Key grips

“Quiet!” Shouldn’t I get a film credit now that I’ve schlepped camera equipment up and down the inside of the Great Pyramid? Mark Muheim is shooting a promotional video of AERA’s work. He’s been filming all over the project for a week. Today he shot Mark (AERA’s Mark)...

The sounds of antiquity

I spent my afternoon yesterday doing what anyone at Giza might do: timing the intervals between car horns outside my hotel. On average, there is a car horn every 3.5 seconds. Sometimes multiple horns blared at once, although there was one outlier period of 23 seconds...

Occupation

A small group of us had dinner with Mark Lehner last night and I caught up with him at the dig site this morning. One of the fascinating stories he told today was about the apparent pattern of occupation, abandonment, and then reoccupation of the Menkaure valley...

Dig fare

Feeding time for AERA archaeologists is a communal affair. There are four meal times at the residence: breakfast at 6:00 am, morning break at 10:00, lunch at 1:30, and dinner at 7:00 pm.  This season is somewhat scaled back, but the large team still eats in shifts...

Khamseen

Even when there is no dust storm in Cairo, it seems there is always a bit of dust in the air during this time of year. As I mentioned in another post, it’s the season of the Khamaseen (Arabic for “fifty”) named for the fifty days of potential dust storms from...

Twentieth Year Celebration II: Lectures at the SCA

Dr. Zahi Hawass gave warm mid-day remarks about the AERA/ARCE Field School to an already packed auditorium at the Supreme Council of Antiquities on Sunday, 15 March. Dr. Hawass’ statement introduced the second half of the fascinating lectures by AERA team leaders and...