Today was the official start to work in cemetery SAC5, focusing on tomb 26 and its neighborhood. Unfortunately we had to return to tomb 26 already on January 1, at the beginning of the town season, because looting was reported. Thank god, the damage was not as bad and we were able to stick to our original schedule for the cemetery season after 3 days of cleaning. Today, we started removing the debris in the burial chamber – clear evidence was found for ancient looting and the hopes for finding major remains of the original burials are now quite low!

Nevertheless, we are looking much forward to focus now for the next 4 weeks on the burial ground of the people working and living in the New Kingdom town. In any case the information will be valuable and contribute to a better understanding of living conditions on Sai Island in the 2nd millennium BCE.