So the last few weeks our schedule and routine has stayed the same, but now that the end of our work is approaching, there are more steps to be taken. In addition to our weekly report, we will also write a final report about what happened in our units over the last month. We will also work on 1:20 top plans of what our units look like, which are much more detailed than the 1:50 plans we do on a daily basis. The final plans take a lot of time and precision, and require us to use drawing squares that make sure we have as many details as possible in our drawings. We also will clean and prepare our units for photography. All in all, the last week of work is always the busiest!

Last night, we attended a lecture by Stephen Davis, our project director, who was speaking in Cairo about our work. It was really interesting to hear what we are doing put in a new light. When you are working in a small 8 x 5 meter unit every day, it is easy to get caught up in the little details of your finds, or your daily agenda, or your end of day photographs, and to lose sight of the larger picture. As he spoke about why EDMAP was formed and what our purpose is, it really hit us that we are part of a huge project. One reason that our work is so important is that the site we are excavating is endangered by encroaching Delta area farms. We need to excavate, record, and preserve this area so that it will continue to be protected from the people who live and work on areas of land around our site. Already we can see parts of the site that have fallen prey to farmers seeking to extend their land. It is sad that these areas may never be properly excavated. It also became apparent to us why it is so important to learn about the way these monasteries would have looked and been used several hundred years ago. In the surrounding area of lower Egypt, there are many modern monastaries that have ties to the ancient one we are studying. It is important to these churches to learn about their own history and to preserve parts of their past that have been covered for centuries. We are helping to provide a greater body of knowledge about this aspect of Egyptian history. It was amazing to re-learn these things during our last week especially, because, as I’ve already said, it can get pretty hectic. Putting things in perspective really helped give us that push to get us through the week!

Look for an entry soon on Alexandria!

Erin and Nikki

This morning we went to the Great Pyramids. They were definetely a highlight of the trip. The pyramids are every bit as big as you think they would be, and actually, even bigger! One thing that really surprised us was the size of the bricks. As we climbed a few meters up on the Great Pyramid, we stood next to bricks that were as tall as our armpits, and so wide that our outstretched arms couldnt touch one side to another! Now imagine thousands of bricks like that piled on top of each other and stretching all the way around the pyramid, and it seems impossible that human beings could have made them. Absolutely incredible and mind boggling! We ventured inside the Second Pyramid, and it was an adventure unto itself. We had to climb down a tiny, dark, near-airless passage that required us bend over double it was so low and narrow. At the bottom, we found ourselves inside a stone chamber that conatined a sarcophagus, but unfortunately the combination of heat and almost no air forced us back out of the pyramid rather quickly, and we couldnt look around too much. After that we walked over to the Sphinx, which was just as cool as the pyramids. From the front, the Sphinx is flanked by the pyramids, so it was a breathtaking visa. It was an amazing morning, and we took a ton of pictures, which hopefully we will be able to upload onto the site soon.

Another really cool thing we did this weekend was visit two monasteries on Saturday morning before we left for Cairo. These were the monasteries of St. Bishoi and the Monastery of the Syrians. They were incredibly beautiful–stucco, arched buildings surrounded by palm trees and flowering vines, and the desert atmoshphere made them very peaceful. It was so cool to look at existing versions of what we are excavating at our site–St. Bishoi and the Syrian Monastery are part of a cluster of monasteries at Wadi Natrun. We were given a tour by one of the monks at St. Bishoi, who showed us the church, the mill where the monks ground flour for bread, and the outside of some of the old monastic cells. One interesting fact about the cells were their doors–they were so small! We learned that Coptic cells had doors that size because when one would enter the room within, they would have to bow (reminding them to be humble) and also because Jesus said to follow the narrow way. Another fact he shared with us was the symbology of the hood Coptic bishops wear. Each side has six crosses, representing the twelve disciples, a line down the center, representing the battle of good versus evil, and a cross at the back of the hood reprenting Jesus. He also showed us the old fortress monks used to use in the days of barbarian invasions, which was really neat to see. At the Monastery of the Syrians we saw a gorgeous church with unbelievable plaster walls depicting biblical scenes and icons of saints. It was a really interesting and fun trip!

We will write again soon!

Maas Salaama!

