I met Professor Dief and Dr. al-Badawi in the latter’s office where we continued our review of the tombs unofficially selected to present to the joint Boards. We three had been meeting well before the field surveys had even commenced as we wished to get ahead of the game, so to speak. Earlier, to break from the rigours of our meeting, we re-visited the Council’s museum. The British Egyptian Antiquities Society’s arrangement of its exhibits and functional areas had provided a practical blueprint for the much larger Council headquarters in Cairo. Until the establishment of the CEA, it had been an unhappy footnote in recent Egyptian history that native born archaeologists and specialists only served in secondary roles under an unbroken stream of European administrators and explorers who migrated to the country in the wake of Napoleon’s adventure. The late, ultra patriotic President Abu Khalid had actively sponsored the establishment of a national organisation to manage Egypt’s heritage. Since its inception, highly trained and dedicated administrators, archaeologists and technicians had built the Council into the most internationally respected organisation in Egyptology.
I had known Yousef al-Badawi prior to joining the BEAS but could never quite understand why we always seemed to bump into each other when taking my holidays in London. I was to discover my father had stage managed these meetings so Yousef and I could take each others’ measure. Once I made this discovery, I had reason to comprehend more of my father’s strategic understanding of the Society’s future and its probable relationship with the Council over the next decades.
After receiving al-Badawi’s favourable opinion, Sir Reginald assumed I would inevitably fall into his clutches and accept a role not as yet completely formulated. At about the same time, my Father wilfully discarded the curriculum vitae of other possible contenders for the position of the Society’s Directorship of Civil Engineering. He must have been very sure of his son’s latent ambition! My fate was sealed and my future carefully but surreptitiously manipulated by Abdullah, Yousef and my father. After my appointment, we laughed at the machinations involved in manoeuvring me to head up the restoration project. The Egyptians agreed that my father, in another life, must have served his apprenticeship at the Ottoman Court in Constantinople where he had mastered the ways of Byzantine politicking and beguiling lesser folk such as his son.
After momentarily reflecting on how I had been snared, we continued our review after our stroll through the galleries. We turned our attention to the enigmatic tomb of the controversial Queen Hatshepsut (KV20). After much discussion, Abdullah said “Definitely keep on the list. KV20 is not a sad tomb; it is a disaster of epic proportions. If Dennis can miraculously stabilise and restore the structure, his belief that a certain type of energetic tourist would be willing to pay to meet the challenge of the precipitous descent into the burial chamber and the arduous climb back to the surface, may garner Board approval.”
Laughing, I responded “Good, my colleagues and I try to make miracles today, the impossible we leave for tomorrow!” I queried current attitudes about working in the tomb of Seti I (KV17) even though it was not under consideration. In 1903, Carter undertook quite extensive structural repairs as sections of the burial chamber walls had sagged due to the subsidence caused by a slow crumbling of the mysterious tunnel built under the chamber’s floor. He brought in hydraulic jacks, lifted the rear wall, installed new brick piers and filled several large cracks in an attempt to stop more painted plaster falling off the walls.
Yousef replied “KV17 is a mess. It is enormous, very popular with the tourist trade and suffers from every problem you can think of. We are considering a major restoration project involving a multi-disciplinary team and when we have completed research into such a project, we can discuss his tomb again but for now, put a question mark against it.”
By day’s end we had almost finished our review. The sun was setting over the city; we had drunk too much coffee and smoked too many cigarettes. Yousef suggested we conclude for the moment and meet later for dinner to refresh our senses with some truly tantalising food and the prospect of belly dancing. After agreeing to meet at a restaurant near the Citadel, I returned to my hotel, showered and changed into more causal evening wear. Later, once dinner finished with a mildly erotic display of belly dancing, we retired to a nearby coffee shop. After ordering strong Egyptian coffee, Yousef looked at me.
