by Mohammed Abdel Maksoud (Student, Inspector of the Ministry of Antiquities)

Two weeks ago there was a big storm on the site which made us leave the site early at 10:30 a.m. The first thing which happened was a light wind, and we continued our work. Step by step the wind became stronger than before, after that we could not complete our work because the sand prevented us from seeing anything. In this stage we tried to write the data for everything which we found on that day but it was very difficult to write or give numbers for the bags – the wind was very hard.

Sandstorm on site. View to the North. Photo by Yasser Mahmoud

Our eyes could not see anything and we were afraid of the sand in our eyes. At the start of the wind I tried to continue and not to miss any information about the site because every day at the site there is a lot of a new information. I hoped that the wind would finish and we could continue the work. But it became very difficult. So we were sorry but we had to return all our tools to the store and we went to wait for the cars to transfer us to the villa. But we could not even see the cars because the wind became even stronger.

Working in a sandstorm. View to the North. Photo by Yasser Mahmoud

I was very sad because I feel that this day I missed extra information. The result of this storm was that our clothes were the color white and so was our hair and our bags. Even my eyes got hurt because the sand entered in them. After that we came back the villa, we tried to clean ourselves to complete our work and an continue paperwork.

Students waiting for the bus. Photo by V. Pabeschitz