Yallah Shabab!

Beautiful view of a Monastery that we explored 

      Sorry faithful followers for my general lateness in writing a new post! Now I have a lot to catch up on.  January 15th,  my last blog, is when we shall resume the story.  That same evening, one of the girls here Emma had her 21st birthday. Ellen, our administrator, along with our "super TA" Dan purchased some Stella beers and some delicious sweets from Mut (baklava type things and little fried dough balls covered in honey) and we had a small party on the roof.  After this night, it was all business. I had two presentations that week, one on the amazingly beautiful Fayum portraits, and then my second one on the Late Roman/Early Christian Era of Egypt. So most of my days were spent in the library during this week. This was occassionally broken up by random sand storms, which at times became so thick I couldn't see 10 feet out of the library window, soccer games with the house staff (American girls vs. Egyptian men...we lost 28 to 30),  and trips to relevant sites.
        We visited two sites during the week. The first was a stop to Mut, which is a site that dates back all the way to Pre-dynastic times. This means that the site is a mess. The area has been occupied from that time until very recently, so the ground layers are very confusing. An Old Kingdom structure is partially dismantled to build a Middle Kingdom structure, and it continues in this fashion for thousands of years of history. Needless to say, this site was not my favorite due to its general chaotic nature, and also because the locals continue to stubbornly use the site as a dump for their deceased donkeys (and sometimes humans). Colin Hope was the head archaeologist at Mut, and he was adorable and British enough to make up for some strange smells.

Wooden shelves at Kellis!! You can see them in that small niche. 

        The next site, Kellis was much more exciting. This was a town from 1-5th century CE of very wealthy individuals that seem to have picked up and left randomly one day. All of the houses were quickly filled with sand, leaving the entire community preserved for the next thousand years. The preservation was absolutely incredible. One of the houses still had its wooden shelves in place, and most of the houses had documents left in them. The oldest complete book ever found was found here, dating from around 4th century CE. There was an incredible church structure, possibly the first Manichean church found, judging from the Manichean documents found around the site. So many of the original walls were still standing, and our guide Olaf Kaper is super awesome and knowledgeable.
          One night I went to the town of Mut with my friends to buy snacks and just generally to see the town. It is a very strange and surreal feeling to have an entire town stare at you everywhere you go. People were generally extremely nice and friendly, turning to say hello or welcome. However, on our way out of the town we were followed by two young boys that wouldn't stop trying to talk to us, saying "I love you" or just generally harassing us. Overall, I had a great time in Mut, since the boys were really not a threat and I got some tasty snacks like Chipsy, the Arabic version of Lay's chips
         The next day we took off for the Kharga Oasis. Hopping on the bus, we settled in for a 2 1/2 hour bus ride south. The passing scenery was all desert, nothing to be seen for miles. We passed through many military checkpoints along the way, and upon reaching Kharga, we had a police escort. With no time for relaxation, we went straight to our first site Ain Labakha. The road to the site from the main highway seemed endless and extremely bumpy, as it was made of packed sand, rather than asphalt. At one point it seemed as though we wouldn't make it, as we came upon a large hill of sand that had blown onto the road, obstructing our way. But our driver simply plowed around it with the bus, and we went on just fine.

Me and a scorpion that is somewhat obscured by flash

      Once we got there, the first thing we all noticed was a completely adorable puppy. We all cooed and fawned over it, which seemed to amuse our police escort. We had a delicious lunch of pita bread, cheese, hard boiled eggs, cucumbers, and oranges. Then "the show" as the local men called it, began. They proceeded to bring out 10 jars, each with a live scorpion in it. These had been captured in the area, and safely imprisoned, as they each have a great deal of poison in their stingers. The men shook the jars to excite the scorpions and handed them to us. Then they brought out a dead dried horned viper for us to examine. These are the most poisonous snakes in Egypt; we were told that if you get bitten by one of them, you only have time to smoke one cigarette.

