I did not sleep long or well last
night because I was working on figuring out what was going on with Paul and
Brent, etc. I woke up pretty early and went and got more money and exchanged
it. I was able to skype with Julianne for just a second. Then we ate breakfast
and left. I slept most of the way, and it took us three hours instead of two as
we went this different way. I don’t think we will do that again.
When we arrived there were more
than 20 workers there, though I told them we would need 10. I ended up trying
to choose only 10, it became 12, and then while we were in the storage magazine
finding what we need it became 18. That is okay, I would rather build good
relations with the villagers than make them mad. They had waited for so long to
work anyway.
The excavation crew
We gathered all we need and
hauled it over and set up our pavilion and got to work. They started out working too quickly and I had to slow it down. I determined that we would only
work on two burials at a time. Farag could work on one, Gabr on another, and
one of us needed to be with them as we did it. Joyce ended up acting as scribe
in the field book and we got some good stuff done.
Because the square had been
open before, we were immediately upon some burials. One of the first was a girl
(I think, based on her earring) who seems to be about 4-7 years old
(osteological analysis will refine this later). I couldn’t help but look at her
and think of my own 7 year old girl. I felt so badly for the parents who had to
deal with the loss of this child. She seemed very real to me as we did all the
measurements and took all the pictures. I even stroked her skull once.
I was able to do some trowel work
besides just directing, photographing and documenting. I think we have a really
good team here. We got a lot done, and I think we did it well. I am pleased
with that. At the end I had to keep pushing the workers to keep working, and
they did, somewhat reluctantly. It was over 90 degrees, and they were getting
tired. We finished by 2:20 and then cleaned up. Keeping track of workers and
paying them is my least favorite part of the job.
We excavated 5 bodies. One baby,
two children, and two seeming adults, though we will learn more later. There
were some interesting aspects of some of them. One of them had a face bundle
made of reed rather than linen, which is what we usually find.
We got out by about 3 pm and had
good traffic on the way home, taking only about 2 hours to get there. Not too
bad. And now I have had my first day directing an excavation, and I think I did
okay. We had a good dinner and now I am working on getting Paul and Brent here
and arranging other things. And I received great news. Covenant has accepted my
book “I Will Return Unto You,”, a book I feel very strongly about. They are
going to get it out by August for Education Week. I am so excited! This one is
so important to me! I am very grateful and so ready to do anything I can to
help this one do well!
It has been a good day overall.
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