Instructors hoping to create more professional Egyptian archaeologists are refusing to allow politics to enter the competition. Nevine El-Aref looks at the progress being made in the field In the cosy garden of a two-storey villa in the Haram (Pyramids) district in Giza, the renowned American Egyptologist Mark Lehner sits on a honey-coloured bamboo chair and welcomes us with a warn smile. With more than 30 years of experience of excavating in Egypt, Lehner's approach as director of Ancient Egypt Research Associates (AERA) is to conduct interdisciplinary archaeological investigations. AERA specialists examine every excavated object -- from buildings down to pollen spores -- to help build up an overall picture of an archaeological site. Lehner's international team currently runs the Giza Plateau Mapping Project, excavating and mapping the ancient city of the builders of the Giza pyramid complex which dates from the Fourth Dynasty. Lehner is also a visiting assistant professor of Egyptian archaeology at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago and a research associate at the Harvard Semitic Institute. Lehner has gained fame not only for his unmatched academic and archaeological work, but also through his appearances on his PBS-Nova television programmes on WGBH Boston and the British BBC. The subjects he has covered have included experimental efforts to duplicate the construction of the Pyramids and the difficult task of raising obelisks. He has published several seminal professional papers about his survey of the Giza Plateau. His best-known book, The Complete Pyramids, was published in 1997. "Excavating the vast ancient settlement site on the Giza Plateau has offered me an opportunity to give back to Egypt something in return for all the years I have enjoyed excavating here," Lehner says. He envisioned running a rigorous training programme to offer guidance for Egyptian inspectors in the basics of standard archaeological practice, and today, all over the country, selected inspectors of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (now the Ministry of State for Antiquities) are now being trained in the standard practices used for stratigraphic excavation and recording in Britain, France, other European countries and the United States. With this background, it is not surprising that he has been hurt by a recent demonstration in Luxor against AERA, and against himself in particular. The protest, though, appears to be political rather than professional. Lehner's vision is in harmony with the objective of the minister of state for antiquities, Zahi Hawass, to train Egyptian inspectors in advanced techniques of field archaeology in order to make prior training at one of the professional "Archaeological Field Schools" a condition for appointment to join foreign missions. This fits in neatly with the concern of the American Research Centre in Egypt (ARCE), which supported and financed the Archaeological Field Schools (AFS) to train Egyptian inspectors with the help of a USAID grant. "I think this is a better use of American tax dollars," Lehner told Al-Ahram Weekly. In 2005 Lehner began the first eight-week AFS session, recruiting Mohsen Kamel and Ana Tavares to organise a "hands-on" training course called the Giza Field School. This functions within an impressive area of 230 metres east-west and nearly 300 metres north-south, with the chosen students coming from all over Egypt: Sinai, the Delta towns, Beni Sweif, Luxor and Aswan. The trainees are professionally guided by a team of archaeologists and specialists, including field instructors. In addition they are guided in the use of digital equipment and techniques far more advanced than the conventional stratigraphical excavating and recording being carried out elsewhere, as well as surveying, ceramics studies, archaeological illustration and osteology (studies of animal bones). The school provides ongoing training for workmen as well as inspectors, all of whom have been integrated with the dig. It is a huge operation and an enormous challenge. Over the past few years, "the AFS has proved a rich and rewarding experience for all," Lehner told the Weekly. He said that AFS graduates were now capable of managing their own excavations independently. Moreover, they were often called upon for their expertise at various Egyptian sites throughout the country. In the past, Hawass said, Egyptian inspectors who accompanied foreign archaeological missions did little more than act as facilitators. Hawass said that they bought supplies and expedited permits, but 95 per cent of them were unaware of the mechanics of scientific excavation. "Unless you are qualified, and know how to identify strata, interpret and deal with material as it comes to light, and know how to record it, you destroy the historical record," Hawass pointed out. "What is emerging from the field training is that Egyptians are gaining a level of proficiency and confidence and will not in the future have to rely on foreigners." Lehner supports Hawass's point of view, and adds that although the work of foreign missions is