Abu Sayed

Everyone watching Sayed climb up the Kanat shaft

         After this show, Abu Sayed the man who lived there, an adorable and very fit 65 year old, showed us the kanats that were next to his property. Kanats were invented by Persians as aqueducts and were used in Egypt from the persian period onwards. However, almost all kanats fell into disuse. I say almost all because Abu Sayed cleaned out a kanat on his property all by himself, and therefore has the only functioning kanat in all of Egypt. Running around excitedly (barefoot), Sayed showed us his beautiful water source and his subsequent garden. He also climbed into the kanat, walked up it and then nimbly climbed out of one of the maintenance shafts that characterize a kanat system. Basically, Abu Sayed is the coolest and most hard core person on this planet.
        Once he was done showing off his handiwork, we marched across a desert plain towards the series of fortresses that were nearby. Reaching the smallest fort first, we wandered around examining the ruins. I quickly realized that we had these ancient monuments all to ourselves, and got very excited. There were no roped off areas, safety measures, or guides. I stood on the edge of the fort, looking out from a pile of rubble that had once been a main wall, and was simply in awe. I was in awe of the view and this incredible opportunity. I was on the precipice of a Roman fort, gazing out at endless desert and enscarpment, completely free to explore. Little did I know, this was only the beginning.

Sand angels and huge fort

Me and the fort! Scarves are great for sun protection

Our Bus

       From the smaller fort, we walked to a small temple area that was mostly filled with sand, and therefore not quite as exciting and climbable. There were some beautiful wall paintings, but we had to run and quickly recover them with sand as to preserve them for future people. After looking at this temple we crossed yet more desert and arrived at the large fort. This was a beautiful structure, and extremely well preserved on the outside. Quickly, Ellen got many of the girls to join her in making snow angels on the smooth sand in front of the fort. After a few "Yallah Shabab"s from our guide Ashraf (roughly meaning come on young'uns) we climbed into the fortress itself. None of the structure had been excavated, and so it was a mess of brick and sand inside, but it was very cool and fun to climb around, looking into holes and picking up various pieces of pottery that we would find. From there, exhausted and thirsty, we walked back to our bus, which had conveniently driven close by to meet us. As we drove away from the site, however, our trials were not done. The bus rand over a sand bank and became stuck. Quickly all twelve of us excitedly ran out, and began to push. Laughing, breathing hard, and pushing sand, dust, and exhaust blew into my mouth, but I did not care. Finally we freed our ride, hopped back in and made it home to our hotel.

Our bungalows!

           Before heading out for Kharga, Ellen warned that the past years' hotel stays had been in "shit holes", and not to expect too much. But upon arriving, it was clear that we were not to suffer the same fate. Each pair of roommates got their own bungalow in a beautiful and lush courtyard. The water was hot in the shower and the television got fuzzy, yet visible Arabs' Got Talent. It was great! We were free until a 7:30 dinner, but we were already hungry and decided to walk and find a convenience store. As we exited the building we again had the experience of being watched by the whole town. Suddenly we realized that a man was following us, saying hello to us repeatedly. We thought that he was a creepy man at first, but then he was joined by a man in uniform, and when we reached the convenience store, an SUV with four more police arrived. We then fully understood that we had a constant police escort, and after buying our various treats, walked the 10 minutes back to the hotel with a full military entourage, SUV and all. That night at dinner, the hotel staff served us my new favorite meat: GOAT. I love goat. It's amazing! It's like beef, but its much less tough and more flavorful.

Me and painted relief!

             Anyway, the next day we got up at 6am, had breakfast, and went along to our first site of the day: Al Ghueita. This was a beautiful temple with a Roman fortress built around it. The temple was incredibly well reconstructed, with stunning extant wall paintings in the ritual center and in the outer rooms. We all were really excited to be there, and immediately began to climb walls, stairs, and generally explore the area (once again entirely on our own). From there, we drove over to the next site, once again another temple with a fortress around it. This site was very well preserved as well, but had very few wall paintings or decoration, and so I found it less exciting. Finally we drove about 45 minutes to a site called Dush. This was another temple and fortress complex, with a lot of beautiful views and artwork, and so we climbed around the site. After we climbed down from the fortress we ran into the men who ran the watch station near the monument. They came running forward and showed us a live horned viper in a jar that they had recently caught. It was a pretty snake, although clearly very angry and very dangerous.

