Deir el-Ballas 2025, Week 3
This week we were joined by AUC Egyptology student, Victoria Shakespeare, who worked with Matei Tichindelean in the North Wadi Settlement. Both conducted clearance and excavation work on two structures in the neighborhood, which were revealed by our surface cleaning (amounting to 1,925 square meters in total this
season). We are pleased to have learned so much more about this interesting area of the site, which is our only chance to get a full picture of what a neighborhood and its layout looked like at Deir el-Ballas in the late 17th and early 18th Dynasties.
Victoria and Matei also started work at the South Palace to clean areas that were previously excavated and restored by the Expedition. We are working on last-minute documentation and investigations of the mud plaster floor out in front of the structure ahead of our forthcoming publication this year (insha’Allah!).
At the North Palace, Ahmed Abdelgawad began investigating the mud brick construction techniques and methods of this structure. Ahmed joined us this week and is a specialist in mud brick construction and conservation. Additionally, co-director Nicholas Brown worked at the North Palace to record and note some interesting details, including a Late Antique Period structure as well as some whitewashed walls that were revealed in one of the previously excavated rooms.
Ana Oliveira continues her work in the North Suburb to finish defining the limits of House G, which was partially destroyed by illicit bulldozing on site in the early 2000s. After weeks of excavating through modern debris, it seems now she has hit archaeological deposits dating to the occupation period of Deir el-Ballas! The team from Luxor also began the cleaning and clearance of three rooms from House E, which were previously noted and/or excavated by the Lacovara mission in the 1980s. We are working to redocument these rooms and record them with photogrammetry.
Our team’s surveyor, Piet Collet, has worked on recording and documenting our excavations at the North Wadi Settlement. His photogrammetry overviews and mapping will help us better understand the overall layout of this neighborhood and its archaeological features. Additionally, he is working to align Reisner’s old maps of some of the structures with what we have re-excavated on-site.
Finally, in our magazine Bettina Bader continued her study of the North Wadi Settlement pottery. Director Peter Lacovara also worked on registering our small finds and catching up on documenting them as well.
