Philadelphia surveyed, Burials of Interest

This morning I had to turn away too many workers. One of them had traveled a long way to work, but we just had too many people already. I hate it that I have to do that. I feel badly. I gave our taxi driver 10 pounds to give him to take a taxi back to wherever he came from. That is the most I can do for him. Turning workers away is my least favorite part of the job. 

I did have one very good part of selecting workers today. I had heard that Fati, our wonderful worker who looks like Santa Clause, had passed away. I had been sad because of this. But it turns out he was only mostly dead, and today he showed up, looking remarkably good for someone who had been mostly dead all week. We were very glad to hear him. He is the guy on our excavation who keeps telling the others to work. When we started, and he immediately yelled “yallah, schill turab” (get going, carry dirt), in the same voice that I have heard start work for us each morning for years, I was overcome with a wave of nostalgia. I am glad he is still doing well.

We started finding some interesting burials right away. One was of an adult, a small child, and  an infant all buried together. There must have been some story there. A sad story.

Another is completely unique in the history of the 30 years of the excavation. We found two people buried together, one facing west the other east. They were not tremendously deep. This is very interesting. Not sure what to make of it yet.

Another burial had a lot of nice cordage, tightly woven and it had been tightly tied around something that no longer survives, so that the cord remained in a bunch of tight loops. 

The day went by very quickly. Time flies.

 

We stopped working just a bit early so that we could go check out Philadelphia. We looked at it a bit more thoroughly than the last few years. It has so much promise, there are so many things we could do there. I so wish we were ready, financially and personnel wise, to start excavating there. I feel so more now than ever. We found evidence of some recent illicit digging. Also, many recent burials are encroaching on the site. The police presence is so weak the last few years that no one is afraid to do that anymore. Once people have been buried there we will never get to dig there. Some of the town is already lost to archaeologists that way, and I fear that much more will happen in the next few years. I will report this to the antiquities police, but I am not sure what they will be able to do about it. I need to find a way to start excavating there. Soon.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch (or airport), we finally found success in procuring our total station. Here is the transcript of email updates sent throughout the day:

0800

Off I go with Emad in his car.  First thing he does is miss the turn to the east side so now wandering towards Giza.  Fear not.  He has now returned to direct his face to the half risen sun.

1000

Have acquired entry pass for Emad.  Instead of arrival hall 3, we are at arrival hall 1.  He is the official representative of SCA and I cannot go through to this different place.  He needed 100 LE and the eBay screen shot of the DTM-300.  He has gone in to negotiate the price.  He will be back when money is needed.  Why do I feel that the only choice i have in this matter is whether I am crying, laughing, praying, yelling or silent as I stand with hands tied behind my back wearing a black blindfold?

Attached is photo of disability access.

1030

Emad has emerged as an authorized agent.  Pushed Emad up the hill from arrival hall (salon - note dear reader, though one be almost persuaded at this point in the progress of this pilgrimage, salon should not be confused with saloon) 1 to the international arrival salon 3 (where we arrive).  Again, he enters as the sole agent.  This time I know where he is going - the office with Mohammed.

Now I wait for the sentence to announced.  How much cutting into the stack of 100's?  Will I be able to get any reduction in the initial amount?  Dear reader, I shall speak again, in shah ....

1130

A cry of "Doktor Paoul" echos through the salon.  Emad has reappeared at the portal with two customs agents and four guards.  I present my passport and the sign the customs document.  Name, passport number (which I call out in Arabic as I write in alphanumeric) and then the piece de resistance.  "Write you nationality here," says the older of the twi customs agent.  "My nationality?" I reply?  Then I pause.  Yes, dear reader, do you hear those three words coming?  Proudly pointing to myself, and with a smile, I proclaim in Arabic, "I am a Fayoumi".  The customs agents, the guards, the guards elsewhere, and even Mr. Emad break into a smile and some even laugh.  It then is passed to others who did not hear the original proclamation of nationality - "He says he is a Fayoumi".   The smiles spread faster than the blame for a problem.  It works every time. 

The excavation site is in the Fayoum region of Egypt and is quite rural.  A Fayoumi in Egypt is the equivalent of a country bumpkin.

With the papers signed, Emad and the customs agents and the guards dissolve back through the portal off to the second of the two hallways on the left.

10 minutes later we are down the hill to departure salon 1 and Emad enters into gate 6.  Dear reader, whilst rolling down hill do you not think that I thought to let go and yell "lookout!"?  Maybe I have not explained that Emad uses a wheel chair and I am his most dutiful motor.  Still, the thought was nearly inescapable from the obvious fruition.  I would have been following the scriptural command, "do unto others as you have done to your mother."  [evans 18:15; 2012 revised edition]

Still no sentence.  Or whisper of the severity.

1230

After 66 minutes I have seen the number of the beast written upon multiple pages and the number is 3216 LE.  Back to arrival salon 3.  Emad has the cash and has gone through to the other side.

1300

The gates of the prison have opened and the prisoner is released into my waiting hands.  This is no end of a story.  There is no end.....

Mabrouk!

1400

The case is in the room.

