Many of you have been curious about the next Tell Edfu season, when/if I'll be heading back to Egypt, and what I'm doing now, so I thought I'd throw up an FAQ.
When are you going back?
We don't have exact dates yet, but I'll be leaving some time in early October and coming back early-mid December. We are going to have an overly-packed crew this year, so we'll have kind of a rotating group of people coming in for a few weeks at a time, but I'll be there the whole season.
What are you going to be doing this time?
I'm currently scheduled to work on 2 projects this fall. The first is to help out my fornana Natasha with drawing pottery. We're finally getting into the pottery she wants to study for her dissertation, so the goal will be to get as much drawn for her as possible this season.
The other project I'll be working on is the organization/publication of the block yard. This area has been a dumping ground for blocks found in and around the tell. Most of these blocks have never been studied and are currently in such a heap that tourists think it's ok to stand/sit/crawl/pose on them. So when my dear friend Jonathan (with whom I co-taught a class in 2011) arrives, we'll be looking at drawing the blocks and getting them set up in a better system.
What are you doing in the dig off-season?
This summer I have 3 projects that will be keeping me busy:
1) Dissertation proposal: We have this pesky thing called a "proposal" that we have to do before we can write our dissertation. Basically, I have to write and defend a paper convincing my committee that I should write and defend a dissertation on a given topic. My topic, as I mentioned last season, is bread in the economy. I've had a bit of trouble getting the whole thing done correctly, but I'm on track to defend my proposal literally days before we leave for the season.
2) Arabic: For Christmas last year, my in-laws got me an Arabic learning system. I've been holding off using it until it got closer to dig season so that I didn't forget everything, but my goal this summer is to go through the system and at least be able to give simple instructions to the workmen who will be helping us.
3) Block Prep: Since Jonathan and I will only have 4 weeks (at most) to catalogue and move the blocks, I'll be spending the summer doing some prep work. There are a lot of pictures of the blocks from previous seasons, so I'll be using those to start translating the blocks and putting them in some kind of order.
~~~
While I won't be publishing every day this summer like I did while in Egypt, I plan on keeping you all updated here on the blog throughout the summer about Egypt-related things that I'm doing (including the weddings of Kat and Lindsey, both of whom you met last season).
When are you going back?
We don't have exact dates yet, but I'll be leaving some time in early October and coming back early-mid December. We are going to have an overly-packed crew this year, so we'll have kind of a rotating group of people coming in for a few weeks at a time, but I'll be there the whole season.
What are you going to be doing this time?
I'm currently scheduled to work on 2 projects this fall. The first is to help out my fornana Natasha with drawing pottery. We're finally getting into the pottery she wants to study for her dissertation, so the goal will be to get as much drawn for her as possible this season.
The other project I'll be working on is the organization/publication of the block yard. This area has been a dumping ground for blocks found in and around the tell. Most of these blocks have never been studied and are currently in such a heap that tourists think it's ok to stand/sit/crawl/pose on them. So when my dear friend Jonathan (with whom I co-taught a class in 2011) arrives, we'll be looking at drawing the blocks and getting them set up in a better system.
 |
| Some of the blocks in our block yard. |
What are you doing in the dig off-season?
This summer I have 3 projects that will be keeping me busy:
1) Dissertation proposal: We have this pesky thing called a "proposal" that we have to do before we can write our dissertation. Basically, I have to write and defend a paper convincing my committee that I should write and defend a dissertation on a given topic. My topic, as I mentioned last season, is bread in the economy. I've had a bit of trouble getting the whole thing done correctly, but I'm on track to defend my proposal literally days before we leave for the season.
2) Arabic: For Christmas last year, my in-laws got me an Arabic learning system. I've been holding off using it until it got closer to dig season so that I didn't forget everything, but my goal this summer is to go through the system and at least be able to give simple instructions to the workmen who will be helping us.
3) Block Prep: Since Jonathan and I will only have 4 weeks (at most) to catalogue and move the blocks, I'll be spending the summer doing some prep work. There are a lot of pictures of the blocks from previous seasons, so I'll be using those to start translating the blocks and putting them in some kind of order.
~~~
While I won't be publishing every day this summer like I did while in Egypt, I plan on keeping you all updated here on the blog throughout the summer about Egypt-related things that I'm doing (including the weddings of Kat and Lindsey, both of whom you met last season).
