Lost City of El Kab

We arrived at El Kab on the 1st of December, and within four days had cleared out several of the uninscribed tombs in the famous hill, and had made them into a most comfortable house. Nothing in Egypt makes so pleasant a dwelling as a rock-tomb.

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In a house in which window and door are one, and three sides and the roof are of solid rock, there can be no draughts, and the range of temperature night and day is very small. We had a room each, another for a dining-room, and in two more I packed away my forty workmen. These were nearly all men known in previous years at Kuft and Naqada, for the natives of El Kab are few in number and of inferior physical strength, so that their labour at two piastres a day was dearer than that of the picked Kuftis at four.

All the conditions of work were very pleasant, much better than I have known in Egypt before. No crowd of loiterers and dealers' spies haunted the work as at Kuft, no robbery by workmen threatened us as at Thebes. Surveying poles were left out for weeks together; at most villages they would have been stolen the first night for firewood.

There was some delay in getting the necessary permission for digging; after a fortnight's waiting we received it, and began to work upon the XIIth dynasty cemetery. Halfway through March the digging was gradually brought to an end, and map-making and packing occupied the time till we left in the beginning of April. Fifty-four boxes of pottery and other objects were brought to England, were exhibited during the month of July at University College, and were then dispersed to various museums, Oxford, Philadelphia, Chicago and Manchester, receiving the largest shares.

I have to acknowledge much help received both in Egypt and England. To Mr. Clarke, besides the financial support mentioned already, we owe thanks for help in the work of excavation, in plan-making, drawing, etc., and for his untiring hospitality. To Miss A. A. Pirie, who was with us for the later two-thirds of the season, we are indebted for several coloured drawings of tombs, etc., now at University College, and to her, as also to my sister, for constant aid in the varied daily occupations of the digger, tasks in which their experience makes them most valuable helpers, and which they cheerfully added to the labours of desert housekeeping. In England, several friends have helped in the work of unpacking, exhibiting, drawing plates, etc., notably Miss Griffith, Miss Murray, Mr. Herbert Thompson and Dr. Walker.

Few outside the little ring of diggers and their friends know how much drudgery in Egypt and in England is taken off our hands by friendly helpers, working without a thought of reward.