The last full week of excavations would have started as usual were it not for the fact that the fearless leader of the team had left for Leiden University in the Netherlands. There she had arranged a seminar, on the Fayum, long before she was asked to organize ARCE's Field School. Most of time on site this week was to be spent recording and drawing. After lunch teams 3 and 4 got an introduction on the use of various survey instruments while the other teams worked on their notes, matrices and drawings.

The evening lecture was presented by Nigel Blackamore, this time on the drawing of small finds. Later that evening the last team member arrived: Tom Wake, director of the Zooarchaeology Laboratory of the Cotsen Institute at UCLA. He came not only to study the excavated bones, but also to start a reference collection of modern bones. This changed the life of everyone. From that day, live animals were purchased regularly, to be slaughtered and eaten by the group after which their bones were carefully cleaned and stored.

One member of each team remained behind to get an introduction on conservation, by Lamia Hadidi, on the registry database, by Ken Stuart, and on zooarchaeology, by Tom Wake. Also the evening lecture was on zooarchaeology, to be continued the next day.

Trench 2 yielded a nice find: a mud-brick with two footprints of a Graeco-Roman dog that must have run over the brick when it was drying in the sun some 1500 years ago. Not everyone went into the field, however: like the day before, one member of each team stayed behind to get acquainted with some of the post-excavational aspects of archaeology. The afternoon was again filled with paperwork and the second part of the lecture on zooarchaeology.

This day passed like so many before until the evening that was the time of the last lecture of this season. It was a mix of a lecture and a demonstration lively presented by Lamia Hadidi. The photo above shows a large millstone and cistern that has emerged from trench 1.

As usual in archaeology the last few days produced tantalizing evidence whetting the appetite of the excavators for more. But time had now definitely come to wind down, record the excavated areas and finds and prepare the trenches for backfilling. The time constraint was made even more acute as this day was marked by the last field-trip of the season.

This time the town and temple of Qasr Qarun, easily visible from Medinet Watfa when looking northwest, were the destination. The old town is reminiscent of Medinet Watfa, though with probably more buildings made of stone, and the temple is an impressive maze of rooms and narrow stairwells. The structure is currently being restored by the Supreme Council of Antiquities.

As usual the week ended in a trench tour, during which members of each team explained to all the work that had been done in the past week. And, also as usual, there was a run for the hired microbus that quickly disappeared beyond the horizon taking a happy few back to family and friends. Those who remained behind had to make do with sleeping in and another outing to Wadi Rayan.