My luggage arrived at 1 am. I was
glad to get it. I was able to sleep a little bit longer, but woke up at five
and that was it. So I spent some time organizing the things I needed to take
with me. Then I read and got ready for the day.
We made it to Fayoum City just
fine, and met with Ahmed Abd Alal. He is a good man. He assigned us an
inspector and we picked up just enough of his Arabic to understand that he was
telling this brand new inspector all the good things he would learn by working
with us. We were able to pay for our guards, social insurance, etc., and we agreed
to run a field school on textiles, osteology, and conservation while here this
year.
We took our inspector, Ayman
Radeb, and our Fayoum inspector, Madame Ines and went to the antiquities
police. There was a new one there, and he seems very good. His name is Mustafa,
and I am impressed with him. He has had a lot of different kinds of experience.
He would like us to take a different way to Fag el-Gamous than we normally do, which
will take a bit longer. This is because he fears that at some point in the near
future the problems with getting fuel will become such that a protest will shut
that road down and we will get stuck on the road in a tense situation. I am
grateful that he is helping us be careful.
We were able to go and open the
site. It is Ines’ job to do that as an inspector for the whole governate, and
then turn it over to Ayman. We did that. The site seems fine, the storage
magazine was fine. I think all is well for us. We were hoping to just mark out
our square. Because we had not finished a square we were already working on,
and because last year the stakes were left in the ground still, we thought this
would not take us long. But only one stake was left this year. We searched for
the other stakes but they are nowhere to be found. We had to measure again, and
make sure we had a perfect square. It takes a bit of work, but we got it done.
Thank goodness for our good old Pythagorean theorem.
As we were finishing
Julianne skyped me and I got it on my phone. I went off to the side and joined
my family for family prayer, half a world away. It was wonderful.
We organized our storage magazine
a bit and arranged for workers to come tomorrow, paid the extra taxi drivers,
etc. Then we were able to pack up and head home. It was a little later than we
usually stay there, but it worked out okay. I did some sleeping on the way
there and a little on the way out, but mostly I did some writing here on this
computer.
When we got back I immediately
went in to see Rick Zeolla, the manager of the hotel. He said he just wanted to
chat. And chat we did. What a really nice guy. I sure like him. We talked about
how much tourism is struggling here, and how that is hurting so many people and
so much of the economy. I feel so bad for my beloved Egypt, they are struggling
so much right now. Prices just keep going up and up. Gas and food are so
expensive for them right now. It is so hard. Anyway, it was great to visit with
Rick.
Brent Benson and Paul Evans’
flight out of Paris was delayed, for six hours. This is bad because we had
arranged for someone to meet them at the airport to help them clear customs
with the total station. They are getting in so late I am not sure how this will
work out for them. I can’t get in touch with the people who are supposed to
help them. We can only hope. I think they will get in very late. It will all
work out, one way or another. But we are having to make all sorts of
adjustments for how we will do things tomorrow morning. Things always change.
That’s how it goes while excavating here.
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