we opened (below left), just west of the gate, will link 2 sections of the paving discovered in previous seasons. The paving lies under 3 meters or so of Ptolemaic & Roman period structures and landfill that fill the area west of the gate. The area of the houses is bounded on the south by a large mud brick wall that runs west from the gateway. Abdel Hamid is cleaning the top of the section of the wall uncovered in our first 2 days of work. In the foreground are the remains of what appears to be a small stairway at the face of the wall.We know that the road that to the Taharqa Gate was part of a processional way leading to Temple A. What we don’t know is where that road led from. In our second square (above right), laid out to bracket the known line of the paving, we’ll try to answer that question, The square is right at the enclosure wall on the west side of the precinct (background). Not surprisingly, after only 2 days of digging it has produced little of interest, although you can see a clear change in the soil color running north to south. The workmen love it when we need to take a photo as it gives them a chance to rest.Archaeology is dusty work, particularly during the first few days when you are clearing dry, soft surface dirt that rises in clouds around you.Posted by Mary McKercher -- source link

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