“Forgive me, Dennis. You know I am a specialist in the field of restoration of artefacts such as coffins, furniture, papyri, pottery and suchlike - admittedly a limited field. Can you explain why the Valley tombs have suffered such fundamental damage, much of which appears to be, in a historical time frame, very recent?”
Abdullah nodded in agreement. “The New Kingdom tombs are about 3,000 years old and we are now considering how to limit or stop the results of rock failure. Walls are bulging, large slabs have come down from ceilings, supporting pillars are crumbling or have shattered and cracks appear almost overnight in chambers and corridors. I know geological change is a slow business but, as Yousef as said, much of the damage appears to be almost contemporary.”
I took a sip of the hot sweet coffee. “Gentlemen, this is a complex subject and one normally kept for the lecture hall.”
“Come now, Dennis, do you have a more pressing engagement tonight?”
“No, but what I can tell you is all fairly dry information.”
“You have two attentive students and the night is still young. Please proceed.”
“Right, remember that as boredom overtakes you, you asked for it. There is a combination of factors working against us at the moment, keeping in mind ‘a moment’, when measured against the life of the tombs, is a relative period of time. The fundamental geology of Egypt has remained unchanged for millions of years. Apart from sporadic hard rock deposits, indicative of ancient volcanic activity, most of the country is a sedimentary sandstone and limestone plateau, both very soft semi-porous stone which was used extensively in construction, due to the ease with which it is worked. Unhappily though, it is gradually worn away by its enemies. In regions with high rainfall, water slowly dissolves it and wind, carrying fine particulate sand, abrades it. In the post industrial world, pollution accelerates the decay of stone and not only soft stone. This is already evident throughout Egypt”
“More coffee, Dennis as I suspect we are in for a lengthy lecture.” quipped Yousef.
“I promise to keep the unabridged version for the classroom. Tonight you will get the short version.” I replied, accepting another cup. “Egypt is a fortunate land. It has ample riverine water, even in times of reduced snowfalls at the Nile’s headwaters. In the remote past, there were long periods of fairly constant rainfall which created eroded wadis like the Valley of the Kings. Over time the climate changed, leading to today’s scenario of limited rainfall in the more arid regions. I define ‘today’ as about one million years. When it rains,it can be torrential though the cloudbursts are of short duration. Rain was the first enemy to attack the tombs and may have been a phenomenon the tomb builders understood. At first glance it makes no sense to build subterranean tombs in what is effectively a dried out watercourse. The ancient Egyptians may have known that the Valley, or for that matter, all wadis flood during periodic downpours although the Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasty kings appear not to have considered water a problem, hence the very large portals.”
“So what did they do? It is my conjecture that they built walls and channels to divert flood waters. There is now meagre evidence of these measures because they were built of mud brick or cut into the hillsides. Why stone was not used is a mystery although I suspect when the Valley was operating as a full blown necropolis with the workmen from Deir el-Medinah on hand, one of their responsibilities would have been maintaining such barriers. Possibly, there were very rare moments when tomb entrances dug into the valley floor, safe behind their protective walls, sat in the midst of pools of water. Those above ground level were protected by diversionary walls built around the larger entrances. Surface water evaporates quickly and, even though limestone is semi-porous, only a little water would penetrate the tombs and if it did, workers would not have seen any damage as it was hidden behind the doors sealing them.”
“Carter, during his excavations in 1920, uncovered a trench outside the tomb of Merenptah which appeared to be designed to divert flood water away from the entrance. Remember, downpours were and still are a very rare occurrence and it is probable that through the period when the Valley was in use, it may have only seen one or two deluges.”
“Bravo,” said Abdullah, “but why do we find fragments from unrelated tombs deep inside pillaged tombs?”
“Ah, a good question. We know the tombs were heavily plundered in the last hours of the Twentieth Dynasty. Logically, grave robbers, under the direction of the high priest, worked in some haste in difficult conditions. Working in poorly ventilated corridors and chambers, lit only by flaming torches, they plundered quickly and ruthlessly and then, at their leisure, picked through the looted material outside the ransacked tomb. What they couldn’t use they appear to have smashed. This would account for the pieces of broken artefacts littering the area near tomb entrances.”
