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Diary Transcription:

microfilm: begin page 265

Friday, February 27, 1925 (continued)

(3) G 7000 X (continued)
Work ceased in the chamber for two hours or so and the pit continued to be cleared. At 10.60 meters in the northwest corner of the pit a small fragment of burnt wood was found, evidently fallen from the offering chamber before it had been blocked. Near this came a limestone block with a triangular slot in each of the [longer // GAR] edges.

In this area of the pit the blocks are much looser and much more carelessly thrown in, cement [= plaster // GAR] having then been poured generously over the whole tumbled mass. The hole in the floor of the passage is the offering shrine becomes continuous with the main pit.

In the afternoon at 11.5 meters fragments of a large red black ware basin with red polished surface [ILLUSTRATION] were found. This deposit was still continuing at 12.10 meters when the work ceased for the day.

Shortly after 2 p.m. Dr. Derry arrived and kindly assisted with the removal of the offerings. The idea of waxing the bones on the spot was abandoned with a view to greater ease and effectiveness in the work at the camp and all ones that could be saved or made use of in any way were carefully lifted and sent up in baskets of sand to the house. The lower jaws were found to be very fine, with rows of teeth well preserved in position, and these were waxed on the spot and re-photographed in position. They were left to harden, and so were the fragments of reed mat, to be treated later with shellac.

[ILLUSTRATION]

(4) G 7809
G 7809 C: Dr. Derry removed the abnormal skeleton found in this tomb. He reported that it was of an old man and agreed on the gigantic size of his limbs. He had broken off the head of the left thigh bone which had shrunk into a small [ILLUSTRATION] while the broken bones had healed up separated from one another. There was a very advanced condition of arthritis in the pelvis and thigh with much inflammation of the bone. The skull was also in several ways unusual.

microfilm: end page 265

Details

  • Classification
    Documentation-Expedition diary pages
  • Department
    Harvard University-Boston Museum of Fine Arts Expedition
  • Credit Line
    Harvard University–Boston Museum of Fine Arts Expedition
  • Display Page Dates
    02/27/1925
  • Mentioned on page
    Douglas Erith Derry, British, 1874–1961
  • Author
    Thomas Richard Duncan Greenlees, British, 1899–

Tombs and Monuments 2

  • G 7000 X

    • Site Name Eastern Cemetery
  • G 7809

    • Site Name Eastern Cemetery

People 2

Modern People

  • Douglas Erith Derry

    • Type Mentioned on page
    • Nationality & Dates British, 1874–1961
    • Remarks Anatomist and anthropologist. Nationality and life dates from Who was Who in Egyptology.
  • Thomas Richard Duncan Greenlees

    • Type Author
    • Nationality & Dates British, 1899–
    • Remarks Thomas Richard Duncan Greenlees, born South Africa, Sivaratri, March 10, 1899. British subject with a Scottish father and an English mother. For a brief period during 1925 he was a staff member of Harvard University--Boston Museum of Fine Arts Expedition, who later joined the Theosophist movement in India. Greenlees received his MA degree in 1922 from Oxford, where he studied Egyptian, Coptic and Arabic. April 2,1925, Greenlees appointed Assistant Curator of Egyptian Art at MFA.