Dune sliding!

              After this small adventure we stopped by the side of the road and were ordered out. We couldn't even see the next site from where we were, so it felt as though we were walking into empty desert. It was about a half an hour long walk, which was exhausting through the sand. Luckily, our leader, the awesome Ellen, let us have a small break. We reached an enormously tall sand dune, took off our shoes and socks and ran up the entire thing. Once I reached the top, I saw that the sand dune dropped off almost vertically. It was an incredible site. Then Ellen proceeded to urge us to the highest and steepest part of the sand dune, and show us how to run down the side of it. It was the coolest feeling ever! I was sinking up to my mid-thigh with each step, which made it possible to not just roll down the extremely steep hill. After this experience, we were all rejuvenated and ready to finish our tour. We reached the site after another 10 minutes of walking, where I found a predynastic ostrich egg shell fragment, which was very cool. Then we looked around an ancient village and at their kanat system, and then made our way back to the bus.
         That evening we went to the local souq or market where we were all once again the center of attention, and fastidiously followed by the local police. I bought two shirts, and actually haggled for them! I also had a full conversation with a shop keeper in arabic, which was extremely rewarding. Once we were done with our shopping, we all headed for bed.
          The next day we had a few sites, one was a necropolis and a monastery (first picture), and the other was a temple. Both had beautiful painting decoration, although I was unable to get good pictures of either. While I was in a tomb that was named the Tomb of Peace, I had divine inspiration! I realized that I wanted to write a thesis paper about purposeful art destruction and damage (ie iconoclasm), because the paintings in the tomb had been strategically destroyed in places and I found it fascinating. I plan to associate this with art conservation and the difficult ethical issues that arise from replacing imagery that has been destroyed. Anyway, that tomb was a wonderful experience and we saw a lot of interesting early Christian tomb structures on the site.

Kharga Museum and the gang!

           From there we went to the Kharga Museum where we saw some interesting artifacts from the sites we had just visited. Outside I took a great picture of our merry group, although its a little lackadaisical since we were very hungry and tired. Then we hopped on the bus and headed back home to our own Dakhleh Oasis. So here I am, back home, and the house has been filled with new people ready to begin excavation on Amheida. We begin around January 29th, and I will be continuing the work with the painting fragments. I will try to be on time with my next post on this next Saturday, and I am planning on having it as a food themed post for all my foodie friends and family. Until then, MaSalaama! (with safety)

My Mut Life

Dig House

Salaam aleekom! It’s been over a week already in the oasis! This time has been much less helter skelter than my first three days, so this blog post promises to be much less scattered than the previous one.

                Upon arriving at the dig house, I jumped into a routine rapidly; I wake up around 7:30 or 8 for an 8am breakfast. This is served in a relatively intimate space with three tables. We have jam, sun bread, various cheeses, tea, coffee, juice (which seems like Tang), and hard boiled eggs available every morning, with added options every once in a while. From there, I would go an exercise with some of the girls, still making sure that I’m covered appropriately, or I would go and read the assignments for the day’s class. At 11:30 we have our seminar about the Oasis and its history in relation to the Nile Valley.  We usually have daily readings for this class, but sometimes we replace the class with field trips to surrounding sites.

A tray that has to be reassembled

 After class is lunch at 1pm with a similarly large spread of food. Following lunch I go off and work with the conservators! The conservators (Sanchita and Bassem) are working on restoring bits and pieces of a large wall painting from a villa that had been excavated in 2004. This villa, from the 3^rd century CE was covered with figural paintings showing various figures and narratives from Greek mythology, like Orpheus in a music competition or Aphrodite being caught with Aries by Hephaestus. The team, upon excavating the building in 2004, was too excited and worked too quickly on the building, and did not call in a conservation team immediately. Because of this carelessness, much of the once intact wall painting is in shambles. I worked trying to piece back sections for the conservators to glue. It was like trying to reassemble a puzzle where you have no picture to work off of and no corner pieces.  Other days I would work on their inventory or take pictures of the pieces so that the conservators could put the pieces together on Photoshop.  I’ve learned a great deal from only about a week of working with them!

