Week 7: 16–22 February 2025
This week started and ended with presentations. On Sunday we all presented our preliminary research for our papers that we are writing about museum objects. We are all on the right track (thank goodness). Afterwards many of us went to the German Archaeological Institute to use their library and do some dedicated research for these same papers. In the evening we all attended a book talk by Aidan Dodson at AUC about his new book on Hatshepsut and Thutmosis III, and some of us even got a book signed which was very exciting.
Sunday was our day to learn more about Coptic Egypt. We started with an incredible tour of the Coptic Museum by Gertrud van Loon who gave us an in-depth explanation about the artifacts housed there. Afterwards we went to the Hanging Church which is one of the oldest churches in Egypt.
After a short tuktuk adventure we arrived at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization. It was a time to pay our respects to the royal mummies and see other objects representing Egypt from its predynastic beginnings to modern times. My personal favorites were the objects from the tomb of Sennedjem, a resident of Deir el-Medina. That evening we got to see a familiar face, Dr. Olaf Kaper, who is the professor of many of us in Leiden. He gave an fabulous talk about the Western Front in Egypt during the First World War – a talk that was extra fascinating for me as my museum object for my paper was found during the First World War. We finished the night with some sandwiches from Sherlock, our new favorite eatery in Cairo.
We woke up early on Tuesday for one of our final day trips, Tanis. This site in the northeastern Delta was the capital of Egypt during the 21st and 22nd Dynasties, meaning that a lot of the remains date to the Third Intermediate Period or later. The name may sound familiar as this is where Indiana Jones goes to find the ark of the covenant in Raiders of the Lost Ark. However, the movie was not actually filmed in Tanis. There were no painted tombs filled with snakes to be lowered into, but we did see the remains of the temple to Amun that was modelled after the Theban Temple of Amun at Karnak that we got to visit a few weeks ago. The Third Intermediate Period royal necropolis is also still standing at the site and was presented to us by our magnificent Margarida. She taught us about some of her favorite pharaohs – Psusennes I and Sheshonq III – and about some of the intact tombs found with large amounts of silver and gold. Indiana Jones would be so jealous. This site was doubly exciting as Ricardo has also done a lot of work studying Tanis and we were lucky to have two site presentations instead of just one. After such an exciting day many of us fell asleep on the van ride back and were too exhausted to do anything else other than watch some Stargate and go to sleep.
Wednesday was a well-deserved day of rest. Many of us slept in and had an easy day polishing our presentations for the GARDEN conference at the end of the week and working on researching and writing our papers. That evening we made an excursion to a new part of Cairo for some DELICIOUS Chinese food as an early celebration of Yasi’s birthday.
Thursday began with another work day trying to get our papers done with some of us going to the museum to make sure we had all of our information in order. Margarida and I now have a competition on who can write more words in a day which is very helpful for completing our paper in these last weeks. Later in the day we received a masterclass in ancient Egyptian pottery by Anna Wodzińska. Most of us had no knowledge on the topic whatsoever and were inspired to learn more. This is also the way to bring Agnieszka over from archaeology to Egyptology as she is the pottery lover of our group.
In the evening Ariel Singer gave us what could be the most fascinating lecture I have ever seen. She has been working on combining epigraphy and photogrammetry to provide us with new ways of publishing ancient Egyptian relief decoration. As someone who did photogrammetry in the past during my undergrad and will be undertaking Egyptian epigraphy next semester my eyes were glued to the slides the entire time.
Friday was another work day. We alternated our time between researching and typing our papers, officially half of the way finished, and practicing our presentations for the conference the next day.
The BIG day of the week was Saturday where we attended the Graduate Annual Research Discussions on Egypt and Nubia Conference, 10th edition (GARDEN X for short) at the German Archaeological Institute. Some of us had been selected for oral presentations, others for posters, and it was now our time to be brave. For many of us it was our first official presentation at a conference so we were quite nervous. Although there were many great speakers and posters I will focus on the ones by our group.
We started the morning with Machteld giving us a fascinating presentation on the functions of pot marks. At lunch we got to walk in the garden eating koshari and looking at everyone’s posters. Agnieszka gave us a new way to look at the common faience scarab by showing us their compositions. Lisa showed us how to make the invisible visible by describing the new ways in which archeologists can study human remains and what that can teach us. Yasi gave us an insight about what sensory experience incense in an Ancient Egyptian temple would have created and similarities that she has seen in her travels around the world. After lunch it was time for my talk about the vocabulary the ancient Egyptians used to talk about sex in their texts, I like to think it went well even though I was so nervous I talked faster than the speed of light. Margarida was next bringing her home to us and describing the functions and changes of Ka statues in one of the museum collections from Portugal. Ricardo was next offering fascinating insight into remote sensing and what that can teach us about the settlements and occupational phases in Tanis. The conference rounded out with Andrés who may not be in the program with us but has helped us so much along the way. His talk was about the history of the foreign archaeological institutes in Cairo and was the perfect way to end our day. That evening as a reward for our hard work during the day we rested and prepared for our last week in Cairo.
Kaitlyn McGann