Chapter 4

Khepri was obviously an amateur archaeologist as he became quite excited at the possibility that we could find signs of a civilisation that predated the Pharaohs. When I suggested that we would need ground penetrating radar and other modern equipment to speed things up, he nodded his head and said that he could organise that, as well as military tents, along with the men to set the camp up. He asked how many we would have, and Veronica told him that there would be twelve students, plus the four of us. He said that he would organise three six-man tents, as well as chemical toilets for each tent. This far out, Abbas explained, the chemical ones were for number twos, while holes were bored away from the tents, for number ones and rubbish, to be filled in when we left.

By the time we left the site, it was agreed that Khepri would be our contact for everything to do with the camp. He would organise another camp, some way from ours, as an exercise for a platoon of female soldiers, so that both camps would be supplied by the military.

On the way back to Luxor, Abbas had a big grin on his face as Khepri made notes and confirmed the dates we would be arriving. As we came back over the Valley of the Kings, the pilot went as low as he could, and Abbas pointed out all of the famous tomb sites as we flew slowly down the valley. At Luxor, we thanked our hosts and went off to the terminal to get our flight back to Cairo.

We talked about what we had seen and the help we were now getting. It was an opportunity that was out of the blue. We wouldn’t tell the Headmistress too much, until after the first dig, just that we had organised all the things we needed. After our run-in with the Morality Police, we would keep in western clothes until we left for the camp but would still make sure the girls all knew enough Masri to know when to run.

Before we left, Abbas let me know that the man from the Society had made a full confession, and that all the items that were missing had been found and were on their way back to Egypt. The figurines would go into the display, but the jewels would go into cabinets where they would be secure and shown alongside the entry booth. All three archaeologists had been blacklisted, with the one in Egypt unlikely to be going anywhere for some years.

When we flew home, Abbas and the Minister were there to see us off. The officials took seconds to stamp our passports with a smile. When we were in the air and heading home, I looked out of the window and wondered how much had changed since I had arrived. Now, I was in a skirt suit, with tights and sensible flats for travelling. I had been the guest of honour at the opening of the exhibit I had found. I had danced with men and made a friend of the son of a Minister. I had been kissed and fondled. The one thing that stayed in my mind was that all of these men who saw me as Eve would be horrified if they knew that I had something under my skirt in common with them.

If I was outed on my next visit, my life, for as long as it lasted, would not be nice.

We were on the approach to Manchester when I had a sudden thought and giggled. Stella was sitting next to me and looked at me with an upturned eyebrow.

“What’s funny, Eve?”

“I just remembered a film I saw a few years ago, on TV. It was a Saint Trinian’s one with Alistair Sim as the headmistress. I was giggling because of my current dress.”

“You look a lot better than he did. The way you look now, you could have played one of the senior girls, you know, the really sexy ones.”

“Do you think I look sexy?”

“There were a few guys in Egypt who thought so. Don’t overthink it, just act the way you’ve been doing, and you’ll be all right.”

“Has anyone thought how we’ll be going back to the school?”

“All sorted. I called the Headmistress from Cairo and told her when we’ll be landing. She said that an article was in the papers with a picture of you opening the display. And there was another with the three others getting their houses searched and blacklisted. The one in jail has appealed to the Embassy to get him out, but the word is that the facts are so clear cut that he has no chance.”

“I hope that she hasn’t connected the dots and drawn a picture of me.”

“Why would she, I don’t think that the Egyptians have said where the contraband came from. It’s only when they go on show at the display entrance that some may connect the dots. I looked at that picture of the wife with the stuff hanging off her and thought that she was a lucky bitch to have been able to wear them. Just think, adorned with jewels over three thousand years old.”

“That’s the only thing going for them. If they turned up in a store today, you would look at them and think paste.”

“If that’s paste then give me paste. They looked wonderful in the pictures you took. Anyway, less about that, I hear the wheels going down. This is where I hang on to your arm until we park.”

She did just that and it made me feel protective. That was an odd feeling, and stayed with me as I led them through immigration and out onto the concourse with our bags. The was one of the other teachers with a big school sign and we went over. She put the sign down to hug each of us. I was starting to get used to all this hugging but hardly instigated them, something that I thought that I should work on.

The school minibus was parked outside with another teacher at the wheel. We loaded our bags and got in. On the drive to the school, I looked out the window to see a green landscape, amply watered from above. It was such a far cry from the arid sands of Egypt. For a moment, I felt a bit homesick for those arid sands, then thought of long hot showers and Yorkshire Pudding with dumplings.