“A flash flood would flush a lot of these fragments back into the open tombs. Picture this. Tombs probably had lost their water protective devices thanks to the absence of the Valley workmen. Robbers broke through the original sealing walls of Eighteenth Dynasty tombs. The Nineteenth & Twentieth Dynasty tombs had their timber doors stolen as timber was rare and expensive. Add a complete absence of concern about the necropolis until the Twenty-Second Dynasty. Over time, each downpour washed more debris into the tombs until several were badly choked. The entrance to others simply disappeared under layers of rock scree. I won’t bore you with figures but a typical flash flood would bring millions of litres of water into the valley, carrying with it thousands of tonnes of debris.”
“That various tombs were plugged with flood debris was a mixed blessing. On one hand, the tombs couldn’t be readily ransacked again as digging through the fill was hard work. On the other, whilst this material was almost cement hard when dry, it acted like a large sponge every time it flooded, resulting in further incremental damage. Nonetheless, for centuries conditions were fairly stable. Once tombs were re-opened by the first excavating teams, real damage began, more so in tombs that had never been ravaged by flood water. Every time the Valley flooded, water flowed off the escarpment, streamed down hillsides bringing with it sand, rock chips, stones and even boulders. Tombs quarried downwards provide perfect avenues for these torrents to follow.”
“Even though Carter and others realised the extent of the problem and took some steps to build flood defences, far too many explorers and, I am afraid, Egyptian administrators, did nothing to prevent the ingress of water and debris into the gaping tomb mouths. Remember the damaged caused by the floods of 1994? The opening of pristine tombs created a second generation of problems. Tombs covered with immaculate painted walls unseen by human eyes for three millennia were exposed to the elements, of which water was the greatest but not the only destroyer.”
“You both know about the serious water damage in the tombs of Hatshepsut, Ramesses II and III as a result of the 1914 flood? Ramesses III tomb was so seriously damaged, Burton made one foray into it but decided it was too dangerous to attempt any clearing of the new debris. He dug out some debris in the tomb of Ramesses II, noting that the inside temperature was much higher than normal. Elevated temperatures, combined with high humidity, do not help the integrity of tombs nor decorated surfaces. Destabilising factors were now at work.”
“But this does not explain why we have such massive structural damage in so many tombs.”
“Structural damage is inter-connected with water damage. First, understand that all natural rock formations, whether they are mountain ranges or sandstone reefs, are subject to external forces. Second, consider the nature of sedimentary rock. It was created by the laying down of successive strata of organisms cemented with calcium carbonate millions of years ago when Egypt was submerged under an ancient ocean. Limestone appears to be monolithic but it isn’t. The geological formation known as the Saharan Shield is constantly subjected to forces created in the earth’s crust and the Red Sea sits above a fault line. The edges of the two Red Sea tectonic plates are slowly grinding against each other though not as dramatically as the Pacific Plate along North America’s western coast but they are moving nevertheless.”
“Shocks in the Red Sea plates reverberate through the stone mass of Egypt. Even though the tremors are slight, their effects are felt in the rock formation in the Theban Hills, especially in the specific fault line that runs along a north-south axis, one prosaically named ‘The Valley of the Kings Fault’. It is the single biggest threat to the Valley in the long term but nothing can be done to circumvent its impact as it is just too big a technical problem. This fault line transmits minute shock waves through the limestone, creating cracks. Some are only hairline, others quite pronounced. In time the rock fractures.”
“But surely these geological processes have been an on-going factor in Egypt for millions of years? The Bent Pyramid at South Darshur had to be abandoned in late construction when the foundations collapsed.”
