Middle-Egypt trip : Part 2

7/12 : Asyut and Deir Rifa

I dreamed that Quentin was running away from an angry emoe, hehe.

Quentin and I were excited for this day, because we went to visit Asyut! We’ve already heard so much about the necropolis of Asyut during our classes in Leuven, because our professor Harco Willems is kind of specialised in First Intermediate Period and Middle Kingdom tombs. And Asyut didn’t disappoint us. The tombs of Ity-ibi, Djehutynakht and Djefaihapy were huge! One tomb was bigger than the 3 appartments of us students combined! They had some nice blue and red hieroglyphs, and depiction of soldiers (has to do with the turmoil of the First Intermediate Period).

Then we went to Deir Rifa, where Quentin gave his presentation. He told us about some more huge Middle Kingdom tombs, that had remains of paint and reliefs in them. He gave his presentation very well, and I’m proud of my Belgian collegue!

Then back to the hotel to eat and chill out at Sandra’s, Kaz’s and Quentin’s room with Amy, where we spent the evening singing Abba songs (we = Kaz and I, the rest just had to put up with it).

8/12 : Amarna

Today only one site on the program : Amarna, or Achetaton. Cathelijne is extremely interested in the Amarna period, so the moment the bus stopped at Amarna, she jumped out of the bus, shouting : “Come on, people, let’s go!”. We first took a picture of Quentin hitting Kenny in the famous pharao’s smiting pose one can see so often on temple walls.
Cathelijne gave her presentation about the private tombs at Amarna, and especially the tomb of Meryra, one of the officials who had been closest to king Akhenaton. She did it with so much enthousiasm, it was a pleasure to hear her talk. The tomb of Meryra was rather amazing. It had a really strange depiction of the sun : the sundisk with below it coloured rings. She told us about a theory that those rings represent a rare meteorological phenomenon, something with ice crystals. But the hell, we’re egyptologists, not meteorologists.

Then Kaz gave his presentation : the royal tomb of Akhenaton. We actually got inside the tomb of the heretic king! And it was a nice tomb : it resembled the well-known tombs in the Valley of the Kings, with a long underground corridor. We heard an interesting theory about Akhenaton’s daughter Meketaten having died in childbirth. I mention this because the following night, Amy dreamed that she was playing tennis with Meketaten.... in hell!

Talking about crazy Amy, she was next to give her presentation, on the boundary stelae by Akhenaton. The stela turned out to be a 7m high stone cut in the rocks. Despite Amy saying that her presentation was going to be confusing, it was a clear and interesting presentation.
For desert we took a walk around the premises of the ancient Amarna city. We saw the remains of the Great Aton temple, the North palace and the House of Life, where the famous clay Amarna tablets were found (Kaz found a new tablet, saying : “Dear Akhenaton, do you have any thins? Love, Mesopotamia”).

We went back to our hotel in El-Minya (still sharing a room with Amy). I spent the evening watching movies with my homies, and Amy talking about twirking (an American style of dancing, much like bootyshaking).