Today started without hitch (for a change).
And later.
Sleep in till 6am.
We could have slept till 7.
But the cattle market had other plans for us.
That shit is loud. So. Loud.
The entire Fayum project team piled into 2 cars, which was a tight squeeze, and set off into the desert, heading for Dimeh.
After several minutes lost in the desert, driving around in the barren landscape, jumping around and bumping all over the place we found a way back onto the main road.
Main road is abit generous.
Main dust track.
Pull up onto the dust track, fail the first time.
Protests come from behind, perhaps we should get out of the rover?
Simon: "Whats the worst that can happen?"
Now. Every. Single. Time he has said this, somthing worse has happened.
And this time was no exception.
2 seconds later we are all pouring out of the van.
Flat tire.
Shit.
The guys set to work dealing with the tire.
However.
This is the desert.
Sand sinks.
What transpires in the end is 3 archaeologists digging with trowels to move enough sand to get the new tire on... fighting a losing battle against nature.
Whilst hilarious in some respects, the reality that we are actualy in the middle of the desert, with nothing around, kinda hit.
We dug faster.
And later.
Sleep in till 6am.
We could have slept till 7.
But the cattle market had other plans for us.
That shit is loud. So. Loud.
The entire Fayum project team piled into 2 cars, which was a tight squeeze, and set off into the desert, heading for Dimeh.
After several minutes lost in the desert, driving around in the barren landscape, jumping around and bumping all over the place we found a way back onto the main road.
Main road is abit generous.
Main dust track.
Pull up onto the dust track, fail the first time.
Protests come from behind, perhaps we should get out of the rover?
Simon: "Whats the worst that can happen?"
Now. Every. Single. Time he has said this, somthing worse has happened.
And this time was no exception.
2 seconds later we are all pouring out of the van.
Flat tire.
Shit.
The guys set to work dealing with the tire.
However.
This is the desert.
Sand sinks.
What transpires in the end is 3 archaeologists digging with trowels to move enough sand to get the new tire on... fighting a losing battle against nature.
Whilst hilarious in some respects, the reality that we are actualy in the middle of the desert, with nothing around, kinda hit.
We dug faster.
awwwwwwwwww shittttttttttttttt.
finally the whole situation was dealt with (phew) and we set of to Dimeh again, only 30 minutes late... whats the worst that can happen... right?
Finally we arrived at Dimeh, a site similar to Karanis in time-frame (Ptolemaic through greco-roman).
The striking thing about Dimeh however is that the walls all still stand. 8m high.
Crazy stuff.
The walls are breathtaking, seeming to defy gravity, stretching up towards the sky in seeming endless fashion.
Dimeh used to be closed to the lake-edge, but now it is this bizzare port-town in the middle of a desert. Walls, houses, temples all on a raised structure up above a desert depression.
Panorama of the walls from the west
From the underground vaults of one of the houses
Panorama from the desert looking back towards the main walls of Dimeh
The huge walls of Dimeh and the surrounding landscape
Looking up at the walls from below
Quasa el Sagah
Panorama of Quasa el sagah
Top down view from when we climed up onto of the temple
The next stop on our journey after Dimeh was Quasa el sagah.
To get there however we had to cross a large open area of loose sand. A little bit like the childrens song: bear hunt, we could not go under it, or round it, yep... we had to go over it...
Now, driving over this stuff, in a land rover filled with 8 archaeologists is probably less than ideal.
Simon begins to utter his famous words.
We stop him quickly.
The order comes to think light thoughts and pray to the gods.
Instead we sing.
We sing to make us lighter.
We were flying without wings...
Anywhoooo... The site is one of the earliest remaining temples in egypt. The temple itself is not the most magestic or outstanding structure ive seen here, but its simplicity certinally has somthing charming about it.
Of course, we were not content with just sitting and observing the chapel from the ground.
Oh no.
Instead we clambered up on top of the structure.
Our fearless leader Hamman has this thing for terrible 90s music, and subsequently he left the truck playing music at our stop over...
What transpired next is one of those "what happens in egypt, stays in egypt" moments...
Standing some 5 meters up in the air, on a stone temple fashioned during the old kingdom, me and scotty reproduced the bon-jovi living on a prayer video. and then the backstreet boys. and then yeah, you get the idea.
Dancing ontop of the old kingdom temple.
It was definitley an experience im pretty safe to say very few people have experienced before...
This was alot of excitement for one day, however it was by no means at its end...
Nek minnit the guards are pulling Marcus aside and asking him to please write the sign for them. He obliges. We can now add signwrigting to our groups list of things it does.
Archaeology.
Programming.
Paleo-geology.
Human Osteology.
Lithic Analysis.
Signwriting.
yep. good stuff.
Marcus the signwriter.
From here it was a short shot up the road to Kom W.
This is where everything turned from happy happy time.
To sadness.
To anger.
To despair.
On arrival at Kom W we found our fence had been destroyed.
And so had the Kom
A 20m deep hole drilled down through layers of stratified deposits.
We all just kind of stared in horror at the sight.
One of the most precious sites for understanding the neolithic. Destroyed.
Why?
How?
What kind of stupidity and desperateness leads people to drill so deep into the ground at a site where there is nothing other than 10,000 yo pottery, rocks and bones...
Its baffling.
Its soul destroying.
Its so sad.
After a quick search around we found nothing to ID the guys, so we removed their ladder and set home with mixed emotions. Such a good day ended so sadly.
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