Artist with her reconstruction

All of this work was for the reconstructed villa. The archaeologists had an architect build a replica of the original villa using the extant remains and a lot of research. The conservators were trying to put back major sections so that an artist could paint a recreation of what the villa had looked like inside. However, so many sections of the paintings are simply gone, and so this dream may never be an accurate reality.

After I work with the conservators, I have Arabic class at 6pm. Here, I am realizing that much of the hordes of information that I had memorized in my Arabic class at Columbia is useless here. The colloquial is very different from what I had learned, but I’m steadily figuring it all out.

adventures with friends around the dig house

At 7pm dinner is served and we all just relax. The food is always absolutely delicious for every meal, and I’ve made a point to try everything.  There is always a lot of laughter at the table as we share stories and find out more about each other. I love everyone here on the program! We all get along, and are similarly minded. No one complains about our 3 minute showers or the sand that gets everywhere.  The nights before we have a field trip (meaning we don’t have reading homework) we all watch a movie on the dig house projector. We have watched The Gladiator and Weekend at Bernie’s. Good times.

Bedouin loom

Our first field trip was to see the site of Amheida itself (called Trimithis in its own time).  First, however we all stopped at a small side town where Bedouins practice weaving. It was incredible to see them making these beautiful rugs and bags and tapestries from balls of wool. The looms were enormous! Needless to say I got myself a bag and a small tapestry while we were there. From there we went to an elementary school that our maintenance man Gaber’s wife works at. The children were so cute, and very shy at first. Then as we sat and had lunch on their soccer field, they came around and sat and watched us. Then some of our girls went over to them and started to take their pictures. Once this happened, kids came out of the woodwork to get their pictures taken together. They could speak a little bit of English, as they take English classes from very young ages. The older women teachers proudly showed us the sewing work that the girls did in their home economics class. Overall it was amazing to be able to see this part of Egyptian life and to see how similar it is to our own elementary school system.

The old town

After this we stopped in the ‘old town’; the hundred year old abandoned section of this small town. Gaber told us that his grandfather used to live in this town, pointing to a large and beautiful, although crumbling house on the top of a hill. He said that because the area had been so dangerous and rough, people would go into their homes at 6pm and not come out again until it was light the next morning. We peeked into an old abandoned mosque, which was very cool. The floor was littered with empty unused coffins and the old tower which was used for the call to prayer still had steps to go up (although we didn’t try them).

Pottery shard land (Amheida)

Following this quick visit we finally arrived at Amheida. Here we saw the reconstructed villa which was very cool. The artist had recreated two rooms worth of decoration from pictures of the excavation. After our tour of the villa we tromped around the site.  The entire site of Amheida is literally COVERED with pottery shards. If I did not see it, I wouldn’t believe it. You cannot step through the site without stepping on ancient Old Kingdom to Middle Kingdom pottery pieces. At first we all walked through it gingerly, but once our guide said it was okay and unavoidable, we crunched over these thousands of historical artifacts with confidence. Occasionally I would pick one up and inspect it, but knowing I couldn’t take it home with me, I would toss it back into the rest.