Kom Aushim

Today we got to sleep in a little, which is very nice. Then I was able to visit with Julianne just a little. That is even better. We went to Kom Aushim today, the storage facility for artifacts found in the Fayoum (which is where our dig is). We cleaned a number of textiles, flattened some out, and put them in better storage containers. We photographed a number of objects and took better measurements of them. 

Meanwhile Lincoln was examining our papyri fragments. He figured out that they are actually two parts of the same papyrus that fit together perfectly. It is still a small piece, but it makes more sense now. He was excited as he was able to translate most of it. We were also shown a number of demotic papyri, some huge ones, that need to be published. It is too bad John Gee is not here, he would be so excited. Lincoln also looked at a few large stone inscriptions and started translating them.

 

Lincoln and I ran up to Fayoum City where we met with Asharaf, chief of Antiquities Police for the Fayoum Governate. Lincoln got approved for work. Then we ran back to Kom Aushim and did some more work. We photographed and measured various objects for publication. Overall it was a very successful day. 

Meanwhile Paul tried again to get the total station, and failed again. I am a bit frustrated with this situation. There are bureaucratic problems here that are probably best not to comment on. I will survive my frustrations.

We finished in time to run to Karanis with 10 minutes before it closed. Our good friend Ayman worked hard to talk them into letting us in. They told us 20 minutes. We took 30. We ran and saw the best stuff, temples, altars, etc. We could not spend much time, but we did a little, and enjoyed a lot. Karanis was a great city for a while. Still seems great to me. 

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.

When I got back to the square they told me that many of the workers were not working very much. I guess that when the cat is away the mice will play. I started writing everyone’s name down and making marks about whether or not they were working. Suddenly there was a flurry of work. We got more done in the next 20 minutes than had been done in a few hours before. 

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.

Friday break and car break ins

What a day. Fridays are not days that you can excavate. This is wonderful because bodies and souls really do need a Sabbath. It also allows us to go to church. So we caught some taxis to Maadi and went in for church. Today was district conference. We were able to hear from the District President,  Lebanese person who lives in Jordan, and several other speakers. It was so good, I enjoyed it so much and felt so edified. I came to understand some things I need to teach my children about more.

 Afterwards the branch had a little luncheon. We were able to visit with a number of people as we ate. A wonderful little family from Congo was particularly delightful to me. Also a family from Hawaii. And so many others. What a wonderful group, what good people. This was a blessed part of the day.

We changed clothes and went Rich Zeolla’s house. Rick is the manager of the Marriott. We were going to see the Abu Roash pyramid (also known as the lost pyramid) and he and his family were coming. It is a bit hard to find, but last year Joyce and I found it, and I marked the GPS coordinates, so we should be able to find it. He had his driver, and we found two taxis.

As we headed out we went past the place where you turn in to the Giza pyramids. The camel jockey mafia were out in full force. These are guys who try to force taxis with tourists to stop, they make you ride their friend’s camel, and then they take you out in the middle of nowhere and take all your money. They really try to force the taxis to pull over. Our taxi got away with them hitting and kicking it. The taxi behind, with half our crew, didn’t fare as well. The driver had his window down, and the mafia guy caught his arm and held it in a painful lock. He jumped up on the cab and held onto that arm until the guy pulled over. Then they played a weird game for a long time where the taxi drive would try to take off, the mafia guy would hop on the trunk and ride until he could run up and grab his arm again, etc. It looked for a while like he was going to pull this guy out and  beat him up and get our friends. He was pretty violent and pretty close to making it happen. As we kept going but slow enough to see if they would get away, one of them caught up with us and got our driver’s door open. Then our drive was trying to speed up and get his door shut, etc. It took a while to get away. It made for a tense situation.

This stuff makes me so angry. It was happening last year too. These guys don’t know how much they are hurting themselves. Fewer people go to Giza because of them, so in the end they make less money, and so does everyone else associated with Giza, innocent or not. A few people have asked me about getting involved in tour groups to come over here. They ask if it is a good time. I think it mostly is, but the problems at Giza have to make me say no. The wonderful people here are suffering, and it is partially because of these idiots at the pyramid. I hate to see my wonderful friends here struggling so much because of the lack of tourism, and these evil men make it worse. It angers me.

 Anyway, we continued on our journey. Sadly, we had the worst taxi driver in Egypt. He would not believe us that there was a pyramid in Abu Roash, even though we had been there before. We could only go about 5-10 minutes before he would pull over and try to convince us to go to the Saqqara or Giza pyramids. He stopped and asked directions of everyone we met, even though we told him to keep going and told him where it was. This made it take forever. I am sure that the people in the other cars were giving up hope and thought we were crazy. What should have been a 45 minute drive took 1.5 hours. It was a horrible drive. And I wanted so badly for Rick and his family to have a good experience that I was getting an ulcer by the time we found it. We finally did, and it is a very cool place and we had a good time. But I am not sure they thought it was worth it. I feel badly about that. What can we do? It was kind of a fun trip, but mostly stressful. 

 

 

I look forward to a good day of excavating tomorrow. I miss my family. I don’t do well without them and I wish I was with them. At least we get to skype. I have even been able to skype with them for family prayer a few times. It makes it a bit easier.