February 2018

Dear Members,
Dear Friends,

I hope you all had a very nice time since my last update. It might have been a while, but I wanted to have exciting news before sharing them with you.

The Coptos mission has been a great success! Within the framework of our fruitful training programme with junior members of the Ministry of Antiquities, we have found two very special structures that are thought to be storerooms or small workshops dated from the Roman period. 

 They were located in the middle of a busy street, thus meaning that people had to pass in front of them every time they were coming to Coptos. What a brilliant way to tempt people to buying your products!

Two days after the end of our Coptos mission, I gave a whole day of training at our Cairo office where I presented to 15 Egyptian students and junior members of the Ministry of Antiquities the basic use of Illustrator and Photoshop for archaeological purposes. 


 This training day has been a great success as it was sold out within the first hour of its announcement! Following this, many other training days will therefore be offered soon.

Since my last update, I also travelled the world (literally!) to give talks about my work and meet with EES members. There has been a joint EES/Friends of the Petrie Museum study day where my wife and I presented our latest discoveries. I then went to the University of Liverpool to give a talk to students during one of their seminars. I was delighted that many Egyptologists also attended this presentation. After having been also invited to talk to the members of the Thames Valley Ancient Egypt Society, I went to talk to the members of the Friends of the Egyptian Museum in Turin (Museo Egizio). This event has been a great success as many members came from all across Italy to listen to our latest work. Finally, I was one of the key speakers of a study day that happened in Nîmes (France). 

 In all of these events, I am thrilled to see how much the Egypt Exploration Society is always well recognized an admired. Thank you for helping us keeping up the good work!

I am writing you from Deir el-Medina where I am settled for a few weeks. My work here for this season is focused mostly on studying the Theban Tomb 250 (belonging to 9 women!), a study I began a while ago and that I intend to finish soon. One day, as I was walking across the western necropolis, I heard people shouting my name. As my eyes where ajusting from the bright sun, I had the nice surprise to meet with three members of the EES coming to visit me! 

I then took a moment to discuss with them about our current work and giving them a sneak peak of our coming programme... The climbing of the necropolis had to be rewarded!

 And a few days later, one of our EES local ambassadors together with some friends joined me for a special tour of the site! 

I am waiting to meet you all here as well. You will always be more than welcome!

Until next time, I thank you again for your generous and more than helpful support!

Warm wishes from sunny Luxor!


Cedric

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