Christmas with Meretsegar

Happy Christmas to anybody who may still be looking in on this blog.

Last night (24th Dec) I spent a traditional Polish "Wigilia" with the skeleton crew left in Deir El Bahari to which we invited our local staff and the family of one of them.

I spent Christmas Day in the Theban mountains, visiting the Qurn, the peak sacred to Hathor which dominates the necropolis where I live and work. Beats spending Christmas at the table with aunty Nora and her tantrum-throwing kids, and a good deal healthier.

There were very few tourists today in the valley, on the way to the foot of the Qurn, I was able to spend some time chatting to the shady characters (all nice guys really) who peddle all sorts of tat to the tourists. These include those who tell them they are genuine antiquities they've dug up. I am trying to find the factory which is producing some very good imitation faience at the moment. So far without success. On the way up the mountain I visited the shrine of Meretsegar, who - as "she who loves silence" - sounds like my kind of goddess. Off the beaten track to visit a spectacular hidden valley, I also found some most amazing porno-grafiti dating to the pharaonic period on a rock at its foot. Four ladies wearing heavy New Kingdom wigs and nothing else, one depicted full frontal in total defiance of ancient Egyptian artistic convention. This is the view from the top [Medinet Habu, the Ramesseum, Hatshepsut (access road), Valley of the Kings, West valley, Thoth Hill].

Tomorrow we have a day off too and I am taking the team to Abydos, across the desert rather than along the Nile. I've not been there before and am looking forward to it. Then Sunday its back on site to the tombs and rubble left by previous excavators.

UPDATE: Abydos was superb, I recommend it though its a bit off the beaten track - especially the way the team member reading the map took us (!), but we got there and the mastaba at Beit Khallaf which was another aim of the trip, that was an eye-opener.