Saturday, March 16, 2013

Haram Seila (Seila Pyramid)



Last night I had a premonition or prompting or something that I was going to have some stomach problems, so I took a bit of medicine. I am very glad. Julianne skyped me in the middle of the night to help Tashara with a computer problem with her homework that she needed to get turned in on time. I helped, but I could also tell that my stomach was having some difficulties. I went back to sleep and woke up feeling a bit poorly. A little pepto bismo and a little time and everything worked out okay. I felt very good within an hour of being on site. I am glad I took some stuff last night. This was a pretty easy incident.

Today we had a good drive. Last night I found out, much to my great joy and satisfaction, that a book I really, really wanted to get published was accepted for publication. It is a book on understanding how much God loves us, especially through the Old Testament, and how this can change us. I am so very happy that Covenant Communications will get it published by the time I speak on these topics at Education Week. The editor spoke about how much it moved her and how much she thinks it will help people. So, on the drive this morning I started going through the edits that they asked of me. So satisfying!

When we got there we were able to set things up pretty quickly and get to work. Brent was immediately working on getting everything all ready for surveying and worked hard on locating our datum points and marking them clearly again. We had some good success in working our square. We found an interesting mummy who seems to have been very tall. His legs were very long. But the space for him was a bit small, so they seem to have shoved him in so that his spine curved and bunched up and his head was bent over his neck. This makes it difficult to know how tall he was, but his legs were very long.

We saw a few evidences of amphorae that were buried right next to the head of a person. We will have to look for this trend. 


After a little while Brent and I went up to the pyramid along with one of our foremen, Gabr, and a few others. We inspected its condition and found it really hasn’t changed from last year. Brent used his special camera to take a bunch of pictures in such a way that they can be used in some expensive software that he has that will create a lot of data about the way the pyramid was constructed. Because there have been discrepancies among those who excavated at the pyramid as to where some object were found, I brought pictures of them and asked Gabr, who was one of the men who excavated, where they were. I drew a map so that we could be precise. I think I will take Farag up there too and ask him, so that I can get a few opinions. This was a very useful exercise.





Anyway, I love that pyramid. It is a great hike (about 40 minutes) and a beautiful place. A part of my heart will always stay at the pyramid. It is a great structure and a great place.








We continued to find interesting burials. There have been a high number of children. We found a shaft which became pretty deep. It seems to have one body in it (tomorrow we will see if it goes down more). It was a head east burial, which means it is likely there are no more in the shaft. The burials today were not all that well preserved. We may be getting towards the bottom of the square. 




Paul has been trying to get our total station back out of the airport. We learned that he is not going to succeed today. So Brent trained me as much as he could in how to use it. Hopefully we can make it work okay. As he went around working on our datum point stakes he took a boy of about 10 years, Walid, with him Walid was so happy to help him (he has wanted us to hire him, but he is too young for us to hire to move dirt). After a while Brent gave Walid a new soccer ball as a thank you for his help. He was so happy. The kind of grin he gave Brent is the kind you can see in your memory forever.


I always hate to leave Farag and Gabr. They are like my brothers. I enjoy working with my team and with the good workers who come out for us. Plus, any day you can go to the Seila Pyramid is a good day.

Lincoln Blumell has arrived.

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