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On September 21, twenty inspectors of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) convened in the office of the SCA in Medinet Fayum. The Chief Director of the Fayum, Mr. Ali el-Bazidi received the group and arranged for all formalities. After a visit to the Tourist and Antiquities police the group proceeded to the site of Medinet Watfa (ancient Philoteris), to officially start the work. In the late afternoon, the group went to the camp to settle in. The Fayum Project stays in the village of Tunis in a camp around a building that houses the lecture room and the field laboratories.

On Saturday evening a welcome was made with a festive barbecue. After this the inspectors were given the field school manual with the first four chapters: a general introduction, some practical information on procedures in the camp and in relation to the work, an introductory chapter to excavation methods and a chapter on the registry. The concentrated silence in the dinner tent reflected the eagerness with which the group went to work.

Day two of the field school: everybody was present in the lecture room at 6:00 in morning. All participants and the supervisors introduced themselves. Then Willeke Wendrich gave practical information on camp life and gave a lecture on the principles of stratigraphical excavation.

In the spring of this year a grid system was laid out in Medinet Watfa. Metal pegs indicate 50-meter squares, while every 100-meter peg has an aluminium label indicating the grid coordinates. The participants went out in groups of two to make a sketch plan of the surface remains on the site within the grid, at a scale of 1:1000. The assignment was to identify different areas that might be interesting to excavate and also to consider what excavation would add to the general research question. The hot weather notwithstanding, all participants spent a good seven hours locating the grid points, field walking and sketching.

After lunch the group discussed the sketch plans and argued for different excavation strategies. In the evening the director and the supervisors met to select the areas and divide the participants into four excavation teams, which balance experience and interest.

On Monday morning the group once more convened at 6:00 in the lecture room. Mohsen Kamel introduced the function of all tools in the field kits that each participant received. Apart from brushes, a good quality trowel, scale ruler, drawing board and other basic excavation equipment, each inspector also found a Munsell Chart in his merrily striped canvas bag. This expensive addition to the field kit is an important tool for every inspector who is involved in excavations. Also finer tools -- used for finds recording -- are part of the tool kit: small brushes, calipers, etcetera.

Louise Hitchcock then introduced how trenches can be laid out, using tape measures. The field school owns a total station, but it was judged that it is more important to hand out the knowledge to do reasonably accurate work with simple means, directly applicable in each trainee's own fieldwork project, rather than creating a dependence on expensive instruments. The use of a theodolite, EDM, and total station were briefly introduced by Willeke Wendrich, but will be used in field practice at a later stage (week 4).

Mohsen Kamel then explained the use of line and dumpy levels. After which the four teams went out to lay out their trenches. The selection was determined by the main question regarding the development of settlements in relation to agriculture in the Fayum in the Greco-Roman period. In the evening an introduction to plans and elevations was given.

Excavation started at 6:00, but most of the day was spent on cleaning and planning. In the afternoon Lauren Bruning introduced the field recording system, by going through the recording sheets step by step. The UCLA / RUG Fayum project uses an adapted version of the MOLAS-system (Museum of London Archaeological Service).

As usual, work on site started at 6:00. After finishing the recording of the surface of the trench the first units were excavated and the teams spent some time in the field to practice their skills filling in the unit sheets. The evening lecture was delivered by Ken Stuart, who introduced the site database, which integrates information of the excavation, the registry, the specialists as well as the photo and drawing records. He also showed the first version of the Fayum project web page.

A day of excavation, which ended a bit earlier than usual, because the end of the week was closed off with a tour of all four trenches by all participants. Each team gave a brief report of the work of the week, which in this case did not amount to much since the excavations had just started.

A day off, where part of the team went home, while those who came from Aswan, Luxor, Sohag, Qena and other distant towns spent a relaxing day first with the fish, then eating fish...