Issued by The Epigraphic Survey of The Oriental Institute of The University of Chicago

Volume IX, No. 1

November 9, 1998


THE 1997-1998 SEASON AT CHICAGO HOUSE

By W. Raymond Johnson, Field Director



On April 15, 1998, the Epigraphic Survey successfully completed its seventy-fourth season, and it was a full season indeed. Our documentation efforts this year were concentrated at the temple of Amun at Medinet Habu, where the inking and collating of drawings continued in the painted chapels of Hatshepsut and Tuthmosis III, and conservation was initiated on the rooftop. At Luxor Temple reference photography continued in the Colonnade Hall and Amenhotep III sun court, and conservation was resumed on block fragments in the southeast blockyard. The Survey's latest volume, Reliefs and Inscriptions at Luxor Temple Volume 2: The Facade, Portals, Upper Register Scenes, Columns, Marginalia, and Statuary in the Colonnade Hall, received the final editing back in Chicago this summer and is now available.

Deir el-Bahri

Most of our readers are aware of the tragic events at Hatshepsut's mortuary temple on November 17, 1997, when fifty-eight tourists and four Egyptians were trapped and slain by six terrorists in a senseless act of violence that shocked Egypt and the world. Although our Medinet Habu temple crew was within sight and sound of the final gun battle, at no time were we ever threatened, nor were any of the other foreign and Egyptian archaeological missions working in the area. Encouraged by the local authorities and the US Embassy in Cairo, we agreed that it was of the utmost importance to continue our documentation work without interruption, since it was clear that there was no further danger, and to stop at that point would have put the work itself at risk. Security measures in Luxor and throughout Egypt were immediately revamped, so that security everywhere is now excellent, but the healing will, of course, take time. The signs are good; while tourism was severely curtailed throughout most of our season, by the time we departed in mid-April the tour groups were back in ever-increasing numbers and things were getting back to normal. The continuous series of memorial services and anti-terrorism protests held at Deir el-Bahri and throughout the country all winter, largely ignored by the Western media, bore witness to the tremendous outpouring of collective grief and anger on the part of the Egyptians, and were deeply moving to see. The Chicago House staff participated with our colleagues in a state memorial service at the site on December 10, attended by President and Mrs. Mubarak and numerous Egyptian and foreign representatives.

Temple of Amun at Medinet Habu

The major focus of this past season's epigraphic work was at Medinet Habu. The artists and epigraphers continued penciling, inking, and correcting drawings of the reliefs located in the six painted chapels of the temple of Amun, on the pillars that surround the bark sanctuary, as well as on the bark sanctuary itself, inside and out. Fifty-two drawings were checked at the wall by epigraphers John Darnell, Debbie Darnell, and Ted Castle, most of which were corrected by the artists; eight drawings were penciled at the wall by artists Sue Osgood, Tina Di Cerbo, and Margaret De Jong, mostly in preparation for work over the summer; and nine drawings received approval for publication (seven more await the final Director's Check). The majority of the drawings of the painted chapels and their eastern facade, the earliest portion of the Tuthmoside temple, have now been successfully completed and collated, and work is progressing well on a final, comparative examination of all recorded scenes within the chapels. The drawings of the chapels will be published in the first volume projected for the Temple of Amun at Medinet Habu after a final cleaning of the wall surfaces during the next two seasons. The second volume in the series, currently well underway, will be devoted to the Thutmoside bark sanctuary area and miscellaneous graffiti. The third volume will document the Kushite (25th Dynasty) additions to the small temple. This season Staff Photographer Yarko Kobylecky, assisted by Ellie Smith, finished the photography of the Kushite pylons in preparation for the production of drawing enlargements for that volume. Next season Yarko will finish the photography of the Ptolemaic and Roman additions for volume 4.

