The house at Abydos, Egypt

We arrived at our house in Abydos on Thursday night after an 8 hour train ride from Cairo (2 days ago, I'm a little behind). I'm kind of glad to be out of Cairo, which is easily the most chaotic and most polluted place I have ever been in my life. The house here in Abydos is right on the edge of the desert, so it's the complete opposite of the city. Here's some pictures of the house:

This is the full view of the front of the house in the desert landscape.

This is a 180° panoramic view of the front courtyard as seen from the entrance gate. Click on the picture to get a closer look.

Once you enter the house, through the courtyard, the dining room is on the left...

...and the "internet lounge" is on the right.

This is Obama. He is a new addition to the house, recently found wandering the desert. He's still a very young kitten, but once he gets older he will earn his keep with the other cats by keeping the house rodent free.

If you continue through the house, you enter the interior courtyard. That middle door at the back of the courtyard is my room. Notice the domed roof. That does an amazing job of distributing the air so that the room feels air conditioned during the hot desert days, while still keeping it nice and warm during the cold nights (temperatures often fall into the 30s here during the winter).

This is the inside of my room. My roommate's bed is on the opposite wall. The beds are hell to sleep on and my entire body is totally aching. Otherwise, the room is comfortable enough. It's about 12' square with a 17' height at the center of the domed ceiling.

Here's the lab, where I spend my mornings and evenings working. We have free time after lunch until 4:30. The guys in the front are mapping out the morning's excavation. That's me in the back preparing the database for the day's photographs.

And this is our "backyard." I don't know what the grid structure is on the sand, but just beyond that are piles of baskets filled with pottery sherds.

These baskets are full of sherds which have been tagged and need to be examined. You have to be careful when walking around here. The very deadly horned viper likes to hang out among the baskets because that's where the rodents dwell.

Here's a pile of loose sherds which have been discarded.

This is a clay cup that I found while digging around in the pile of discarded sherds.

That's basically it for the house. Yesterday, we were given an orientation tour of the project's various excavation sites, so that will be the subject of another picture heavy post soon.