by aera | Mar 26, 2009 | 2009 Field Season
The field school’s wireless server at the hotel only reaches far enough to put my room just outside the bubble. So I park myself outside the room with the server (not convenient for Skype). The other night I noticed I wasn’t the only one in the hall. Field school...
by aera | Mar 25, 2009 | 2009 Field Season
Afaf Wahba has worked for the Supreme Council of Antiquities for nine years. She began as a curator at the Coptic Museum in old Cairo and for the past two years, she’s been an inspector at the Central Department of Giza. This job does not usually entail field work,...
by aera | Mar 24, 2009 | 2009 Field Season
Just a quick note to say that although I should have left Egypt this morning at 2:00 a.m., I’ve decided to stay and finish out the season with the blog. Please stay tuned for more postings.
by aera | Mar 23, 2009 | 2009 Field Season
Anubis was the ancient Egyptian god of embalming. He is often pictured on tomb walls attending to the deceased during mummification. The inspiration for the god’s identity probably came from the wild dogs that roamed the ancient cemeteries. The AERA osteo team...
by aera | Mar 22, 2009 | 2009 Field Season
With her blond, surfer-girl looks and vernacular, it would be easy to mistake Jessica Kaiser for just another cute denizen of the California beach … until she starts talking osteo-archaeology. Osteo-archaeology is the archaeology of human and animal remains,...
by aera | Mar 21, 2009 | 2009 Field Season
“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)...
by aera | Mar 19, 2009 | 2009 Field Season
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...
by aera | Mar 18, 2009 | 2009 Field Season
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...
by aera | Mar 17, 2009 | 2009 Field Season
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...
by aera | Mar 16, 2009 | 2009 Field Season
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...