The 1997/1998 season saw the second year of a five-year grant approved by the Supreme Council of Antiquities and the Egyptian Antiquities Project (EAP) of the American Research Center (ARCE) for conservation of the Thutmoside temple at Medinet Habu and its later additions. The first phase of the project last year focused on the foundations of the Ptolemaic addition to the east, made up of over four hundred reused Kushite-period blocks (as well as some early Ptolemaic blocks), half of which preserve identifiable decoration, and many of which are suffering from salt efflorescence. The 1997/1998 season's conservation work focused on the rooftop of the Thutmoside temple, over the painted chapels and bark sanctuary. Torrential rain storms in recent years had penetrated the sanctuary in two main areas, causing staining of the painted reliefs and the migration of salts trapped in the sandstone. The rains had also caused mud from the roof to wash over the south wall of the bark sanctuary, obscuring carved details in several areas.

Examination of the roof revealed that the leaking roof had been a problem even in the Ptolemaic Period. Settling of the structure because of improper foundations had caused the roofblocks to shift almost 20 centimeters, resulting in gaps between the blocks that had to be repaired even then. Ptolemy VIII undertook the task of restoration, raised the roof of the bark sanctuary, and added an upper two courses of stone, on the lower of which he carved a marginal inscription which names him. At the same time he repaired the roofblocks and sealed the repairs with a veneer of thin stone slabs over the entire roof which directed rainwater to water spouts in the roof; the veneer keys into Ptolemy VIII's new stone courses and is contemporary with them. In most areas this stone veneer is now missing, but marks on the original roof blocks often indicate where the blocks were laid. On the north side of the sanctuary, the site of one of the major leaks, some of the veneer blocks had been removed at some time in order to restore the large Thutmoside roofblock below, and were not replaced. This veneer is shown intact in photographs taken by the Epigraphic Survey in the thirties, before the restoration, and our plan is to replace them, based on the photographs, with new stone.

The technique for sealing was decided after lengthy onsite discussions with EAP Director Dr. Robert `Chip' Vincent, Assistant Director Dr. Jaroslaw Dobrolowski, and the Director of the Franco-Egyptian Center at Karnak, Dr. FrançoisLarché, last spring and this fall. Stonecutter Dany Roy supervised the careful cleaning of all of the cracks between the stone roof blocks with a compressor and vacuum cleaner, and sealed the roof over the entire sanctuary area with a mortar compound tempered with crushed brick for lightness and strength, of the same type which has been utilized in restoration work at Karnak and approved by the SCA and EAP. On the south side, a screened rain spout was inserted into a gap between two large roofblocks to direct the flow of rainwater off the roof. Where the water hits the ground, a trench was dug and filled with gravel to prevent splashing of mud onto the temple wall. Before the application of the mortar, Tina Di Cerbo meticulously planned all of the roofblocks and plotted all of the details on a 1:20 scale master plan of the entire roof. She took special care to plot the marks indicating where the stone veneer blocks had been laid but are now missing, and also documented the position of the roughly forty graffiti carved on the roof. Photographer Yarko Kobylecky photographed the roof areas, including the graffiti, before, during, and after cleaning and infilling. The sealing over the sanctuary was finished by April, but new stone ordered to replace the missing veneer blocks on the north side had not arrived by season's end, so they will be cut and placed next season, at which time Dany also will complete the sealing of the entire bark sanctuary roof. In the meantime Dany filled the depression over the north side of the chapels with a thick sponge sealed with polythene against any water seepage. It was timely that the did so; on Easter Sunday, three days before the end of the 1997/1998 season and one day after he had completed his operations on the Amun temple roof, Luxor was hit by a tremendous sandstorm accompanied by thunder, lightning, and torrential rains. Inspection showed that the newly sealed roof and rain spout worked perfectly; we couldn't have planned it better.

