The east wing of the Mut Temple's 1st Pylon at the end of the 2006 season (top) and at the end of 2007, with much of the Roman Period construction removed. The bottom photo is Bill Peck's plan of the structures at the end of this season. Next year we hope to complete excavation in this area, revealing the pylon as it was in the Ptolemaic Period when the temple was still functioning.
The north side of Temple A's Forecourt at the beginning and end of the season. In addition to clearing the north wall and the enclosure wall behind it, we also cleared the Forecourt itself down to a more-or-less uniform level.
Looking east along the north side of the Forecourt to the temple's 2nd Pylon (top). Between the mud brick enclosure wall (left) and the sandstone foundations of the colonnade (right) are the sandstone and limestone side walls of the Forecourt. Bill Peck's plan of the area includes the small brick and stone building and round stone feature mentioned in an earlier posting.
A similar view along the south side of the Forecourt at the end of 2006 (top) and 2007. The sequence of walls is much clearer.
This photo was taken from the north enclosure wall and shows all of the Temple A Forecourt and area north of Mut's 1st Pylon at the end of the season.
We finally moved the fallen column that lay across the middle of the East Porch (top). It was lying on a thin layer of broken paving beneath which we found the intriguing semi-circle visible in the lower picture. Is this the remains of an earlier, single-row colonnade?
Looking west through the Taharqa Gate at the beginning and end of the season. All we did here this year was to clear the area in preparation for excavation next season.
The SCA is closing all its on-site magazines at Karnak and transferring registered items to a new storage and study facility. At their request, we re-organized our existing mastabas and built 11 new mastabas to accommodate the unregistered worked blocks and pieces of Sakhmet statues that were not transferred but needed safe housing within the precinct.
The pieces of Sakhmet statues now line the south side of our existing mastaba, east of the Precinct entrance.
In the Mut Temple's West Porch 4 new mastabas hold the blocks from the small chapel built into the south end of the Porch. We hope to be able to reconstruct the chapel some day.
The 6 largest mastabas are in the area west of the Precinct entrance and they hold the bulk of the worked blocks. These blocks come primarily from Chapel D, the Mut Temple Porches and the Contra Temple.
We said good-bye to Bill and Elsie Peck earlier this week. Elsie is our indefatigable recorder and artist. You see her here as she is usually found at the site, surrounded by workmen and taking careful notes of the work in progress. We could not function without her skills and, even more important, her patience, cheerfulness and determination to get things right.
Here is Bill (our master draughtsman) with our Egyptian colleagues and friends on the last full day of work. Without them the expedition would not be possible: our foreman, Reis Farouk Sharid Mohammed (left); the expert Qufti who worked with us this year: Ayman, Salah, Mahmoud, Abdel Aziz, Mamdouh and Abdullah; and Abdin Ahmed Mahfouz (right) our inspector for the latter part of the season. We thank them all and look forward to seeing them again in 2008.
Richard Fazzini
Director
