We arrived at El Kab on the 1st of December, and within four days had
cleared out several of the uninscribed tombs in the famous hill, and
had made them into a most comfortable house. Nothing in Egypt makes so
pleasant a dwelling as a rock-tomb. In a house in which window and
door are one, and three sides and the roof are of solid rock, there
can be no draughts, and the range of temperature night and day is very
small. We had a room each, another for a dining-room, and in two more
I packed away my forty workmen. These were nearly all men known in
previous years at Kuft and Naqada, for the natives of El Kab are few
in number and of inferior physical strength, so that their labour at
two piastres a day was dearer than that of the picked Kuftis at four.
All the conditions of work were very pleasant, much better than I
have known in Egypt before. No crowd of loiterers and dealers' spies
haunted the work as at Kuft, no robbery by workmen threatened us as
at Thebes. Surveying poles were left out for weeks together; at most
villages they would have been stolen the first night for firewood.
There was some delay in getting the necessary permission for digging;
after a fortnight's waiting we received it, and began to work upon
the XIIth dynasty cemetery. Halfway through March the digging was
gradually brought to an end, and map-making and packing occupied the
time till we left in the beginning of April. Fifty-four boxes of
pottery and other objects were brought to England, were exhibited
during the month of July at University College, and were then
dispersed to various museums, Oxford, Philadelphia, Chicago and
Manchester, receiving the largest shares. I have to acknowledge much
help received both in Egypt and England. To Mr. Clarke, besides the
financial support mentioned already, we owe thanks for help in the
work of excavation, in plan-making, drawing, etc., and for his
untiring hospitality. To Miss A. A. Pirie, who was with us for the
later two-thirds of the season, we are indebted for several coloured
drawings of tombs, etc., now at University College, and to her, as
also to my sister, for constant aid in the varied daily occupations of
the digger, tasks in which their experience makes them most valuable
helpers, and which they cheerfully added to the labours of desert
housekeeping. In England, several friends have helped in the work of
unpacking, exhibiting, drawing plates, etc., notably Miss Griffith,
Miss Murray, Mr. Herbert Thompson and Dr. Walker. Few outside the
little ring of diggers and their friends know how much drudgery in
Egypt and in England is taken off our hands by friendly helpers,
working without a thought of reward.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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