DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.55201#0014
SEASON OF 1911-1912
In the fall of 1910 Mr. Lythgoe had me give up work in Khargeh
Oasis and get Sir Gaston Maspero, the Director General of Antiquities
in Egypt, to give us a concession to dig in the ruins of the palace of
King Amen-hotpe III at Thebes. He was a delightful person, was
Maspero, and when our talk was over I had left his dark little office
in the Cairo Museum with a right to excavate not only the palace,
but Kurnet Murai, a hill over a kilometer to the northeast, and the
fAsasIf, a desert valley about three kilometers in the same direction.
At the beginning of the next year Mr. Lythgoe had told me that
J. Pierpont Morgan, President of the Museum, was not interested
the least little bit in the palace which he had seen me digging the
season before. Kurnet Murai had only been wished on us to keep
George Foucart from digging it; and 1 knew of no where to start
work there anyway. In fact, after Maspero’s resignation and the
war of 1914 to 1918 was over, the French Institute started excava-
tions there with everyone’s blessing. In 1912, when it was still ours
though, 1 had a row with Ludwig Borchardt as to its boundaries,
which were the limits of our concession and those of the Berlin
Museum, but the Germans only dug there in the winter before the
war. Afterwards it was the happy hunting ground of our friend Bisson
de la Roque in its southern part around Kurnet Murai, and of our-
selves where it goes to the north around Sheikh fAbd el Kurneh hill.
I remember the driven feeling I had in January, 1912, getting
ready for Mr. Morgan who was going to arrive within less than a
month. One day Norman de Garis Davies had told me that I had
better stop off on my way up to the house we were building for the
Expedition, to take a look at his work and see if I could give him any
help. He had a man and two boys, and was trying to dig out several
tons of dirt that had accumulated in the seven entrances to a colossal
tomb which was on the north end of Sheikh cAbd el Kurneh. As the
house we were building was really quite close, on the north side of the
Khokheh hill, I was able to do it without any bother.
Davies and his Arabs would be there yet, 1 am afraid, clearing out
the dirt and the rubbish which had accumulated in the tomb. Lepsius
in 1844, Maspero in 1883, Budge’s men clandestinely digging a few
years later, Carnarvon in 1910, and Weigall who put the iron grilles
over the eastern end of the portico—it seemed as if everyone had
taken a try at finding something here. However, Davies’ men had
struck into some beautifully colored relief which was just the sort of
In the fall of 1910 Mr. Lythgoe had me give up work in Khargeh
Oasis and get Sir Gaston Maspero, the Director General of Antiquities
in Egypt, to give us a concession to dig in the ruins of the palace of
King Amen-hotpe III at Thebes. He was a delightful person, was
Maspero, and when our talk was over I had left his dark little office
in the Cairo Museum with a right to excavate not only the palace,
but Kurnet Murai, a hill over a kilometer to the northeast, and the
fAsasIf, a desert valley about three kilometers in the same direction.
At the beginning of the next year Mr. Lythgoe had told me that
J. Pierpont Morgan, President of the Museum, was not interested
the least little bit in the palace which he had seen me digging the
season before. Kurnet Murai had only been wished on us to keep
George Foucart from digging it; and 1 knew of no where to start
work there anyway. In fact, after Maspero’s resignation and the
war of 1914 to 1918 was over, the French Institute started excava-
tions there with everyone’s blessing. In 1912, when it was still ours
though, 1 had a row with Ludwig Borchardt as to its boundaries,
which were the limits of our concession and those of the Berlin
Museum, but the Germans only dug there in the winter before the
war. Afterwards it was the happy hunting ground of our friend Bisson
de la Roque in its southern part around Kurnet Murai, and of our-
selves where it goes to the north around Sheikh fAbd el Kurneh hill.
I remember the driven feeling I had in January, 1912, getting
ready for Mr. Morgan who was going to arrive within less than a
month. One day Norman de Garis Davies had told me that I had
better stop off on my way up to the house we were building for the
Expedition, to take a look at his work and see if I could give him any
help. He had a man and two boys, and was trying to dig out several
tons of dirt that had accumulated in the seven entrances to a colossal
tomb which was on the north end of Sheikh cAbd el Kurneh. As the
house we were building was really quite close, on the north side of the
Khokheh hill, I was able to do it without any bother.
Davies and his Arabs would be there yet, 1 am afraid, clearing out
the dirt and the rubbish which had accumulated in the tomb. Lepsius
in 1844, Maspero in 1883, Budge’s men clandestinely digging a few
years later, Carnarvon in 1910, and Weigall who put the iron grilles
over the eastern end of the portico—it seemed as if everyone had
taken a try at finding something here. However, Davies’ men had
struck into some beautifully colored relief which was just the sort of