At the school, the Headmistress was at the door when we arrived, hugging the others before grinning as she hugged me.

“I knew that you would come over to the dark side, Evelyn. What was it, the lure of sexy underwear, the idea of joining the master race?”

“Actually, Head, it was the idea that if I hadn’t put a dress on, I would be arrested and beaten up by the Morality Police. It was close. You have no idea how easy it is to be classed as queer in Cairo. Just being shaven and standing in a shop selling female clothes is enough to lose your freedom.”

“Well, my girl, that’s a story that needs to be told over dinner. Nearly all the other teachers are back and waiting to hear what happened. When your photo appeared in the paper, it was a surprise. There was this great looking woman with your name. Have you told your parents about the change of outlook?”

“Not yet. I was waiting to see if I carried on this way or reverted back. The ease that I got through customs make me think that I look all right.”

“Look all right! You looked a million bucks in the picture and you’re standing there now, after flying from Cairo, looking like you’re ready to go out on a date. Go and put your bags in your rooms and then join us in the dining room.”

When I opened the door to my room, I looked at the décor and realised that I now fitted it, or, maybe, it now fitted me. I left my case, put my bag on the bed, used the ensuite, then went back to the dining room. I slowed up as the others joined me and we entered the room as a group. The teachers clapped for a short while and then we got stuck into the heaviest meal we had eaten in weeks.

As we sat with drinks, the head asked us to give a report on our visit. Stella gave a talk about our first days, especially our great welcome at the Museum. She described our first visit to the display, emphasising that she had goosebumps, knowing that she was with the first person to have seen it in over three thousand years. Veronica described the shopping trip and why I was forced into a female gallibiya, and then had to keep wearing it until we got back to the Museum.

Tracey told them about the press release and the dilemma that it put everyone in. She looked at me as she told them that I was brave to go along with the plan to be the woman as described, but that she was surprised at how well I played my part. We left out the dancing and the after opening dinner. I then outlined what we would be doing with the schoolgirls when we went there next break. After that, we were allowed to go off to bed. We had three days before the students started back, and I planned to set out the course to suit what we would be doing in the break. The course was general history, so my part wasn’t that big.

I knew that Veronica was the specialist on British history, Stella was the one for European history, with Tracey doubling on Asian and American history. My speciality was Ancient Egypt and the Arab world. Learning Masri was an option, but all of the girls who had put down for my classes had signed on for this. We would teach all the areas in the first year, with students allowed to specialise based on their marks after that. I would be doing extra work next year, but the other three were already doing the specialist courses for other years.

When we started the school year, it was wonderful to be teaching as Miss Saunders. I had enough of all the areas to be able to teach other areas, but my classes on Ancient Egypt were very popular. I settled into a rhythm during that first term. I also settled into my body as Evelyn, the woman. I didn’t talk to my parents, but I did go into the nearest city on Saturdays to shop, sometimes with one or more of the other teachers. I had been told about a salon that was pro-trans and went to it every three weeks to be unglued and checked over. I was also on hormones, prescribed by the school doctor, who had filled in the correct forms for me to get a replacement passport.

By the time we started preparing for the trip back to Egypt, we had a dozen girls able to converse in Masri, a good understanding of what they were letting themselves in for, and the preparations under way with Abbas. When we arrived in Cairo, he did as promised, with the girls having a week of intense teaching about the Pharaohs. During that time, Stella and Tracey looked after them and Veronica and I worked with Khepri to set up the camp.

We were taken to the site in an old Chinook, along with a small group of female soldiers. They had already set up their own camp and had copied it at our own site. There were three sleeping tents, with six girls in each of two, with the four of us in the third, with room for an office. Another tent was set up for eating, with cooking facilities powered by gas bottles, which also powered the refrigerators. We did have three generators for lights and charging of devices, such as laptops and tablets. The chemical toilets were set up and toilet bores had been made, each one with a bench with a hole in it, and a small tent for privacy.

As a curious person, I walked along the back of the toilet tents and sifted through the mounds of sand piled there. It was a habit I had picked up at digs all over the place. At the third one I felt something solid. When I looked, it was a sliver of ceramic. We had brought some of our equipment, so I went to get a sieve and a small shovel. This attracted Veronica who came over and shovelled while I sieved. After working through all the piles, we had four items that were definitely not expected.

We didn’t recognise any of them, so bagged then with a note on where they were found, and when they were found. We double checked what had been set up and were flown back to Cairo. When we showed the items to Abbas, he phoned for one of his specialists to join us. We all waited, anxious, while he looked at each item through a jewellers loupe. When he put the last one back into the bag, he nodded to Abbas.

