Pinda, can I use your flash light?

Wow, I’ve seen some amazing things these past 3 days ! On Thursday I attended a part of a colloquium about Theban archaeology at the Supreme Council of Antiquities. In the morning Quentin, Kenny, Cathelijne and I were there, just to see one man, who was giving the introduction. Yes, dear Isabelle (we sort of have an inside joke together), it was... Zahi Hawass! The famous egyptologist, who often features in National Geographic documentaries. The moment he got up to start to speak, Cathelijne, Kenny and I discretely took our cameras and photografied him. It was nice to see and hear him speak for real. In the evening we went again to the colloquium to see 3 egyptologists talk : Salima Ikram again, on animal mummies, Kochelmann on the cult of the crocodile god Sobek, and Daniel Polz, whom we all were impatient to see. Unfortunately Polz was ill, so he couldn’t come.  So we (= me, Sandra, Amy, Kaz and Quentin) ate our misery away in a nice restaurant, Pottery café, where they strangely enough had one of the tastiest pizzas I’ve ever had (who’ld have thought that I would come across it in Cairo?). After that I visited the appartment of Kaz, Amy and Sandra, and I’m so jealous, because they have a splendid view on the Nile!! Of course, they have to put up with the noise coming from the party boats

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On Friday I didn’t do anything really, except from working on my assignments and doing the laundry and being a bit on the internet at the institute. It felt good to have a little day off, because the program is quite intensive and fatiguing. In the evening there was the official opening of an exhibition at the Cairo Museum about Hungarian excavations (again with Zahi Hawass), but I didn’t go there, because I was too tired. I just crashed down on the sofa with some Blackadder and Monty Python. Quentin and Kaz did go, and they said it was a nice exhibition.

Saturday we went on an excursion to Saqqara. Mouchir the driver immediately put on a CD in his minibus with very corny Dutch music (Boudewijn de Groot, Marco Borsato,...) The poor man probably thought that would please us a lot, but it just annoyed us during our trip. Bless him for trying to be nice.

In Saqqara we first met with Vasil Dobrev, an egyptologist working at the French Institute in Cairo, who’s digging in Saqqara. I was very excited to meet him, because last year, for my Bachelor thesis, I based part of my thesis on one of his articles about a 6^th Dynasty Annal Stone. He turned out to be a very enthousiastic man, with a lot to say. He showed us his excavation and restoration work of an Old Kingdom necropolis. Inside the tombs it was so hot, that Amy fainted. It was extremely hot the entire day, by the way. I felt thirsty all the time, and in the evening I had migraine. Anyway, after hearing about Dobrev’s theories of the piramid of Userkare being hidden somewhere in the sand and he being determined to find it, we quickly ate in the bus, and then went to see some New Kingdom tombs. We saw the tombs of Maya, Horemheb, Tia and Meryneith. The last one isn’t actually open to the public, but it’s an excavation of the University of Leiden, so the Dutch people thought they had the right to see it, and so did Ilona. She just ignored the guard yelling ‘Stop’ at her, and went straight into the tomb. Apparently it wasn’t that forbidden, because they let us have a look anyway. We past also next to an enormous shaft, one of the biggest existing, which is metres and metres deep! I added a bit to the history of the shaft, by dropping my pen in it. Just for the record : I’ve lost a pen in Tell Maskhuta, another pen in Tell ed-Daba, and now one in Saqqara as well. I’m a hopeless case. For the rest of the day we often made jokes about me dropping other stuff into shafts, like my torch light, my scarf, myself... Then we went to the tomb of Mereruka, where Ilona gave us a quick assignment to do. The tomb was marvellous : beautiful reliefs of Egypt’s wildlife (frogs, otters, crocodiles). Then we went inside the piramid of Teti, who has wonderful Piramid Texts inscribed on the walls. I got a bit claustrophobic in the end (I don’t like small spaces, especially not when I know that there are tons of massive stone blocks above my head... But again : everything for egyptology). To finish we had a quick look in the Imhotep museum, where an egyptian military guard from around my age was trying to hit on me by asking if I wanted to have any souvenirs from him. I should have said : Yes, your kalashnikov will be fine!

Back in the bus then (with again Marco Borsato), and then back to Pottery café, where the waiters are starting to know us. Then buy some water (I never seem to have enough water), and up to bed. Well, after daydreaming a bit more about ancient tombs from the Old Kingdom. I just loooooooooooooove the Old Kingdom !!!

PS : I have a nice nickname, which especially Kaz says a lot : Pinda. For three reasons :

1. Kenny was talking about peanuts (pinda in dutch) and I always thought he said my name

2. It sounds like my name

3. I’m more fond of peanut butter than the dutch people are, I can’t stop eating it since I’ve arrived

Phrases like : “Pinda, can I use your flash light?” aren’t uncommon.