Full Day Full Steam Ahead

At 1 am the intrepid Drs. Benson and Evans finally arrived. They spent hours and hours on broken planes and in cold a cold airport with no place to sit or sleep. But they arrived in good spirits. If anyone can make something like that fun it is those two. I was glad to see them. We sat for a minute in the lobby and made some plans and then got them checked in. They were not able to get the total station in, after all the hours of work we put into getting ready to get it through customs, because there was no one at customs to take their money. They really wanted to get to the site today, so they made a plan to get it later.

So, I slept a little, got up with them, slept a little more, and then got ready for the day. I had to get more money exchanged and more small bills so that I could pay the workers. We got up earlier, got some breakfast, and then left by 7 am. It was much faster today, and in two hours we were at the site. We got a good start, and found a lot of good burials very quickly. Of course my little group of workers are still rabbits, and they multiplied again today. I had to tell some that I could not pay them, and it made me sad. I did hire one extra worker because he is one that I remember from last year as a very good worker. I hate turning any of them away. They are good men and have become my friends. 

In any case, we hit a good rhythm today. We found some interesting burials. Most of them today were children. This always hurts my heart. One very interesting one was a small, small infant, perhaps even a premature death, but certainly no older than two months. It was buried with another child that was probably less than a year old. The two could not be siblings, but were buried together. There must have been some interesting story behind that, but what it is we will never know. I just know there must have been real heartache.

Another burial was quite intriguing. We found a man who had no head and no feet. This confirms the myth held by a small group of ancient Egytpians that an African race had no heads. I guess it turns out that you don’t need them.

Our inspector, Ayman, is a real pleasure to work with. He is good, calm, kind, and competent. I like him a lot. The men we work with are like cousins and brothers to me. These villagers are good, good men. There is one guard who is always with us who goes so out of his way to help us. He is from the local village and rides his own motorcycle. Hanafy, our wonderful and funny driver whom we love, calls him the “farmer police.” But his name is Gomah, which is one way of saying “Friday.” So he has become “my man Friday,” and so I call him. I fully plan on bringing him with me if I have to get stuck on an island somewhere. He is very helpful, plus he has a gun.

  Ayman

  Gabr

Mithad and his Dad, Farag

Paul (Evans) and Brent (Benson) were able to go to the antiquities police in Fayoum city and get their security clearances and then made their way to the site. It was good to see them. 

We finished by 3 and loaded up. I did my little money hemorrhaging thing again and paid all those workers so much money. It is crazy. But when it was all done we loaded up and headed home. The trip went fairly well. I have such good companions that we have great conversations about any number of things. We are figuring out more and more interesting things we can do with the data we have from our excavation.

When we got home we had a little while to get ready for our dinner with Zahi Hawass. I was supposed to find a girl who had checked in here and help her get a ride to dinner with us all. I tried and tried but could not find her. I was about to give up when I received an email from Zahi that he sent some time ago telling us where to meet her. We found her and made our way over to dinner. Zahi was an incredibly gracious host and we had a wonderful meal with him. He spontaneously arranged for us to be able to visit some places I have always wanted to go but which are never open to the public. This was great.

Paul and Brent are still unable to get the total station from the airport. I hope we can get that all figured out and working soon. It will be a great addition to our excavation abilities.

I work with such a great team. They really are good, and I am grateful for them.

Really Excavating

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.

Getting to the Excavation Site

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.

A Good Beginning

3-9-13 through 3-10-13

I woke up early to pack so that I could spend as much time with the kids as possible. It went fairly well. We had a nice breakfast. We went for a fun walk together. Brother Bowles, our High Priest Group leader came over and gave me a very nice blessing. He told me that I would see that some things had already been put in place to open doors for me and that others would fall into place and things would work out well. He blessed me with inspiration and an ability to do good things and keep everyone safe. I felt so good after the blessing. I gave Julianne a blessing and felt great about that too.

David Whitchurch picked me up and took me to the airport. We met Joyce Smith there and together worked our way through checking in, security, etc., only to find out that our flight was delayed. We left over an hour late, which was worrisome because we only had 2 hours in Paris, and it is a slow airport to work your way through as you try to get from one plane to the next. The flight was long, but was not too bad. It went by quickly enough, but I hate those long flights that take you away from home. I hate leaving home. I hate being away from my family. I don’t want to keep leaving them.

We made up some time in the air and got to Paris with a bit over an hour before our next flight. Then it turned out that we did not have to go far to reach our terminal, and we had no one in the security line, and we made it with plenty of time. When it was time to get on the plane, it did not look like they really got my boarding pass scanned. I didn’t think much about it. Then, when it was time to leave, they got on the intercom and told us that they just had to take the luggage back off the plane because some people had not gotten on the plane. I had the feeling that they were talking about me, and that since my boarding pass did not scan they did not think I was on there. But then they asked for some passengers to come see them if they were on the plane, and my name was not one of them, so I thought it wasn’t me. I felt again that my luggage was being taken off. But I didn’t see a flight attendant around, so I didn’t do anything about it. The flight was not terribly long or bad, but on top of the last flight it seemed like we were gone forever, and I hated getting further away from my family. I do like having an international phone with me so that I can email them as I go along so they know how I am. But still, I hate being gone.