Tomb of a governor

Knife found by Julianne

Our other trip we went to Ain Aseel, the most complete Old Kingdom site in Egypt. This was a town/palace complex with a cemetery about 5 miles away. We started at the cemetery, where a French team had excavated a governor’s tomb, which looked like an inverted step pyramid. The whole complex had been under a mastaba which had been removed by the team. Inside his tomb was a beautiful painted room where his body had lain. It was very cool to see the original wall paintings from so long ago. Unfortunately I was unable to get good pictures of them because it was rather dark.  From there we went to the main town and palace complex. This was not very easy though. We took a bus about 10 minutes into the desert. From there the bus could not make it any farther because it would have become stuck in the sand. So we walked across a mile of desert to reach the Ain Aseel site. This was a neat place, where my friend Julianne found an ancient knife on the ground and where more pottery shards roamed free. I found the tomb to be much more exciting however, because the palace had lost all of its paintings, and was just mud brick and an occasional column stub.  When walking through parts of the town, we saw some foxes scamper into some holes in the ancient walls and one of the boys (who was part of another team and had joined us that day) tried to go after them, to no avail.

Dig House seating area outside my room

Other than these large outings and major activities, life in the oasis is an adventure in itself. The sounds of daily life have changed a lot from New York. I hear the braying of donkeys, the sound of the locals playing soccer, and the beautiful hum of the entire town of Mut doing the call to prayer five times throughout the day. The smell of sulpher sometimes wafts over to us from the nearby hot spring, which I checked out recently with some friends, although have yet to soak in it. Despite the weather being in the 60s and coming from weather in the 30s, we all feel quite chilly most of the day. This is helped by two separate tea times in the day, a crucial ritual for the entire house. The first tea time is at 10:30am and the second is at 4:30pm. Everyone gathers around the table, preparing their tea and chatting about their day’s work, warming up, eating a few delicious chocolate cookies in the process.  Life in the oasis is very relaxing, even though the power occasionally goes out and cuts off our water. But no one cares too much about being clean, especially since you get dirty within minutes, or about being harassed by flies (which is constant), or about getting mosquito bites. Everyone is happy and chill.  In the Oasis, koloo tamam! (It’s all good)

Ahlan wa Sahlan! Ana fee Misr! (Hello! I am in Egypt!)

Cairo

         After a wonderful flight (9 1/2 hours) where I got to watch three movies and I was mothered by a lovely older Egyptian woman named Afifa, we all arrived in Cairo International Airport! Everything went smooth; I got my visa, exchanged money (which meant that my $100 US dollars became roughly $600 Egyptian Pounds) and made it through each checkpoint. Then, things got a bit rough. I waited and waited for my bag at baggage claim. Then, after roughly 20 minutes, there it came around the bend. Then it stopped. I ran around to try to grab it, and upon getting there I realized that the fabric of my bag had been caught in the gap between the two separate conveyor belts. It took 15 minutes of some tugging and yelling and pulling from some very helpful airport employees, but finally it came free, although one of my side straps had been snapped.

         From there everything else went along very nicely. We met our guide Aashraf and got on a small bus to our hotel, pleasantly called "Hotel Happy City". Cairo is like no city I have ever seen. It is layered on top of itself. 11th century buildings sit next to 19th century buildings and it sprawls for as far as I could see, which wasn't far because of the thick brown layer of air pollution and dust that permeates the entire place. The poverty was clear. Buildings were crumbling, as were the sidewalks. Many people slept on the street or in their car. But this fact kept no one down! The only way to properly describe the lifestyle in Cairo is to say that anything goes. If you wanna walk in the street towards oncoming traffic, you do it (which we did). If you want to put your business in the middle of the sidewalk, you do it. If you want to fit three cars in a two-lane street, you do it.  Walking the streets was like walking through an obstacle course. Random holes, rocks, or large objects would appear in front of you, and once when I turned to look at one of the many cats that roam the streets, I almost ran into a tree. The whole city is very dirty and dusty, but it definitely has its charm. Men smoking hookahs line the streets, and whole crates of bread wizz by on bikes, balancing on the drivers' heads.

      Our first day in Cairo we settled into our rooms and walked around the city, looking for an internet cafe. One hour on a 10 year old computer cost 2 pounds, roughly 40 cents. From there we returned to the hotel and went to dinner at a restaurant called Felfela. I had foul (a type of bean) with Egyptian dried beef, which was delicious. Returning to the hotel, we all passed out.

