Grid 12: Background

In 2000, the expedition began the re-examination of one of the houses excavated in 1921 by the original expedition of the Egypt Exploration Society. It is known to have belonged to the chariotry officer Ranefer. The house of Ranefer itself is part of an area of private housing excavated in the past, by the Borchardt German expedition and then during the first Amarna seasons of the Egypt Exploration Society (a significant part of which, from the year 1923, remains unpublished).

Aerial view of Grid 12 taken in 2004 showing the two excavation areas: the house of Ranefer in the centre left, and an area of housing in the upper right.

These past excavations have not exhausted the ground completely, however. Not far from Ranefer’s house lies an area that has not been excavated before, and possesses an undulating surface suggestive of the presence of houses of different sizes. It is, in effect, an island of untouched ground, one of several which stretch to the west, towards the modern road. The 2004 season saw the extension of excavation into this new ground, in part to provide a training excavation for archaeologists from the archaeological service of Qatar, under an agreement with the Qatar National Council for Culture, Arts and Heritage, as part of a wider agreement between the National Council and the Ministry of Culture of Egypt.

The excavations ran for two seasons, finishing in 2005. A final excavation report on the work is currently being prepared.