Deir el-Ballas 2019-2020, Week 2: 12/8-12/12

This week, we continued cleaning House D, and Tony Crosby began reconstructing the walls of the structure with modern unbaked mud brick made to match the original and set in a pattern that mimics the bonding pattern used in the original construction. In cleaning we found more confirmation that this house was used, at least in part, as a bakery, finding a number of quartzite grindstones and grinders in association with the silos in the large central court of the house, as well as more pottery bread trays. Nick Brown continued to clear House E along with Vicky Jensen. Piet Collet returned to continue the survey of the site.

We also attempted to screen part of the Hearst Expedition’s dumps associated with the houses finding Kerma pottery as well as female figurines, spindle whorls, a fragment of a lovely faience bowl and more grindstones and grinders.