Mission Digging Diary

Week 8 (20 February - 26 February)
The eighth Mission Digging Diary is online!

Week 7 (13 February - 19 February)
The seventh Mission Digging Diary is online.

Week 6 (5 February - 12 February)
The sixth Mission Digging Diary is online.

Week 5 (30 January - 5 February)
The fifth Mission Digging Diary is online.

Week 4 (23-29 January)
The fourth Mission Digging Diary is online.

Week 3 (15-22 January)
The third Mission Digging Diary is online.

Week 2 (9-14 January)
The second Mission Digging Diary is online.

Week 1 (3-8 January)
The first Mission Digging Diary is online.

Season 2010
The 2010 season will run from January 9 until February 28. There is a lot of work planned to do this year. To start with the hill south of the tomb of Ptahemwia will be cleared. Two shafts will be cleared which were found during the 2009 season. The first, shaft 2009/17, was found partly under the forecourt of the tomb of Horemheb and was re-used by Khay II for his tomb. The second, shaft 2009/23, is located south of the forecourt of the tomb of Meryneith. This shaft most likely belongs to Tatia. Furthermore the team will try to locate the Archaic Period entrances to the subterranean complexes below the tombs of Meryneith and Maya, by means of ground-penetrating radar. Further documentation of the reliefs and objects found in previous seasons will be done and the study of pottery and bones found in previous seasons will be continued. Also archaeobotanical analysis of a small sample of mudbricks found in the previous season will be performed. To team will also try to re-locate the bones of Queen Mutnodjmet for the project of Dr Zahi Hawass.

Digging Diary
The Mission Digging Diary is a week by week report of the Dutch excavations in Saqqara, written by the Field Director(s) themselves as and when they occur.

Preliminary reports
Here you can read the preliminary reports of the previous 2009 season and the 2008 season. In that season work was concentrated in the area between the forecourt of Horemheb and the tomb of Pay and south of the tomb of Meryneith. The mission was augmented by a team of archaeologists from the Dutch-Flemish Institute at Cairo, who continued excavation of the Archaic Period burial complexes under the tomb of Maya and further investigated the Archaic complex under Meryneith.