excellent, they have probably been predominant in the field work and all their work is published in English, French and German, for example. "The AFS is not aiming at creating scholars, but it tries to make archaeologists effective in the field [and learn] how to excavate, document and publish their finds," Lehner said. He pointed out that foreign missions had worked in Egypt for years. "In fact, Egypt is the most generous country that I know in having more foreign expeditions," he added. "I do think that in the point of view of conservation they are coming along very quickly. I think there is so much to do that the foreign missions have selected space and multiplied concessions, and they are focussing in this special area. Take Barry Cambil at Tel Al-Amarna, I can't take him out of the site because he has more to offer to the history and culture of Egypt, and so do the Germans in Elephantine in Aswan. "I would like to see more foreign missions as well as us, like the Chinese character 'let 100 flowers bloom'. I would say, 'Let 100 field schools bloom'." "The Giza Plateau Mapping Project [GPMP] has helped in the growing number of students in training," says Lehner. This is a unique opportunity for students to participate in an ongoing excavation side by side with professionals in the archaeological team. "One of our goals is to integrate the field school into the overall excavation so that we don't have isolated 'practice' squares," he says. "Instead, each team works in a square adjacent to a main excavation area. The students' results are as important as everyone else's in helping us understand the site." In the past five years there have been seven sessions for beginners, advanced, rescue and publication. The GPMP is not about monuments or discovery: it is about information. "It is the interdisciplinary approach which provides a rich context for instruction," Ana Tavares, co-field director of AERA, says. "We assume no prior knowledge. We teach students the basics of how to take measurements, lay out grids and record features by hand." Tavares told the Weekly that working with several archaeological missions from 1987 led her to notice that few field schools existed in Egypt, even if foreign missions were training archaeologists unofficially, often training two or three during routine excavations. According to Tavares, the most difficult task in the AFS is choosing students regardless of their credentials. Sometimes, she says, there are 2,000 students chasing only 20 places. Every student has to submit a short CV and an outline of his or her experience before the interview. "Our dream for the field school is already happening a little bit," Tavares said. This week a project has begun in Luxor, and the team running the field school is Egyptian, independent of the foreigners working in the library. "Our dream is becoming easier and easier. It is now easier for people to have access to the information and to practise," she said. "Our objective is that the trainer becomes a teacher." Tavares said some anticipated problems turned out not to be problems after all. It was thought that some archaeologists would refuse to study the bones of pigs, for example, but on the contrary they just donned gloves and got on with the work. Owing to conservation standards, they also expected a problem with sending unaccompanied girls to work at archaeological sites, but quite the reverse happened and the girls happily got down to digging for their career. "To run a field school it needs a lot of money, time and effort, but I am happy to do this because it gave me the first steps into my whole professional life and gave me enthusiasm as well as enabling me to help colleagues," Tavares said. "The AFS are like teaching people first-aid and then sending them into emergency situations, like war zones," Lehner told the Weekly. In fact, he said, their war zone was at the Avenue of Sphinxes in Luxor, where a project to rebuild the sacred pathway was implemented. The Avenue of Sphinxes once ran the 2.7km stretch connecting the Luxor and Karnak temples. It was an achievement of the last native Egyptian pharaohs, Nectanebo I, who lined the avenue with sandstone sphinxes on pedestals at five-metre intervals, interspersed with trees. Acting on a plea made in 2008 by the director- general of Luxor antiquities, Mansour Boraik, rescue work started at the Khaled Ibn Al-Walid garden behind Luxor Temple, and in 2010 a search was made of the old Luxor town mound. When the AFS team of archaeologists cleared the avenue, they removed 2,000 years-worth of layers and houses dating from the 19th century back to the Romans. Evidence of a pre- Nectanebo I era was found in the deep layers beneath the sphinxes. In the deeper trenches, the team found that the sphinxes fell into ruin during the Roman period, although the avenue was still used as a road. A canal was also discovered, and it was found that during the Islamic period a pottery workshop was located on the edge of this canal. Although all these had now been removed, Lehner said that the AFS team was able to preserve the information