Tractors, Fortresses, Tombs, oh my!

Standing on top of the Roman fortress watch tower!! :O

So, yesterday was an amazing day. We got to see the Roman Fortress el-Deir, and it was unbelievable! We had to take an hour long bus ride from our oasis, Dakhla, to another one nearby, Kharga. At that point, we got off the bus and onto a TRACTOR. Yes, there apparently are tractors in the middle of the desert. That was another 45 minute ride (very bumpy!), and it was soo fun! Driving in the back of a tractor through an untouched desert is something else. Not to mention having your destination be the giant remains of what used to be one of the largest Roman Forts in Egypt!! Too much fun.

Nancy and I in front of some graffiti in the fortress.

One interesting thing we stumbled upon was graffiti that dated as far back as the 1800s, I guess it's a timeless practice in the world of defacing things!!

Mentally preparing to enter the tomb!

One of the most thrilling things I was able to do was go inside a tomb in the side of a temple. Like, actually slide into a tomb....It was soooooo cool! Granted, I got a LOAD of sand in my pants. Worth it.

Here we go!

Once you got inside the tomb there wasn't actually much to see but a tiny little sarcophagus, but that didn't make the whole experience any less thrilling.

Me hiding in the tomb after sliding down.

Unfortunately, getting out of the tomb proved to be much more difficult than sliding on down. After several flustered pushes and kicks of sand below me, I managed to scramble my way out, covered in sand.

The battle against gravity.

Tractor ride back to the main road home!

So in sum, the fortress journey was amazing! I got plenty of videos but, unfortunately, because of the poor internet here I won't be able to post anything until I get back to the states. :( In the meantime, tomorrow we officially begin excavations, soooo exciting!! We four students will be rotating stations each week and I just found out I'll be starting off in ceramics, YEAY! I'm so excited! :D The only downside is that we have to be up at 6am ahhhhh! At least we'll be done excavating by 2pm or so everyday. Anyhow, more news on that later!

 

-Christina

Spaghett!

So the past week or so has been a huge mess of work and adventuring. Luckily we've finished one of the two presentations we have to give as a part of our seminar, so that's good. Our next set of presentations are tomorrow morning. After that, we're just going on field trips and preparing for excavation month, I can't believe it's already almost here!

Hanging out in the car on the way to the rug factory.

Yesterday was fun, we went to a local village site, Kellis, in the morning, and went to a local rug factory in the afternoon. The rugs were of all sizes and designs, made by local women of the village. They were so pretty, I bought a bunch as gifts for some lucky friends. ;) Tomorrow we're going to another archaeological site in the afternoon and on Monday we'll be heading to the remains of an ancient Roman fortress.

Sunset over Mut

Since Arabic lessons are officially over, (our teacher Manal will be dearly missed!!), we were able to watch the sunset from the roof last night instead of the norm of spending time in the library. It was pretty fantastic!

Sunset on the roof!

Despite having tremendous amounts of work for the past couple of weeks, we've managed to have an awesome time so far. We've already established a series of jokes including "spook hour" where anything goes in the dark hallways of our dig house at night. (Terrifying..) Furthermore, (to explain the interesting title of this post) the youtube video "Spaghett" has become a daily source of hilarity in our lives, you'll just have to watch it for yourself. I think it's from a show called "Tim and Eric's Awesome Show Great Job!" or something like that....anywaaaays.....all in all, I'm loving Egypt. It'll only get better!

Group picture in the Library!

In other news, our student film we decided to make while in Egypt is officially in the works. One of us is a NYU Tisch kid, and we're taking advantage of his artistic film skills to make a mummy movie which tentatively is called Death Explorers: Amheida's Curse. Without giving too much of the plot away, it's about a study abroad group that accidentally stumbles upon a book of the dead, resurrecting some desert mummies. Original, maybe not. Amazing? Definitely. Stay tuned for more!


-Christina

Trip to Balat

Car ride, awkward faces.

So yesterday was our "day off", which in other words meant spending 4 hours in the library preparing presentations due in a week before heading off to a local site for an entire afternoon. Don't get me wrong, it was great to visit Balat and see the site Ain Asil, an ancient Egyptian city, but the entire afternoon was dedicated to the endeavor and it was exhausting!! Not to mention, I forgot to wear proper shoes and ended up with 10 pounds of sand in my shoes by the end of the day. AND, of course, it was freezing cold, something I was not anticipating with the sun shining overhead.

Walking into the desert.

Going to a tomb at the bottom of a giant pit.

Anyhow, we got a tour by one of the French archaeologists working on the site, saw the layout of the governor's palace (mostly rubble and a rough outline of rooms now), and ended the day with a visit to the tombs nearby. Needless to say, it was a fun day, but tiring. Now time to catch up on some seminar readings and then back to class today.

