Playing in the Dirt

I am on my hands and knees in a dusty trench, scraping age-old dirt from an old mud brick pavement in an ancient Roman settlement in front of the great pylon towers of Karnak Temple.

Covered with dust like an old donkey, I am the happiest man on earth!

When we visited with the group over a week ago, the excavations director, Dr. Salah ElMasekh Ahmed, invited me to come back and dig with his team. As if I could ever refuse...

Dr. Salah and his team have been making wonderful discoveries at the Karnak temple, including the original docks where the royal barques would tie up in front of the temple, later period Greek and Roman settlements, bath houses and spas where pilgrims would purify themselves before entering the great shrine.

I crossed the river this morning, taking the public ferry and then a cab to get over to Karnak. When I got there the site was vibrant with activity. From a distance Salah recognizes me and waves. Not wanting to interrupt his work I ask to be put to work immediately. He puts me in the good hands of Amira, a young Egyptologist doing her internship and working on her Ph.D. She hands me a trowel, a toothbrush and shows me how to scrape off compacted sediment to make the floor of the section level. Then it's on the walls of the section we work, making them straight and as plumb and smooth as possible to facilitate reading the strata. In the course of doing so we find many pottery fragments, a much corroded Roman bronze coin and what I first believe to be a small tooth.

I'm about to call a press conference to announce that we have found the "Lost Tooth of The Pharaoh" when Amira points out that it is in fact a small quartz pebble. Perfect shape and color though...

She seems happy with my work and leaves me to my own devices to attend a meeting with Dr. Salah and a visitor. Short lunch break and we return to work until about 1:00 pm or so.

In those few dusty hours this morning I have realized a lifelong dream, one more in an incredible string that once seemed unattainable.

I'm smiling so hard my face hurts.

Later, I wander inside the temple, lingering in those areas that were covered all too briefly with the tour last week. I find my way to the Open Air Museum, where a number of beautiful shrines and chapels -- whose blocks had been reused as fill in the great pylons -- have been painstakingly reassembled. What a treat! This late in the afternoon, I am the only one there. Wonderful!