Luxor Temple

This season marked the third year of a five-year EAP grant for the treatment and consolidation of deteriorating decorated stone fragments at Luxor Temple. Conservator Dr. John Stewart returned for a week to consult with stone conservator Hiroko Kariya, who oversees the project for three months each winter. This season all one thousand, five hundred and forty fragments in the Epigraphic Survey blockyard were surveyed and recorded on a special conservation database. Ninety-two sandstone blocks were physically strengthened with the Wacker OH consolidant in the expanded outdoor laboratory, and provision was made for more permanent conservation facilities and protected storage space that will be set up next season. Thirty-eight additional fragments scheduled for future treatment were placed on a special, covered platform which will protect them from rainfall and wind erosion. Forty smaller deteriorating fragments were placed on covered tables and shelves. With the kind permission of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, samples from the undecorated backs of twelve fragments were taken for analysis for the purpose of characterizing stone geology, decay agents (i.e. salt), and effectiveness of the treatment. The first group of seven samples was sent to the Engineering Center for Archaeology and Environment at Cairo University, and more will follow.

Unusually high levels of salt-laden ground water at Luxor temple over last summer and during this season resulted in increased salt efflorescence on the lower walls of the Colonnade Hall and alarming deterioration of the column bases. Photographer Yarko Kobylecky took reference photographs of the columns and walls to compare with earlier photographs of the same areas to help us gauge the rate of decay and to help determine what might be done to rectify this problem. He also took reference photographs of the two easternmost rows of columns in the Amenhotep III sun court, restored and re-erected last spring by the SCA. Greatly facilitating these tasks, and the Medinet Habu photography as well, was the generous gift of a Toyo large-format 8x10 field camera by friends Daniel and Lucia Woods Lindley in January, for which we are very grateful indeed. This light-weight, portable camera has made the whole photographic process smoother and faster, and allowed us greater productivity at a critical time. The simple truth is that the Epigraphic Survey must expand its photographic operations considerably in order to keep up with the rapidly accelerating deterioration of the pharaonic monuments in the Luxor area. This gift effectively launches our expansion efforts, and we extend our sincerest thanks to Dan and Lucia for lighting the way.

Photographer and Photo Archivist Susan Lezon made a welcome return to Chicago House in January after an absence of four years. She surveyed two thousand nitrate-based negatives in the Photo Archives to assess the degree of their deterioration, a project initiated several years ago with funding from the Getty Conservation Institute, and she duplicated sixty of the worst, a task that she will continue next season. She also worked with Yarko, Ellie Smith, and Debbie Darnell on the new Photo Archives database, kindly developed for the Epigraphic Survey by John Sanders and Jason Ur last summer, and she had the golden opportunity to work on refinements to the program with Jason personally when he visited Chicago House with Egyptian Archaeology graduate student Justine Way in January. The photographers and I took full advantage of Jason's presence, and with him visited the Franco-Egyptian Center at Karnak for a demonstration of their techniques for scanning the negatives in their Photo Archive to CD ROM. In the near future we will be inaugurating a similar program at Chicago House which Sue will coordinate. Before she left Sue supervised the repackaging of large glass plates from our special collection into archival housing and made sure that they were properly stored in the Photo Archives.

Photo Archives assistant Ellie Smith continued to bring order to our lives, registering 268 large-format negatives and 85 35-mm negatives this season, as well as finding and filing negatives and prints as needed and helping to refine our new database. She provided invaluable assistance to Yarko in the field where she numbered and kept track of photographic negatives as Yarko produced them on site, and she coordinated the production and packaging of duplicate negatives that are brought back to the Oriental Institute each spring. She and Sue Lezon flew to Chicago this July for a meeting with John, Jason, and me to discuss the final refinements to the database program. While here she, Sue and I visited Yarko at his North Side studio where he is computer scanning 35 mm black and white negatives taken by former Chicago House photographer Tom Van Eynde in 1986. These negatives document the severely deteriorating carved reliefs in two Ramesses III wells at Medinet Habu which were used for water rituals in his mortuary temple. Eventually we will join the scanned negatives using the Photoshop software program to produce montages of whole wall areas for drawing and publication.