Inside of the tomb!

 -Christina

Masa3-il Khier (Good Afternoon!)

Menal, me, Emilio, Matt, and Sarah at a shop in Mut

Sorry for not posting the last few days, it has been incredibly busy!! We have seminar and Arabic in full swing now, not to mention we're doing research for 2 presentations due in only a week or so. All in all, it has been crazy busy, and there's been virtually no time for fun things, except yesterday when we journeyed to the Muzawwaka tombs and got to see a preview of the excavation site we'll be digging at in February.

Our 70s van "Uncle Lamar" in the middle of the desert outside the Muzawwaka tombs.

 

The Muzawwaka tombs were incredible. Located in the middle of nowhere (to be precise), the tombs themselves aren't normally open to visitors, and while there was going to be an exception made for us, the man with the key changed his mind last minute. Out of anger and partially on accident, I snapped an illegal photo of the inside of one of the tombs from the entrance, pictured below.

Photo of the inside of the Muzawwaka tombs.

 

We also were able to see a room filled with mummies which was, in a word, CREEPY. It didn't help that in order to see them you have to stick your head ENTIRELY in the hole in the side of the hill, at which point the mummies are about 5 feet away from you. Unbelievable.

Mummies at the Muzawwaka tombs.

 After looking at the mummies, we explored a little bit, climbed up this hill to a giant rock, looked at some ancient wells (which had no end!!) and eventually hit the road to Amheida.
 

Neat rock structure above the tombs.

 The adorable baby pictured below is Muhammad, our guide Ashraf's baby, and he is adorable. He never cries and is the happiest, cutest baby I have EVER seen. What a goober!!

Happy Baby Muhammad!

Tomorrow we're visiting a local basket-weaving/rug making shop to see how they are made and shop around and whatnot (there will definitely be some purchases) and on Friday we're taking a field trip, so keep an eye out for more pictures! For now, it's off to dinner! :)

-Christina

Dead Donkey

I named him Don Quixote! Pretty nasty...

So, first full day in the Dakhla Oasis and I must say it is GORGEOUS! We explored all day today after eating lunch and happened upon this dead donkey pictured above. Beyond this, we found A TON of animal bones including a half of a mandible, several pelvises, femurs, and others. We even found a dead small dog-like animal in a cave which was frightening...

Nasty dead animal sticking out of a hole in the ground.

 Other than discovering a lot of dead animals and bones, we came upon the "hot spring" that was supposed to be a sort of retreat for us from our 3 minute shower allowance every couple of days. Unfortunately, when we got there it looked more like a giant sewer since the water wasn't running properly, so we decided to just explore some more instead. Hopefully the water will start working again, but until then, 3 minute showers for me!

 Weird hot spring attempt...not good.

We were not able to make it to the escarpment that we are passionate about eventually visiting. It looks incredible and we can see it from our dig house. Some day we're going to get there and apparently we'll be able to run/roll/fall down the giant sand dunes!! :D

You can barely see it but it's off in the distance, pretty neat!

 Anyways, our adventuring was pretty awesome, and tomorrow should be fun with our first seminar and a visit to the local village Mut to pick up some supplies, like a HEATER which turns out to be essential. It's SOOO cold here at night, it's unbelievable. Anyways, talk to you later!!

-Christina

First Days in Egypt!

Matt, Sarah, Me, Emilio, and Nancy at the Giza pyramids! 1/4/12

So, I've finally made it to Egypt! After a ten hour flight, I landed in Cairo yesterday. Our group managed to see the Grand Pyramids in Giza nearly an hour later, and we stayed the night in a really nice hotel in the city before leaving this morning for the Dakhla oasis, where I'll be for the next two months! In brief, the pyramids were amazing, and no I did not ride a camel because apparently they overcharge a lot in Giza. But not to worry, I've been told we'll be riding camels in Dakhla at one point or another, so look out for pictures of that! I'm going to try to upload a video of the pyramids later, but it takes forever so you guys will have to wait for that. :P

Camel hanging out near the Pyramids!

So, I left Giza yesterday and took a 10 hour bus ride to the Dakhla oasis where I'll be staying for the next two months. During this time I'll be taking a seminar on ancient Egypt, doing an independent study, and eventually do the dig during the 2nd month. The 3rd month is tour all over the Nile. I'm planning on taking a video of our amazingly beautiful dig house tomorrow so you guys can see what it looks like. It's made out of mud brick and is HUGE! Definitely getting the star treatment considering we're in the middle of the desert. Anyways, I'll try to post stuff on here every few days depending on the internet and whatnot, but keep in touch on here or on facebook! :D

-Christina