“Yes, that’s correct but the failure was the result of an increasing load being placed on poor foundation material. Sneferu’s builders chose their site badly because the science of pyramid building was only in its infancy. The lessons learnt at Darshur were applied in the building of the pyramids at Giza as by then the builders knew how to identify solid ground. There are almost no signs of structural movement in any of the Giza pyramids other than cracks in the granite lintels above King Khafre’s burial chamber. These may be the result of an earthquake or the huge pressures placed on them from the mass of stone above. These pyramids are so colossal and heavy, a catastrophic failure in any is just about impossible.
“Before we move away from rock mechanics, do not forget a simple dynamic. The weight of the rock over the tombs exerts a constant downwards pressure on the walls, pillars and ceilings. Returning to water. We know about the damage done to the Sphinx.”
“The Aswan Dam again.” exclaimed Yousef. “Yes, I am afraid so.” I replied.
“Dennis, the effects of the dam are only recent. However, the wall in Seti’s crypt and other tombs suffered damage after they were opened but well before President Nasser was even born and the dam built.”
“You are again correct, my friend, but keep in mind the tremors from the Red Sea fault, the odd earthquake,the weight of the burden hanging over the tombs and hairline faulting in stone matrices, to which you have to add the effects of water seeping down through rock faults. These elements, working together, create the collapses and fractures we have to work with today. Over time, there will be more as the processes of nature are unstoppable. The long term effects of the Aswan Dam are unknown but every huge dam is a mixed blessing.”
What is beyond dispute is the dam’s deleterious effect on the water table under the Nile Valley. Before it was built, the Nile Valley flooded every year with the positive effect of the flushing out of naturally occurring salts. This sweetened the soil and there was no little need to use artificial fertilisers as the silt deposited was naturally fertile.
A vicious cycle developed after the dam’s completion. The population of Egypt kept growing. During pharaonic times, two to three million people lived on the fertile fields flanking the Nile. Today, over 80 million Egyptians live a crowded life along the river. The dramatic increase in population means more food has to be produced which forces the lifting of greater volumes of water from the river to irrigate agricultural land. As water seeps back into the Nile from the fields, it carries an increasing volume of naturally occurring salt and fertiliser and the effects are evident across a wide range of monuments. The Sphinx had suffered in a most alarming manner with the lower parts of its body and paws crumbling, necessitating constant repairs to the statue though the problem remains unresolved in the water table beneath the sandstone colossus.
In the Valley, a thick belt of limestone overlays a deep layer of friable Esna shale, beneath which is a stratum of Dakhla chalk which lies either above or below the water table. For millennia, there existed a state of equilibrium between the three layers and, whilst the Nile’s annual flooding caused the water table to rise and fall within a reasonable horizon, the construction of the Aswan Dam led to the cessation of the cycle. This may have disturbed this natural balance in ways not as yet researched.
Having made these observations I said “If all these elements, new and old, continue, we will be faced with another dynamic. The process of rock mechanics could be slowly evolving in novel ways and we can look forward to more subtle changes in the Valley’s rock structure and the resultant movement within the tombs.”
“Well, Dennis” said Yousef, the irony heavy in his voice. “I am beginning to regret asking my question. You are the bearer of good news. The lifting of a veil of ignorance, whilst illuminating, is not necessarily a source of joy. I am now completely re-assured and will sleep well tonight.”
“Gentlemen, much is conjecture and, as we well know, time in Egypt is not measured in years so we shouldn’t be too worried during our lifetime though it is something to keep under consideration. We will put strain gauges into a number of tombs to measure movements within the rock formation. These devices may show nothing at all but, at least, we will create a reference point for future observation.”
On that note, we agreed to call it a night. I was pleased to see my observations had fallen on receptive ears and my remarks about the problems affecting the tombs gave both men valuable background information. By voicing some of the threats to the geology of the valley and the potential long term consequences, I felt I had laid the groundwork for the acceptance of one of our more radical structural concept