Epigrapher and Chicago House Librarian Debbie Darnell continued to spend half of her time during the season coordinating the administration of the Chicago House library, the finest library of Egyptology in Upper Egypt. Although it is fundamentally a field library whose primary function is to facilitate our documentation work, Chicago House has an open-door policy to all expeditions working in the area, members of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, and visiting scholars, and this year record numbers of our colleagues used our facility. Debbie supervised the procurement and shelving of books and photographs for our scholarly visitors, and also registered two hundred and fifteen new books, which now brings our total holdings to 17,596 volumes. She was capably assisted in February by archival assistant Nan Ray, who this year brought her husband David back to us after a long absence, and throughout the season by Resident Egyptologist Dr. Henri Riad, former Director of the Cairo Museum and Graeco-Roman Museum in Alexandria, who worked through hundreds of photographs in the Labib Habachi archives, identifying many dozens of objects that Labib had recorded. Henri very kindly watched the library when Debbie was at the temple, and was always on hand to offer help to anyone who needed it. Drs. Helen and Jean Jacquet, who resided with us this year, were also a wonderful resource for all. Helen, a former Epigraphic Survey epigrapher, is currently finishing her long-awaited study of the rooftop graffiti at Khonsu Temple, Karnak, which will appear in our Khonsu Temple series. Jean continues to be our primary resource for matters architectural, and spent long hours inducting Tina into the mysteries of the architect's theodolite. Our warmest thanks are extended to all of these much-appreciated helpers. It should also be mentioned that this year Chicago House was pleased to donate several dozen duplicate books and pamphlets, many devoted to Nubian culture and history, to the library of the new Nubian Museum in Aswan, which opened in November to great acclaim.

In February stone conservator Ellen Pearlstein returned to continue the cleaning of the indurated-limestone colossal statues in the Colonnade Hall, concentrating this season on the seated king on the east side. It was decided that two fragments of the statue, an arm section and part of the lower face would not be restored at this time for lack of supporting stone. Ellen refined the infill around the face of the large-dyad goddess Mut on the west, which the Epigraphic Survey in cooperation with the SCA and the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, rejoined to its body in January of 1997. Ellen started cleaning the lower section of the small Amun and Mut dyad on the east side, exposing a Coptic cross engraved on the goddess's knees which had been covered with resin and cement, and will finish that cleaning next season. None of this work would have been possible without the generous support of our friend Dr.. Marjorie Fisher, to whom we extend warmest thanks.

All three statues, the columns, and much, much more have been published in the Epigraphic Survey's latest production, Reliefs and Inscriptions at Luxor Temple, Volume 2: The Facade, Portals, Upper Register Scenes, Columns, Marginalia, and Statuary in the Colonnade Hall. It promises to be one of the most interesting volumes in the history of the Epigraphic Survey, with an array of material noteworthy for its rich diversity, and will be a valuable companion to the first volume in the series, Reliefs and Inscriptions at Luxor Temple, Volume 1: The Festival Procession of Opet in the Colonnade Hall, which appeared in 1994. Reconstructed upper-register fragment groups from the dismantled walls, painstakingly pieced together from hundreds of pieces, and an architectural study of the hall, will appear in the third volume of the series at a later date.

During the Season...

Administrator Ahmed Harfoush and I had our hands full this season with the revamping and implementation of the new Chicago House financial management system, a process that took six whole months. With the assistance of our accountant friends at Coopers and Lybrand Cairo (particularly Moataz Abu Shady who worked closely with us all season and to whom we owe special thanks), the financial management team at USAID Cairo headed by Shirley Hunter, and a lot of hard work on Ahmed's part, we are now in full compliance with USAID guidelines. This allows us to receive an endowment from USAID for part of our operating expenses in Egypt. This endowment provides a vital base for all future Chicago House funding, while our new accounting system guarantees that any and all future funding will be managed properly in perpetuity - major milestones in our development program. To all those friends who made this happen: our sincere thanks.

Assistant to the Director for Development Jill Carlotta Maher spent November and March in Luxor, and made excellent use of her time as always. She once again took up the mantle of library tour hostess and in her extraordinarily enthusiastic way explained the work of the Survey to various groups and interested parties who passed through our doors. In Cairo she and I met with the heads of several Cairo-based corporations in our ongoing efforts to cultivate interest in (and support of) our documentation projects. We also met with the head of USAID Egypt, John Westley, a friend and veteran of several past "Friends of Chicago House" weekends, to thank him for his efforts on our behalf. He and his wife Joan have already left Cairo for a new posting in Rome; we will miss them very much, and wish them well.

