Blog

Deir el-Ballas 2021, Week 1: 5/3 – 5/8

Having been delayed by the pandemic, we are back for a brief season to continue the restoration work in the North Palace and the ‘South Palace’ as well as exploring what we think was the administrative area for the settlement in the mouth of the South Wadi. Given the excessive...

Deir el-Ballas 2019-2020, Week 9: 1/25

The last day for the season. We have covered up the exposed ancient brick with sand to protect it until next year when we can cap it with new mud-brick to protect it. Vicky Jensen has taken on the herculean task of seeing the registered objects to the Antiquities Department...

Deir el-Ballas 2019-2020, Week 8: 1/18 – 1/23

The last week for the season. Restoration of the North Palace’s main enclosure wall on the south side of the palace and the restoration of the casemate core of the palace itself are continuing. Bettina Bader has joined us to look at the ceramic material. House E revealed that in...

Deir el-Ballas 2019-2020, Week 7: 1/11-1/16

We are now in the home stretch, just one more week to go. We have begun the restoration of the North Palace’s main enclosure wall on the south side of the palace and are continuing the restoration of the casemate core of the palace itself. At the ‘South Palace’, mud...

Deir el-Ballas 2019-2020, Week 6: 1/4-1/9

We continued the cleaning off the North Palace’s main enclosure wall on the south side of the palace including what we think was part of the original entrance to the Palace that incorporated a large rock outcrop. We have also begun the restoration of the casemate core of the Palace...

Deir el-Ballas 2019-2020, Week 5: 12/28-1/2

We started off the New Year continuing the cleaning off of the North Palace’s impressive enclosure wall on the south side of the palace. Much of it is only a single course or traces of the massive bricks used to make it. Like the bricks used in the palace itself,...

Deir el-Ballas 2019-2020, Week 4: 12/21-12/26

Although we had a trimmed staff and a short week for Christmas, we managed to get quite a lot accomplished. Piet finished clearing the ‘egg’ deposit in House F, and amongst the many jar sealings, found a lovely red burnished wine jar. Hassaan was able to find a clear a...

Deir el-Ballas 2019-2020, Week 3: 12/14-12/19

This week we sadly said goodbye to Tony Crosby who returned to Texas after finishing the reconstruction of House D. Nick Brown and Vicky Jensen continued clearing House E finding several intact deposits of fallen roofing in the structure proper and evidence of chipped stone working to the immediate east...

Deir el-Ballas 2019-2020, Week 2: 12/8-12/12

This week, we continued cleaning House D, and Tony Crosby began reconstructing the walls of the structure with modern unbaked mud brick made to match the original and set in a pattern that mimics the bonding pattern used in the original construction. In cleaning we found more confirmation that this...

Deir el-Ballas 2019-2020, Week 1: 12/1-12/6

We started back at the site this week. First, we checked the ‘South Palace’ with Tony Crosby to go over last year’s restoration and plan for future work and then we moved to the houses to the West of the North Palace. These were threatened by the expansion of the...