Erin, Nikki, and Trinity

We are staying at a retreat center which has a cluster of maybe seven or eight buildings, and they look really cool–there are domed ceilings, marble floors, arched doorways and cross-shaped windows. The outside would remind you have stucco, and looking out your window and seeing all the buildings against the green of the fields here is a really amazing view. This residence is self-reliant; they grow some fruits and vegetables, especially olives, and even make their own yogurt. There is also a reflection pool here that winds all throughout the complex, and it was rather startling to walk to the pool and pass cows that roam freely and a pigeon house. Everything is really beautiful and relaxing here, and our room is really comfortable, even though we sleep under mosquito nets.

Another really interesting thing about our room is the bathroom. There is no shower in the bathroom, but rather a nozzle on the wall between the toilet and the sink (kind of like how they are on a train). Because the whole bathroom is tile and at a slight slope, the drain is just in the corner and after you shower you have to squeegie the floor so the next person who comes in doesnt slip and fall. The water pressure isn’t very good, but if you shower in the afternoon, you can get really hot water. Another thing we had to get used to was that you don’t flush toilet paper here, but rather throw it away, so it was a real challenge to adjust to that our first few days here.

Because we are staying in an Egyptian residence, we do have to be careful about the way we dress. On the dig site, we have to be completely covered, with long sleeves and long pants. This is not just to prevent sunburn, but also because we work with work teams of men who belong to a very different culture than we are used to. At our residence, we can be slightly more relaxed in our dress code, but we still do not wear tank tops, and we have to wear capri pants or long skirts (below the knee). We thought before we came that having to cover up so much would be unbearable in the heat, but it really has not been too bad at all. It seems you can get used to almost anything.

Speaking of getting used to things, the food here has been another adjustment. Everything is really organic, and the fresh fruits and vegetables (like carrots, cucumber, tomato, melon, apples, and bananas) have been fantastic. Some of the other dishes, however, have taken some getting used to. Kusheri is an example of this…it is a very heavy combination of rice, lentils, noodles, tomato sauce, beans, and onions…it is rather hard on our digestive systems to say the least. There are also many other dishes involving rice, potatoes, and bread, which are very good but also very different than what we are used to eating. The staff here have been really great at accomadating to western style foods: we even had french fries for lunch one day! The EDMAP team has also treated us to ice cream and soda, so don’t worry, we are not lacking in any vital food groups! : )

We are still working hard at the dig site, and looking forward to seeing the Pyramids at Giza this weekend…look for another update soon

Erin, Nikki, and Trinity

We’re sorry it’s been awhile, but we’ve been very busy the last few days. We get one day a week off, and we took advantage of the break this weekend and headed into Cairo for a night. The first thing about Cairo that took us aback right away was the driving. We are pretty sure lanes exist on these roads, and we THINK there is a speed limit, but so far, we have not seen any proof of either. Basically, it seems that you can drive wherever you want and however fast you want, regardless if there are cars around you or innocent pedestrians trying to cross the 8 lane thick flow of traffic. We decided that if we don’t get into a car accident in Cairo, we probably will never get into one for the rest of our lives.

Erin’s guidebook says that if you can cross the street in Cairo, you can do anything in Cairo, and luckily we managed to make it through the weekend unscathed.

Cairo is a huge, sprawling metropolis sprouting straight out of the desert. It is crowded (about 8 million people), vibrant, and exciting. Everywhere you look, modern skyscrapers intersect with mudbrick and terra cotta buildings, giving a feel of the ancient and present worlds colliding. Our hotel was in a district of Cairo called Zamalek, which is basically an island in the middle of the Nile. After we checked in and dropped our things off, we did what any three American girls would do in a foreign city: shopping! Shopping in Cairo is really fun; not only are the shops colorful and inviting, but there is always the aspect of haggling and trying to get the best price possible. We had a good time experimenting with our feeble arabic until it was time for dinner.

On Sunday we went to the Egyptian Museum. We spent several hours wandering around ancient statues, paintings, and sarcophagi. We looked at ancient jewellry, the treasure of King Tutankhamun’s tomb, and even the actual mummified bodies of famous pharoahs like Seti I, Ramses II, and Amenhotep II. One really cool room we looked at was one of mummified animals. Some animals, like the hippo, crododile, cat, and baboon were sacred to the ancient Egyptians, or at least served as votive offerings to the dead or various dieties. It was really cool to see how the mummification process worked in a different way other than humans. After the museum, we spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the city and hanging out in a coffeehouse so we could work on our weekly reports for EDMAP, because, after all, we are here for work, not pleasure.

That being said, we really need to get back to our reports! We’ll update again soon! And pictures from the weekend/last week are also coming!

