Deir el-Ballas 2025, Week 5

The Deir el-Ballas Expedition completed its work on site this past week. At the start of Week 5, we had minimal cleaning and excavation work that took place at the South Palace, under the supervision of Nicholas Brown and Piet Collet. Most work consisted of final on-site documentation and backfilling our trenches. To help preserve the archaeological remains that we were unable to investigate this season, we cover over our trenches with a layer of clean desert sand along with covering over walls of ancient mud brick with modern bricks. This ensures that for the next year or two these areas are safe from the elements, and we can easily revisit them when the time is appropriate.

The Expedition also spent a day transferring objects from the site to the local storage magazine at Qift on the East Bank. Working together with our colleagues from the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, artifacts from this season were selected to be sent to the Qift Antiquities Magazine for safekeeping. Amongst these items we included an inscribed scarab amulet dating from the late Second Intermediate Period to the early New Kingdom. Before sending to the magazine, we carefully recorded and documented this object for study purposes and future publication.

This week was bittersweet, as we celebrated Dr. Peter Lacovara’s retirement from fieldwork. While a doctoral student, Peter recognized the significance and importance of the site and the value it could add to our understanding of ancient Egyptian urbanism and settlement archaeology. Since 1980, Peter has been dedicated to studying, preserving, and promoting the site of Deir el-Ballas and we are so thankful for his time and efforts to start up the project again in 2017.

The work for the next season must already begin as we prepare our application for the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities along with the grant writing and fundraising to make it possible. Our work on site is only possible with the support and generosity of donors like you!

Acknowledgments

The success of the season was due to the skill and hard work of many individuals. It was our pleasure to work with our colleagues from the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities as well as the Qena Antiquities Inspectorate. From the Cairo Office, we would like to thank the Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, Sherif Fathi, the Secretary- General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Mohamed Ismail Khaled, the Supervisor of the Permanent Committee of the Antiquities Department, Hani Abdullah el-Tayeb, the General Director for the Egyptian Committee, Mostafa Hussein Abdelrahman, and the Head of the Egyptian Antiquities Sector, Mohammed Abdel el-Badiya. From the Qena Inspectorate, we would like to thank the General Director of Qena Antiquities, Sayed Gad el-Rab, the Supervisor of Conservation for Qena, Abdelrahman Kanawy Hussein Mabrook, the Head of Foreign Missions and Excavations of Qena, Amr Gad el-Karim, and our on-site inspectors, Esma Gaber Mourad, Mohammed Ahmed Hussein Ahmed, and Mohammed Mohammed Shahat Shamroukh.

We would also like to thank Salima Ikram and Magdy Aly (of the American University in Cairo), along with Nadine Moeller, Greg Marouard, and John Darnell (of Yale University) or their help and support this season. Additionally, we would like to express our gratitude to Dr. Pearce Paul Creasman, Reis Omar Farouk, and the University of Arizona Egyptian Expedition for their kind and generous hospitality at the Wilkinson Dig House in Luxor. Additional support and help was provided by Ayman Damarany, to whom we are thankful for his time and efforts.

Finally, we would like to thank our 2025 Expedition staff: Piet Collet, Bettina Bader, Claire Malleson, Gillian Pyke, Matei Tichindelean, Sarah Ahmed Aziz, Hassan Elzawy, Ana Oliveira, Victoria Shakespeare, Ahmed Abdelgawad, Karim el-Eita, and Waleed Hawatky. This work would not have been possible without their time, dedication to the project, and careful work on site. Their efforts were greatly facilitated in every way by our field manager, Hassaan Mohamed Ali. We are also grateful to our talented cadre of Egyptian teammates from Qena, Al-Deir el-Gharbi, and Luxor, and the police who valiantly safeguard the site!