Richard Fazzini
Richard Fazzini joined the museum as Assistant Curator of Egyptian Art in 1969 and served as the Chairman of Egyptian, Classical and Ancient Middle Eastern Art from 1983 until his retirement in June 2006. He is now Curator Emeritus of Egyptian Art, but continues to direct the Brooklyn Museum’s archaeological expedition to the
Precinct of the Goddess Mut at South Karnak, a project he initiated in 1976. Richard was responsible for numerous gallery installations and special exhibitions during his 37 years at the museum. An Egyptologist specialized in art history and religious iconography, he has also developed an abiding interest in the West’s ongoing fascination with ancient Egypt, called Egyptomania. Well-published, he has lectured widely in the U.S. and abroad, and served as President of the American Research Center in Egypt, America’s foremost professional organization for Egyptologists.
In the final dig diary posting for 2009, I talked about the importance of publishing the results of our work at the site. The first phase of publication is the preliminary report (in English and Arabic) that we are required to submit to Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) each season describing that year’s work. These reports eventually appear in the journal, Annales du Service des Antiquités de l’Egypte.
With the gracious permission of Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the SCA, we are now able to make the English and Arabic reports for the 1996 through 2009 seasons available online as well through the museum’s website. We hope the reports will be a useful resource for anyone interested in the Mut Precinct and the museum’s work there.
We are in the midst of planning for the next season of fieldwork, scheduled for January-March 2010. Watch for the 2010 Dig Diary, starting in mid-January.
Hieroglyphs for Mut and Sakhmet on the Propylon (main gate) of the Mut Precinct.
The season is over. We finished digging on Tuesday and spent the rest of this week cleaning up, checking notes and taking final photographs. Our major achievements this season were the restoration of the Taharqa Gate and Chapel D and the excavation of part of the area to its west. You are looking at the west face of the gate across the front area of the precinct to Temple A in the background.
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Late last week we uncovered the top of a fairly substantial mud brick wall running across the Taharqa Gate square (left), but we only had its north face. On Saturday we opened a new area to the south of this square, hoping to find the wall’s south face. (more…)
This week we were able to start putting the north wing of the Taharqa Gate back together, restoring fallen blocks to their original position. We hope to finish the north wing next week and begin work on the south wing. As you look at this sequence of photos, remember that all the work is done by hand with little mechanical assistance. (more…)
At the end of last season we covered the baked brick building north of the Sacred Lake with plastic and sand to protect it and its plastered surfaces while we were gone. Our first job on January 17, our first day of work, was to uncover the building again. (more…)
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