by documenting it. "If not, this information would have vanished forever," he commented. The second salvage operation at the rest of the old Luxor town mound, right in front of Luxor temple, began in 2010. During the salvage the AFS brought in specialists in rescue archaeology from the Museum of London Archaeological Service (MOLAS) to assist the team. MOLAS has skills in rescue archaeology that were highly developed because of the work it carried out following World War II, when they formulated the very essentials of systemic archaeology excavation and recorded them using the standard practices of engineering or medicine. Every student has the MOLAS manual and studies the area that they developed. What was amazing, Lehner said, was that in the Archaeological Field School, the MOLAS experts worked with their hands like workmen, even carrying their own buckets. Last year, Lehner continued, an AFS session for analysis and publication was instigated. The whole purpose of this was to analyse the material found in each field school and to prepare it for publication, just as, he explained, in the old days when records were published in the Service Annals. Archaeologists made discoveries in Upper Egypt, Sinai, the Delta and so on, and published them in the Annals. In the field school they learnt that people were finding wonderful things, but that they often had to keep abreast of the excavation ahead of construction. To preserve the information they were discovering they needed to publish it, otherwise it would be lost -- however thorough the excavation. The Luxor mission mounted in 2008 produced a most important record of the sequence of ceramic pottery from Roman to modern times. Boraik asked ARCE to make a study of how to analyse this ceramic sequence for publication. The event was organised at great speed, but it got off to a good start and, except for two consultants expert in the pottery of the Late Period, the team members were all Egyptian. "This is what makes us the biggest mission in Egypt," Lehner said. "We are trying to empower Egyptians to be among the best archaeologists in the nation of archaeology," Lehner told the Weekly. No wonder he was really disheartened when, two weeks ago, a group of 400 people protested in front of the AERA villa demanding that he leave, accusing him and his team of stealing antiquities and hiding them in the villa. Lehner took us in a grand tour of the two- storey villa, which includes a library, a lecture hall, a laboratory, a kitchen, dining room, a number of bedrooms and two bathrooms. The people wanted to inspect the villa and search it to see if there were any antiquities. "Of course I refused to let them in since they didn't have any approval from the police," Lehner said. They stayed outside in the street for a whole day, holding a placard demanding that Lehner leave. "We registered a complaint at the police station, and two policemen came to take them away," Lehner said. "I heard that the group and their leader, archaeologist Abdel-Fattah El-Banna, a professor at Cairo University, thought that the villa belonged to Hawass, which is completely untrue. AERA has owned the villa for two years now, and Hawass has never even paid a visit." Lehner accused El-Banna of spreading a rumour that the villa was on Egypt's heritage list. "The sad thing for me," he says sadly, "is that now we have been holding the AFS for five years, teaching young archaeologists professional excavations. Almost 300 inspectors have gone through the field school, and now those people are accusing us of stealing antiquities. Lehner told the Weekly : "It is the antithesis of what our ideas are." In fact, AERA purchased the property from its former owner, Fatma Galal, a granddaughter of Mustafa El-Nahhas Pasha. According to the contract and papers listed with the government, the villa was not registered on the heritage list. "When we purchased this villa in March 2009 it had been abandoned for more than 20 years," says Lehner. "We just found a guard, who was breeding goats there. We completely refurbished the villa but did not change the architecture; we only did the woodwork, painting and plumbing. It is a 1920 building constructed in the Swiss style, and if it is an antiquity, as El-Banna claims, we saved it." Hanan Mahmoud, an inspector at the Giza Pyramids who has worked in the field school for several seasons, said it was a real shame that the protesters came and accused Lehner of stealing antiquities. "It is one of the best missions working in Egypt, since they teach us how to make accurate documentation and write a report. I learnt a lot." Mahmoud said that, as a graduate, she had only studied Egyptology but had not learnt how to carry out excavations. "What we learnt at university was totally different from what we have learnt in the field," she said. "Now I am a teacher in the field school, and I teach students how to excavate, how to write reports, and how to do illustrations. "We are all Egyptians here, and if we were ever to find that they were stealing artefacts we would be the first to be against them and catch them."
