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The Mut Precinct’s front gate

The Brooklyn Museum Mut Expedition’s next season of fieldwork will take place between mid-January and mid-March, 2009. Once again we will be posting a blog each Friday describing the work of the past week. We hope the blog will help viewers understand the complexities of archaeological excavation and the many activities it involves. If you aren’t familiar with the precinct and our work there, check out the Mut Expedition part of the museum’s website.

As always, the Brooklyn Museum thanks the Supreme Council of Antiquities, particularly its Secretary General, Dr. Zahi Hawass, for their support of our work in Egypt. The SCA supervises all archaeological fieldwork, research and preservation projects in the country.

Here is an overview of the work planned for 2009. (more…)

Thursday, February 28 was our last day of work. It has been a very satisfactory season. We accomplished most of what we set out to do, and more besides. Finding the footing of the Mut Temple’s 1st Pylon was particularly exciting, as was the successful restoration of Chapel D. We also found a new and interesting building in the last few days of work, described briefly below.

We want to give special thanks to the Luxor staff of Supreme Council of Antiquities who greatly facilitated our work: Mansour Boreik, General Manager for Upper Egypt; Mohamed Assem, General Manager for Luxor; Ibrahim Soliman, General Manager for Karnak; and our inspector Osama Abdel Maougoud Abdulla, with whom it was a great pleasure to work. And of course, nothing would have been possible without the hard work and dedication of our Egyptian technicians and workmen, to whom we owe many thanks.

Our most notable conservation project this season was the restoration of Chapel D. Here is the west wall of the first room in its final state. Its foundations are solid, its walls are vertical with the blocks properly aligned, and the spaces between the stones have been filled with a mortar tinted to match the sandstone. Khaled, Mohamed Gharib, Sayed Ahmed and their crew have done a wonderful job and we thank them for their efforts. (more…)

You are looking northwest at the Taharqa Gate late Thursday morning. We are now down to the paving in the whole gateway, except for a small area in the center of the west side. As is true throughout the site, the sandstone paving has been badly damaged by ground water over the years: the bright yellow sand used to be stone. The meter stick is sitting on a flat block set into and partially covered with mud brick that may be the earliest phase of the brick constructions that once blocked the gate. (more…)

Clearing the Taharqa Gate is one of the season’s main goals, a goal we achieved, at least in part, this week: the north wing of the gate is visible from top to bottom, along with some of the ancient paving. On the left you are looking from the east end to the west. On the right, the arrow (indicating north) points at the original pivot for the gate’s door. The darker areas of stone were buried until this year. (more…)

One of the week’s big events was the weather. Saturday, Sunday and Monday were cloudy and cold (mid-50s F, which is cold for Luxor) with an occasional scatter of raindrops. Overnight on Monday, however, it rained more heavily, always a concern in Luxor where rain is uncommon. Tuesday morning we saw the effects of the downpour.

The huge puddles left by the rain made getting out of the hotel grounds and into the van something of a challenge. The van, too, has suffered: it is usually a clean and shiny blue and white. (more…)