Ten years' digging in Egypt, 1881-1891

by W. M. Flinders Petrie

It need hardly be said that the greatest care is required in making certain as to exactly where things are found. Workmen should never be allowed to meddle with each other’s lots of potsherds or little things; and any man mixing up things from elsewhere with his own finds should be dismissed. Men should be trained by questioning to report where they found objects, at what level and spot in their holes; and the best men may in this way be led up to astonishing intelligence, observing exactly how they find things, and replacing them as found to illustrate the matter. In order to encourage the men to preserve all they find, and to prevent their being induced to secrete things of value, they should always be paid as a present the market price of such things at that place, and a trifle for any pottery or little scraps that may be wanted. To do this properly it is needful to know the local prices pretty closely, so as to ensure getting everything, and on the other hand not to induce men to foist things into the work from other places. Wages are paid by measure wherever possible, as it avoids the need of keeping the men up to the work, and is happier for both parties. Some day-work intermixed where measurement is impossible will often suffice.

It would be thought at first that nothing could be easier than to know a wall when you see it. Yet both in Egypt and Palestine the discrimination of mud-brick walls from the surrounding soil and rubbish in which they are buried, is one of the most tedious and perplexing tasks. To settle what is a wall and what is washed mud, and to find the limits and clear the face of the wall, is often a matter of half-an-hour’s examination. The two opposite ways of working are by trenching sections through the wall, or by clearing the faces of it. The first is clumsy, but is needful sometimes, especially if the wall is much like the soil, and the workman cannot be trusted; as, if the face is cleared, the whole outside may be cut away without leaving any trace. The light on the surface is all-important, as any shadows or oblique lights mask the differences of the bricks; either all in sunshine, or better, all in shade, is needful to see the bricks. A distant general view will often show differences of tint in the courses, yellow, red, brown, grey, or black, which prove the mass to have been brickwork. The most decisive test is the difference at a vertical joint between bricks, as that cannot be simulated by natural beds of washed earth, as courses sometimes are. The lines of mud mortar are also different in colour to the bricks, and show out the courses. But yet all the question of joints is deceptive sometimes, owing to fallen bricks lying flat, and even fallen lumps of wall. In order to see the surface it must be fresh cut, or better, fresh broken by flaking it with picking at the face; by chopping successively back and back, each cut flakes away the mark of the previous blow, and so leaves a clean fractured surface all over. It must be remembered that bricks are often bent out of form by solid flow of the wall under great pressure, so that they may be distorted almost like a glacial deposit. In cleaning down the face of a wall it may often be traced by its hardness, but this is not a test to be left to workmen, or they may cut away at random; a very good plan is to let the man trench along a few inches outside of the face of the wall, and then cut down the remaining coat of rubbish oneself, to bare the face. Though pottery, stones, &c., often serve to show what is accumulated soil, yet they are found in brick sometimes, and must not be relied on entirely. The texture of the soil is important, as in accumulations all long bodies, bits of straw, &c., lie flat; whereas in brick they are mixed in all directions. Also washed-down earth almost always shows worm casts in it. Often a wall, if in low wet soil, will show out distinctly when the cut surface has dried, as cracks will form more readily along the joints. In many cases, however, all of these tests hardly serve to unravel the puzzle; especially where there are successive walls superposed, and only a small height of any one to examine. To trace out the position of ancient walls is, however, one of the first requisites in such work; not only do we recover the plan of the town and its buildings, but we are led thus to recognize what may be the most important sites for special excavation.

One of the most difficult questions always is to know what may be safely thrown away. Most trivial things may be of value, as giving a clue to something else. Generally it is better to keep some examples of everything. No matter how broken the potsherds may be, keep one of each kind and form, replacing it by more complete examples as the work goes on. Thus the collection that is kept is always in process of weeding. It need hardly be said that every subject should be attended to; the excavator’s business is not to study his own speciality only, but to collect as much material as possible for the use of other students. To neglect the subjects that interest him less is not only a waste of his opportunities, but a waste of such archaeological material as may never be equalled again. History, inscriptions, tools, ornaments, pottery, technical works, weights, sources of imported stones, ethnology, botany, colours, and any other unexpected subject that may turn up, must all have a due share of attention. And keeping up the record of where everything has been found, and all the information that will afterwards be needed, about the objects and the discoveries, the measurements and details for publication, is a serious part of the work.

However much it may be desired to preserve some things, they almost defy the excavator’s care. It is a simple affair to get an antiquity safe out of the ground, but then begin its perils of destruction, and unless carefully attended to, it may slowly perish in a few days or weeks. The first great trouble is salt; it scales the face of stones, or makes them drop off in powder; it destroys the surface of pottery; it eats away metal. In all cases where salt exists it is imperative to soak the objects in two or three changes of water, for hours or days, according to the thickness. I have done this even with rotten wood, and with paper squeezes. Another source of trouble is the rotting of organic materials, wood, string, leather, cloth, &c. For all such things the best treatment is a bath of melted wax. But innumerable questions arise as work goes on, which can only be settled according to their circumstances: still, the soaking bath and the wax pot are the main preservatives.

The excavator should always be ready to take squeezes or photographs at once when required, and it is the best rule always to copy every inscription as soon as it is seen. If only an hour had been spent on the stele of Mesha, how much less should we have to regret! There is always the chance of accidents, and no risks should be run with inscribed materials. Even when the owner will not allow a copy to be made, the most needful points may be committed to memory, and written down as soon as possible, even under guise of making notes on other subjects. Another matter in which it is essential that an excavator should be proficient, is surveying and levelling: in order to understand a place and direct the work, in order to preserve a record of what is done and make it intelligible to others, a survey is always needed, and generally levelling as well.

Lastly, what most persons never think of, a great deal of time and attention is required for safely packing a collection. This part of the business generally takes about a fifth of the time of the excavations; and much care and arrangement has to be bestowed on the security of heavy stones, or pottery, or fragile stucco, or glass, for a long journey of railways and shipping. Packing with pads, with clothes, with chopped straw, or with reeds, hay, or straw, is more or less suitable in different instances. Finding things is but sorry work if you cannot preserve them and transport them safely. Most people think of excavating as a pleasing sort of holiday amusement; just walking about a place and seeing things found: but it takes about as much care and management as any other business, and needs perhaps more miscellaneous information than most other affairs.

CHAPTER XIII.
THE FELLAH.

It is always difficult to realise the state of mind of another person, even of one who is perhaps an equal in education, and who has been reared amid the same ideas and surroundings as one’s own; but it is impossible to really take the same standpoint as one of another race, another education, and another standard of duty and of morals. We cannot, therefore, see the world as a fellah sees it; and I believe this the more readily because after living the most part of ten years among the fellahin, and being accused of having gone some way toward them, I yet feel the gulf between their nature and my own as impassable as ever. One measuring-line may perhaps give some slight idea of their position. The resemblances between Egypt of the present and mediaeval England are enough to help our feelings in the matter. There is the same prevalence of the power of the great man of the village; the same rough-and-ready justice administered by him; the same lack of intercommunication, the same suspicion of strangers; the absence of roads, and use of pack animals, is alike; the lack of shops in all but large towns, and the great importance of the weekly markets in each village, is similar again; and the mental state of the people seems to be somewhat akin to that of our ancestors.