Bergen Egypt Exploration Society
- Annual directory board meeting in Cairo, March 2012

 

The three of us - Knut Harald Ekle (KHE), Jan Songstad (JS) and Aage Hauken (AH) - spent some successful days together in Cairo, residing as usual at the Hotel Windsor.  Last years' plans for our two annual meetings had been made impossible due to the ongoing revolution and general state of insecurity in the country (we had agreed to meet in March 2011, but only AH went).  Still KHE and JS had a successful Nile-trip in October, AH was unable to attend since he was guiding in Rome at the time.

 

We had plenty of time discussing the progress of our work for this homepage, and for sightseeing.  Lehnert and Landrock was, as always, a goldmine for publications on things Egyptian, and we went over the collections at the Coptic Museum at Old Cairo.

 

The purpose of our society is to publish the fruits of our work in the field of Egyptology - concentrating on language and literature - and this will take some time since we are all fully engaged in other activities.  But the start is behind us now, and we look forward to much publication on our web-site.  Statistics show that the page is followed by people from all over the world.  AH is continuing his photographic survey of the country before he gets down to writing topical articles on many special issues.  KHE and JS continue translating classical Egyptian texts.

 

Back to Cairo.

 

The most interesting expedition this time was to Saqqara and the New Kingdom tombs that recently had been opened to the public.   There are four such tombs in all - Maya, Horemheb, Tia and the double tomb - and they are presented in a exemplary way by the archeological authorities.  The tomb of Maya is the most impressive, as we here can descend into the subterranian burial chamber and see for oneself; it is adorned as beautifully and delicately as any in the KV.  Indeed, one forgets for the moment that se are at Saqqara and not at Thebes (Luxor) as we stare at the excellent painting and frescoes.  The pictures below are from this excursion.

 

But KHE and JS also inspected many other tombs near by the tomb of the Two Brothers, and after this we went to the pyramid of Ti too have a closer look at the famous texts inside (pyramid of Unas is closed and will probably remain so for a long time to come).   The Serapium is still closed to visitors, even if the restoration is finished, but AH had luck with the guardians last year and went inside with camera in hand; a consideration was certainly in order.

 

We plan our next meeting in October.