Back home in Chicago, Egyptology graduate student Hratch Papazian kept his annual vigil over our office and kept track of contributions and donors. I am pleased to announce that Hratch will be joining us next season as student epigrapher, although that of course means we must find a replacement for him here!

In light of the Deir el Bahri tragedy, Chicago House sadly had to cancel its 1997 "Friends of Chicago House" fundraising "FOCH Tour "traditionally held over the Thanksgiving weekend, and in general, we saw fewer of our friends pass through this year. But it was a busy season, nonetheless. Former Secretary of State George Shultz passed by in early November while I was away in Cairo; John Darnell gave him a library tour and an update of our work, since he had visited Chicago House a few years before. The OI's Emily Teeter brought a group through at the beginning of the month, and a little later David Schloen stayed with us for a few days during which Chicago House hosted a reception for the Oriental Institute tour to Egypt led by Ed Wente; it was quite a reunion. On Thanksgiving Day we were joined by Carlotta's husband David and friends Katherine and David De Bruyn, Raymond Stock, Prince Abbas and Madiha Helmi, Barbara Adams and her Hierakonpolis crew, and Ibrahim Sadek for a quieter but still festive Thanksgiving dinner.

In December, Director Gene Gragg and wife Michèle, on an official Oriental Institute tour of inspection, joined us for a week just before Christmas. Their visit was a good excuse to have a welcoming reception with the local Egyptian SCA officials and all of the foreign expeditions, an occasion the like of which had not been seen at Chicago House in many years. The gathering was enthusiastically attended by well over seventy of our associates. After seeing the work of the Epigraphic Survey in all of its various manifestations on site and in house, and participating in the traditional Christmas tree and cookie decorating events, the Graggs and I flew to Cairo where ARCE Cairo Director Mark Easton very kindly hosted another reception for them. At the Cairo ARCE headquarters, beautifully festooned with Christmas decorations and candles, they met additional representatives of the foreign archaeological institutes in Cairo and SCA officials, including the Secretary-General of the SCA, Dr. Gaballa Ali Gaballa, who was very cordial in his welcome. At Memphis I made sure to point out the sad remains of the old Oriental Institute Saqqara Expedition headquarters, for a number of years a 'Chicago House North" housing the team of epigraphers and artists who copied the exquisite reliefs in the Saqqara tomb of Mereruka, which we also visited. The house was forced to close due to lack of funds, and is now part ruin, part magazine, and part local SCA offices, and may be torn down soon to make way for a new museum. The loss of that facility was a blow to epigraphy and the Oriental Institute, and an example of what must never, ever be allowed to happen again.

In December I attended a farewell Embassy reception for outgoing US Ambassador to Egypt, Edward Walker and his wife Wendy, FOCH-tour veterans who have been very good friends to Chicago House. Ambassador Walker has since taken up his new post as US Ambassador to Israel, and we wish him all the best. In mid-February it was our pleasure to host a breakfast at Chicago House for the new American Ambassador to Egypt Daniel Charles Kurtzer and his wife Sheila. Although their time in Luxor was short, we managed to get in a library talk and demonstration of our work and, appetites whetted, they have promised to return for more. I accompanied them to the Valley of the Kings, and to Hatshepsut's mortuary temple where Mrs. Kurtzer laid a wreath in memory of the slain, and Ambassador Kurtzer said a few words, expressing his belief in the goodness of the Egyptian people and his hope for the future, sentiments shared by us all. In December and part of January Ted Castle's wife Bernice Williams stayed with us, and, I am very pleased to report, will be returning next season for six months as staff epigraphic artist. Bernice has a degree in Studio Art from the University of Pittsburgh, and is also a very accomplished photographer.