When we finally got to the airport in Cairo I felt like things were going smoothly. We were to meet Kristin South there, and I kept looking for her, but I did not find her. Then I figured out that David’s and Joyce’s luggage had arrived, but not mine. I was very upset with myself for not having listened to my feelings. At least I had felt that morning that I needed to put a few things like toothbrush, pajamas, etc. in my carryon, despite how full it was with the data projector I was bringing. I am glad I did that. I had to stand in line for 1.5 hours to get the form filled out about my luggage. They already knew it was in Paris without me (so maybe it wasn’t what I thought it was). They promised they would get it delivered to the hotel tomorrow night. They told me I could spend some money on clothes at their expense.

In the mean time, Hanafy Anwar, our driver, was trying to find me to let me know he was out in front. Kristin was looking for us and couldn’t find us. After a few calls on the my international phone (that will cost a bit, but worth it), we all found each other. As we drove to the hotel (about an hour) everyone kept talking about how good it was to be back and how much they had missed it and loved the sights and sounds. I like it okay, but to me it has gotten to be the sights and sounds of being away from my family. I am okay with doing this, but I don’t love it, I want to be gone less. If I could find someone to take this over or at least share in it more, I would do that. I have the feeling that if I just keep coming every year that sooner or later something will not work well for me. I will enjoy my time here because I don’t believe in not doing that, but I am not dying to get here like the others. I am dying to be at home.

It did not take long to unpack and get settled in since I have no luggage with me. I got some things done on the computer, and after quite a while visited with my family via skype while they were at my parents’ house. It is so nice that we can do that. I guess that actually happened after I had finally fallen asleep for two hours. I was tired enough I went right back to sleep. I am here, I am safe, and I am glad to get this going. Lets just hope we can make it go well.

3-11-13

I slept in just long enough to have time get ready and join everyone for breakfast. It was nice to see old friends and be blessed by their friendliness and willingness to help. Because I did not have my bag here I did not have a lot of the paperwork, pictures, etc., that I had prepared to have here. So I spent much of my morning getting that all ready. I also bought a new pair of pants to wear. We finally went to our meeting. As we walked I somehow missed a turn and we didn’t make it to the right place. We found our way back, but were a little late. It did not end up mattering. The front of the building is all locked up and we have to go through a back entrance now. They must have had some hostility and problems. That is going around right now. There are riots all over the place. We have to really watch out and work hard to avoid problems. We waited quite a while. In the meantime the secretary read to us the names of the people that had been approved for work this year. She read to us last year’s names, which is missing quite a few of the people who will be here this year. That caused us some anxiety, and I was quickly working through various ways to make this work. After some time we figured out that she had just grabbed the wrong file. We had the right one sent over. It turns out that they have approved everyone and we are set to go. The offices out in the Fayoum usually like a bit of a donation so they can buy paper, ink, etc., but they have never asked for it here before. Today they did. Surprise! We spoke with Mohammed Ismail Khaled, the head of the committee that approves these things, about some work that was once started with Dr. Zahi Hawass. We asked him if we should keep working on the project or what we should do. He said that we should see if Dr. Hawass wants to still work on it with us. Then he called Dr. Hawass right then and there. That surprised us. Dr. Hawass wanted us to come visit him right then and there so we could talk about it. That surprised us too. We were given very detailed directions to his house. But first we needed to go get our archaeologist cards. We went to the downstairs office and found that the person we needed was not there, but was in the Abbusayah building, in downtown Cairo.

We caught a taxi, got to the office just before it was to close, and got everything taken care of. It worked extremely well and it was all done before too long. That is the quickest we have ever been able to get everything done. So then we caught a taxi and found our way, after only a few wrong turns, to Dr. Hawass’ house. He invited us in. He was as gracious and charming as a person could ever be. It was an amazingly pleasant visit. It was productive and enjoyable. He asked if he could take us all to dinner sometime soon. I have seldom been around someone who was as charming and pleasant as was Zahi Hawass today.

We were also able to buy a bunch of water to get us through the excavation season, and were able to exchange all sorts of money, but certainly not enough to get us through the season. I bleed money almost the whole time I am here. It just seems to flow from me.

After dinner I was able to arrange some meetings with other archaeologists out here, and with some other great people we want to meet and do things with while here. Things are going very, very well. They will go especially well if I can get my luggage here tonight so that I can have all the things I need with me when we go out to the Fayoum tomorrow.

Back at it (both the blog and in Egypt)

It has been a long time since I have blogged here. I guess life got a bit too humdrum and boring in some ways, though not in others. We moved to Orem, into a wonderful house, but have had 10 floods/leaks in 7 months and it seems we never quit doing emergency work on the house so we can do other things. The kids keep getting bigger and better. Life goes well in so many ways. I will try, every now and then, to write about some of the things I have not recorded here.

But for now, lets talk about Egypt. It is my first night back in the country since about 9 months ago. It is good to be back.  After some delayed flights, too many hours traveling, and two lost bags, four of us are here. Tomorrow we begin meeting with the Ministry of State for Antiquities people so that we can start the excavatoin season. While it seems like it has been a long time since we were here (9 months), in some ways when we get here it seems like we have never left.

Here we go!!