Dig diary updates

Brooklyn Museum

There are some terrific photographs on the Brooklyn Museum website, dated yesterday, accompanied by explanatory text. Here's an extract, but you really do need to see the photographs, because they really bring the work to life:

One of our goals this year is to find out what lies under the Ptolemaic or early Roman Period houses that fill the area west of the Taharqa Gate. On January 25 we laid out a new square that spans the width of the gate and Mamdouh and his team got right to work.

It was a productive week for Mamdouh in the north end of the new square. On the left and right, mud brick walls (Ptolemaic or Roman) discovered in an earlier season run east to the gate, whose north wing can be seen in the background. By the end of the week we had found a third east-west wall between them, partially cut by a later pit. Against its south side is a large pottery bin or jar set in a neat frame of packed mud or mud brick.

Sometimes activities overlap. Bill began mapping the baked brick building on Thursday while Mahmoud continued to work in the square next to it. We are getting a number of mud brick walls, but so far they don’t make much sense. Against the long north-south mud brick wall that defines the east side of the area we have discovered a group of pottery bins or ovens, visible in the foreground.

See the above page for the full story.


Hopkins in Egypt

Similarly, the JHU's activities at Karnak are captured photographically on their dig diary. Have a look at the above page for some excellent photos.


Proyecto Djehuty 2009

The Djehuty project is going ahead, with both restoration and excavation work being carried out at the same time. Photographs on the blog give a real insight into how detailed the restoration work actually is. The excavation work continues to reveal levels of complexity with more work needed to resolve some of the essential questions about the site. The work in the burial chamber, for example, has produced ceramics from the superficial levels dating from Ramesside, 28th Dynasty and Saite periods. They are waiting to see what deeper levels will produce. Excavation in the entrance to the tomb also proceeds, albeit slowly due to the difficulties of the conditions encountered.