In February, we were pleased to meet University of Chicago Life Trustee Kingman Douglass and his wife Leslie, and Diana King, President of the University of Chicago's Women's Board, and her husband Neil, who paid us visits and saw the work in progress; we look forward to hosting a special Women's Board tour next year. In March Mac Gibson spent several days with us between stints at Giza with Mark Lehner. Later that month Carlotta's husband David Maher joined us again (taking a short break from Internet Law meetings worldwide), followed by our dear friend Donald Oster, who happily has made his Luxor visit an annual event. And this was a quiet season!

While tourists might have been few, our colleagues were out in force this year. One of the great pleasures of having a facility like Chicago House is the opportunity it affords to facilitate archaeological work in Egypt outside of the Epigraphic Survey's own programs. Allowing access to the Chicago House field library is one excellent way to assist others. Sharing equipment, when possible, and expertise as well as reference material from our archives is another. Prof. Manfred Bietak of the Austrian Archaeological Institute Mission at Tell el-Dab'a visited Chicago House in October to peruse the Labib Habachi archives for photographs from Labib's early excavations at Qantir in the delta; some of these photographs will be used in the posthumous publication of Labib's work there. Labib long desired to see a publication of this material, and it is gratifying to be able to help bring it about.

This year the Epigraphic Survey assisted numerous archaeological expeditions working in the area and elsewhere, the normal state of affairs from season to season. But it's a special pleasure when the house can assist in the projects of current or past Chicago House staff members. This year Chicago House helped support John and Debbie Darnell's Theban Desert Road Survey, Helen Jacquet's Khonsu Temple Rooftop Graffiti Project, and former staff member Carol Meyer's Bir Umm Fawakir Project (her staff members included OI friends Lisa Heidorn, Alex O'Brien, Clemens Reichel, and Carol's sister Leslie Bose).

The 1997-1998 season saw significant accomplishments and many changes. It was my first full season as Chicago House Field Director, after nineteen years of working for the Epigraphic Survey. This season Chicago House launched a program of expansion to keep up with the accelerating deterioration of the monuments in Luxor. We finished the documentation of the standing wall remains of the Colonnade Hall at Luxor Temple and finally saw that precious and fragile material to print. We have largely finished the recording of the wall reliefs of the painted sanctuary area of the Amun temple at Medinet Habu, and we made major inroads in the conservation of that monument. We have scanned our first negatives and are exploring new techniques for analyzing and presenting that computerized material. We have completed the first step toward a secure financial future. It is a time of great challenges, but also of great excitement and hope. There is much to do as we head into our 75th year.

Some of the changes have been harder than others. After ten years working with the Epigraphic Survey, John Darnell has accepted a teaching position at Yale University and will begin his new duties late this summer. John is a remarkable epigrapher and scholar and will be sorely missed; Chicago House has been fortunate to keep him for so long. But, I am pleased to write that we are not losing him totally. John has agreed to continue to `lend his expertise' on the Ptolemaic inscriptions at the Medinet Habu Amun temple, which will be published in the second and fourth volumes of that series and are a special focus of his research. Also, Debbie will be staying on as Chicago House Librarian and epigrapher, and John will be joining her over the Christmas holidays in Luxor for work on their Theban Desert Road Project. We offer John sincere congratulations on his new position and wish him all success, and look forward very much to seeing him back in Luxor when his schedule allows. I am also pleased to announce at this time that Ted Castle will succeed John as Senior Epigrapher; I have every confidence that both he and John will experience great success in their new endeavors.

1997-1998 Staff Photograph

The professional staff this past season, besides the author as field director, consisted of Dr. John Darnell, Deborah Darnell, and Ted Castle, epigraphers; Tina Di Cerbo, Margaret De Jong, and Susan Osgood, artists; Yarko Kobylecky and Susan Lezon, photographers; Ahmed Harfoush, administrator/accountant; Jill Carlotta Maher, assistant to the director; Elinor Smith and Nan Ray, assistants for the photo archives and library; Saleh Shehat Suleiman, chief engineer; Dr. John Stewart, Hiroko Kariya, and Dr. Ellen Pearlstein, stone conservators; Dany Roy, stonecutter; and Ibrahim Sadek, our dear friend and Cairo liaison. I wish to express special thanks for the supportive presence of Dr. Henri Riad, Egyptologist-in-residence for the season and beloved surrogate father to us all.

