Ancient World Tours
While, within the last ten years, many important historical sites have become off-limits in countries like Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Libya, people still travel to Egypt. Despite the Arab Spring and subsequent turmoil, archaeologists keep working – often in difficult circumstances. A prime example is the excellent work by the Supreme Council of Antiquities at Karnak Temple in Luxor under the direction of Mansour Boraik, and the fieldwork of Salah el Masekh. Over the last decade, a much-neglected area of land to the west of the 1st Pylon has been cleared, revealing evidence of a working Roman bath-site. The team continually makes new discoveries, and now has bath-sites from three different periods of Ptolemaic and Roman occupation of the area.
Another change in the last ten years that we have noticed is that, in a male-dominated profession, we now meet many young women who are determined to make a career in Egyptology. Reassuringly, if the revolution tells us anything, it is that there are thousands of young people in the country’s universities who are prepared to work hard to save their precious history.