Erin and Nikki

We are currently excavating a Coptic (Eastern Christians in Egypt) monastery from the 6th century AD located in Wadi Naturn (about a half hour from where we stay). Every morning we wake up at 4:15 because we have to load our things and get on the road by 4:45. Even though that is incredibly early, it turns out that the desert does not get too unbearably hot until around 10 am, so we can get in a good four and half to five hours of work before the heat makes us collapse (HAHA nobody collapsed yet, dont worry). But really, the desert is actually pretty pleasant in the morning, and we are always surprised how awake we feel by the time we get off the bus and take a short three-quarter mile hike to where we are excavating. We spend about an hour reviewing our narratives from the day before and starting a new one for that day. An archaeologist’s narrative is a running commentary of what is happening in our unit (we each have our own 5 x 5 meter unit within the larger site). We take notes about the texture of the sand and mudbrick, as well as its color and measurements and dimensions. We also note if anything has changed from day to day. Sometimes in the morning, the presence of moisture on the sand helps define formations underneath and we are able to see things that we couldnt see the afternoon before.

After we describe our unit, we begin work for the day. Each of us is assigned a team of Egyptian workers who help us with surface scrapes. We are currently digging down 10cm at a time and we do this across our entire unit so everything stays level. In archaeology, the layers (or stratigraphy) is very important because the way artifacts fall in relation to each other paints a picture for us of what happened at our site. We have a ceramicist who catalogues our finds (such as plaster, pottery, glass, or organic materials) and is able to identify diagnostic pieces–those that help us assign dates to our finds. In our last blog, we talked about some arabic words we learned, but now we have had to learn words that help us communicate with our workers on site. We have a complex system of cataloguing in place, so knowing which finds come from which layers or areas of the unit is really important. Thus, we’ve learned the arabic words for “pottery”, “glass”, “level”, “here”, “there”, “plaster”, “five centimeters” and “please go slowly”. It’s really strange, but interesting, to learn a language in this way–not by things you want to say, but by things you have to say in order to accomplish anything.

Besides the actual supervising of the dig in our unit, we are also responsible for creating a top plan of what is happening in our unit. These are done on a 1:50 scale, meaning they are pretty generic in detail but still give us room to do accurate measurements and indicate where we have found things. These top plans are turned in every evening so Dr. Brooks Hedstrom and the other supervisors can create a master plan of the entire excavation site by piecing all of our top plans together. Therefore, we have to be really careful to take good measurements and good notes in our narratives so that the other people on the team will understand what happened in our unit each day.

We work until the afternoon, where it gets so hot that it is dangerous for us to be outside any longer. We have a few hours after lunch to rest, and then the remainder of each day is spent processing our data and updating our written narratives into the computer database. This takes A LOT longer than you would think…no matter how early we start, we still are working on things until 8 or 9 usually…which is kind of late when you have to wake up at four!

That being said…I need to get to bed! But everything is going really well and we are having a much better time than we anticipated. Even the hard work is fun because you get to uncover artifacts that haven’t been touched for over a thousand years! We will update again soon, it wont be as long of a lapse as last time!

Ma’as Salaama!
Erin

Erin and Nikki are currently writing from the Newark International Airport en-route to Cairo, where they have already survived many disasterous encounters, including a near-miss invloving the laptop and a full cup of orange soda. Trinity is at this moment recieving her diploma, signaling an end to her days at Witt, and therefore she will be flying solo tomorrow and rejoining us at the site in a few days. Before we arrive in Cairo and have actual important and interesting things to tell you, we thought we would at least introduce ourselves.

Trinity Rufus is a graduating senior, who majored in Integrated Social Studies, and when she has a chance to log on, she will edit this post and add more info about herself : )

Nikki (who will go by Nicole in Egypt, as her nickname means a very bad word in Arabic) is a scrappy upcoming senior and is also majoring in Integrated Social Studies and minoring in Political Science. She is from Ohio and after our work in Egypt will head straight off to work as a camp counselor.

Erin will be a junior in the fall and is majoring in History and double minoring in Sociology (Anthropology) and the Pre-Modern World. She is also from Ohio and the remainder of her summer will be spent babysitting and going on vacation with her family. Erin has prepared for this trip by learning the followng Arabic words, which we will list so you can learn them as well!!!!

shukran: Thank You
fayn: Where is…
bikam da: How much is…
ana badowwar ‘ala assifara United States: I’m looking for the United States Embassy.
min fadlak: Please
min fadlak la’ tilmasni: Please don’t touch me

Thanks for looking at our blog…check it out frequently as we will be writing as much as we can!

ma’as salaama! (goodbye!)