As in the past, numerous members of the Supreme Council of Antiquities kindly assisted us during our work this season, and to them we owe a special debt of thanks: Prof. Dr. Gaballa Ali Gaballa, Secretary General; Dr. Mohamed el-Saghir, General Director of Antiquities for the Nile Valley; Dr. Mohamed Nasr, General Director of Antiquities for Upper Egypt; Dr. Sabry Abdel Aziz, General Director for the West Bank of Luxor; Mme. Nawal, Chief Inspector of Luxor Temple; Dr. Mohamed Saleh, General Director of the Egyptian Museum, Cairo; and Dr. Madeline Bessada, Director of the Luxor Museum of Art.

At this time I would also like to express my thanks to the many friends and supporters of Chicago House, particularly the former American Ambassador to Egypt, Edward Walker, and Wendy Walker; the present American Ambassador to Egypt, Daniel Charles Kurtzer, and Sheila Kurtzer; Vincent Battle, Deputy Chief of Mission of the US Embassy in Cairo; William Cavness and Janet Wilgus of the US Embassy; John Westley, Justin Doyle, Shirley Hunter, and Jean Durette of the United States Agency for International Development; David Maher; David Ray; Mark Rudkin; Barbara Mertz; Daniel Lindley and Lucia Woods Lindley; Dr. Marjorie M. Fisher; Gerald Vincent; Tom and Linda Heagy; Donald Oster; William Kelly Simpson; Kelly and Di Grodzins; Dr. Ben Harer; Anita and Solon Stone; Roxie Walker; Louis Byron, Jr; Terry Walz, Mark Easton, Ray Salamanca, Sawsan Abdel Naby, Mary Sadek, and Amira Khattab of the American Research Center in Egypt; Dr. Robert Vincent, Dr. Jarek Dobrolowski, and Cynthia Schartzer of the Egyptian Antiquities Project; Michael Jones of the Antiquities Development Project; and all of our friends back on the OI 'mother ship,' in particular Peter Dorman, Cynthia Echols, Tim Cashion, Michelle Wong, and Joan Curry (who gets special thanks for ensuring that the OI and Luxor fax machines could actually communicate with each other). I must also express our gratitude to the Amoco Foundation, the Getty Grant Program of the J. Paul Getty Trust, Coca-Cola, and Bechtel for their continued and much appreciated support. Sincerest thanks and best wishes to all.

As you all know, members of the Oriental Institute and other friends of Chicago House are welcome to stop by to see us, but we encourage you to write or call in advance to schedule a meeting that is convenient to all. Chicago House is open from October 15 until April 15, and closed Saturday afternoons and Sundays.


Addresses of The Epigraphic Survey

October through March
Chicago House
Luxor
Arab Republic of Egypt
tel. (20) (95) 37-2525; fax (20) (95) 38-1620
April through September
The Oriental Institute
1155 E. 58th St.
Chicago IL 60637
tel. (773) 702-9524; fax (773) 702-9853

For information on contributing to the work of the Survey, contact the Development Office at (773) 702-9513 or oi-membership@uchicago.eduor submit the Pledge Form


EPIGRAPHIC SURVEY PROFESSIONAL STAFF 1997-1998

(Back row, left to right) Edward (Ted) Castle, Jean Jacquet, Henri Riad, Moataz Abu Shady;
(Middle row, left to right) Ahmed Harfoush, Dany Roy, Ellen Pearlstein, Nan Ray, Margaret de Jong, Helen Jacquet-Gordon, Ellie Smith, Hiroko Kariya;
(Front row, left to right) Yarko Kobylecky, Deborah Darnell, John Darnell, Ray Johnson, Tina di Cerbo, Sue Osgood, Sue Lezon.