Me with my huge wad of Egyptian pounds

      The next morning began our first full day in Cairo. Meeting around 7am we had breakfast, mine consisting of eggs mixed with dried beef, many different kinds of cheeses (which here come from water buffalo), and tea. From there Aashraf took us all to the imposing "mothership of bureaucracy" building to get our 30 day visas extended. This wasn't as painful as I had expected and we were out of there in an hour. Then we purchased cell phones, which with a SIM card cost 170 pounds, ie. a whopping $34. We broke off into smaller groups to explore Cairo from there. I went with Julianne and Sofia to a bank to get our large bills turned into smaller ones, and successfully used arabic to do the job.

Koshry YUM

         Then we went to the American University in Cairo Bookstore, where we found a great children's book entitled 1 Humpy Grumpy Camel, and where I bought a notepad of papyrus. The whole day was great! We had lunch, which consisted of a delicious local dish call koshry, which is just every kind of carb known to man with fried onions and a tomato sauce thrown onto it, and then the rest of the day consisted of teaching some arabic to my fellow students, play a lot of a card game called Egyptian Rat Screw, figuring out the rules to the most complicated cell phone game known to man on our new egyptian phones, and then sampling an Egyptian beer on the roof of our hotel called Stella (not affiliated with the brand Stella Artois).

Starting to become the Black Desert a little

        Day 3 was a rough, although interesting one. We woke up at 6 and scarfed some breakfast, packed our bags and jumped onto a bus to the oasis. This was a 12 hour bus ride passing through 2 different oases until we reached our own. As we were leaving Cairo we drove next to the Nile, which was very beautifully covered in mist. We passed through many different communities on our way out and we were all surprised by the amount of construction that was happened, or seemed to be happening. Many houses were half built or seemed totally abandoned. Then the amount of buildings and people trickled gradually to nothing and we were in the desert. We started to pass through what is called the Black Desert where there were large iron mines, and the sand really looked black. Once arriving in this section of desert, however we stopped to take a bathroom break in the Bahariya Oasis. The bathrooms of these far flung parts of the country were very different from what we were used to. These were squat toilets. This meant that you pull down your pants and squat over a hole in the ground, holding onto a plumbing pipe for support so you don't fall into the questionable liquid the floor is covered with. Once you were done there was no toilet paper or soap, making the experience all the more...rustic. For lunch we stopped off in a small side village, and sat on some pillows on the floor of a thatched roof structure and had some delicious cheese, bread, chips, and tea.

Town along the way

        Along the way we saw a lot of the agricultural life of the oases, as well as some of the most remote feeling places I could imagine. The Black Desert gave way to the White Desert, which really looked like it had been made with crushed chalk. We saw many donkeys that people were riding, and a lot of goats and cows that were being herded. When we would see the agricultural fields, the green was so green, especially when contrasted to the stark sand that it was next to. Finally after 12 hours on the bus we arrived at our dig house at around 7pm. The house is everything that I had wanted but didn't expect. The house is made out of adobe, and most of it is unroofed and open to the sky, other than our rooms, some rug covered sitting areas, and the dining hall. The bathrooms have actual running toilets (hooray) and our beds have very warm blankets. We all had a great dinner together, which consisted of delicious chicken, bread (called sun bread because its baked in the sun), cheese, and potatoes. I ran around excitedly upon getting there and quickly found a roof terrace, where I looked at the stars for a bit before turning in.

     This morning, Julianne and I realized that our handle for the inside of our room was not very functional and so we couldn't get out of our room. So, we ended up climbing out of our bedroom window, circling the building in our pajamas, and walking in the front of the door. Just another adventure! The internet is a bit slow here but I've essentially gotten it to work. I walked around the building today and explored a nearby grove with some of my friends and went for a jog and found the nearby hot spring which I intend to frequent.
    
      All in all, these three days have been absolutely spectacular! I cannot wait to truly begin my two classes (one on Egypt/Dakhla history and the other on arabic) and to explore some more! MaSalama!!!