“These are from the very early period, the time of the African Humid period. Only a few pieces like this have been found, and I would place these items as pieces of pottery made in the Badari style, around four thousand to eight thousand BC. You must have been looking west of the Nile, where the other items were found.”

We said nothing, letting Abbas to say what was needed. He stayed quiet. The specialist grinned.

“Somewhere else! Ah! It must be a new dig.”

Abbas took pity on him.

“Indeed, Gyasi. A place that has never been dug before. Eve told me that these came out of the sand brought up in boring the dry toilets at the camp site. Don’t worry, we are using a lot of modern gear at this dig. When something more substantial is found, you’ll be the first we call on.”

That weekend, we had Saturday for the girls to go dancing, and Sunday we were all in our digging outfits, with everything needed in large backpacks. Our cases were all in a store at the Museum. The week of intensive training from the experts in the field had done our students the world of good. They were keen, they were focused, and they were surprised when we set down in the middle of nowhere. They had been told that it was remote, but remote in England is not the same as remote in a desert.

They sorted themselves out and claimed their camp beds, then we had a meeting in the eating tent while I told them what we would be doing.

“This dig is not so much a dig, but more an exploration. We have three sets of ground penetrating radar. We will tape out a search grid and make a thorough survey, then move along the ridge line. Veronica and I sieved pieces of pottery that has been dated as up to eight thousand BC. They came from the bore holes that were made for the dry toilets, so I guess that we are sitting on top of an ancient settlement. What we need to do is map the ground so that when we do dig, it’s in a good place.”

We weren’t going to move the camp, so set up our grid from the tent closest to the bore holes. One of the first things we did, when we laid out our first search pattern, was to remove the tents and benches from the two toilet bores, so allowing a full survey over that area. With three units, each one had a team of four, so that they could take turns in pulling the unit over the ground. There were three laptops set up in the office, with a fourth in my sleeping area to keep an overall picture.

We could hear small arms fire during the days, as the soldiers learned how to hit targets in the desert haze and shimmering mirages. We would all get together in the evenings, to talk and socialise. Another thing the army was training for was digging trenches. When I found that out, I smiled. Khepri was devious, having a bunch of very fit girls with digging equipment next of us.

I had measured the depth of the bores and deduced that the ceramic had only been less than a metre and a half below our feet. To me, this was logical, as whatever had been here had been covered as the cliffs eroded, and then much of it washed away in the tremendous rainstorms that had turned the desert into a myriad of ancient waterways.

Over the first few days we trudged up and down the marked areas, creating the electronic files. Each night I downloaded the files to the laptops and looked at the images. I added the three files to the bigger laptop as a mosaic overview. What I could see looked like evidence of some kind of settlement. Of course, any walls would have been built in mud, so there wasn’t clear-cut images of buildings. There were, though, anomalies that looked like fireplaces and rubbish dumps. Shadows too regular in shape to be natural.

I measured out the positions and put flags out where we would dig. The first test pit was a small one, over a place which I thought looked like a fireplace. The pit was the standard metre by a metre, and we hit the firm level with obvious signs of burning at just over a metre deep. At that level, it was all done by the book, with trowels and brushes. We bagged bones and also a few pieces of charcoal, the holy grail of archaeology, as this can be dated accurately.

The place that I thought looked like a rubbish tip needed a bigger hole, so I asked the officer in charge if we could borrow her girls for a few days.

“That was quick”, she said. “I was told that you may not need us for a few weeks.”

We had the army open us a pit some three metres by four metres, across the area, taking in the two bore holes. We stopped them at a metre deep and some of our girls went in with trowels, while others sieved the sand that had been extracted. Another twenty centimetres deeper and we started seeing finds. I held off calling the Museum until we had a whole bed of ceramic pieces, bones, and stone tools to show them. I rang them that evening and a helicopter landed just after we finished breakfast.

Abbas and Khepri were followed by Gyasi. I said nothing except hello, and then led them to the edge of the pit. Khepri gave me a hug and had a huge grin on his face. Abbas was studying the untouched layer, while Gyasi was looking like he wanted to sit down, just before he did.

I went and got him a bottle of cold water to revive him. Then the discussion was along the lines of how we had hit the spot so quickly. I pointed to the line of tents either side of the dig.

“This is where the bores for the toilets went in. That’s where the pieces we brought to the Museum were found. You can still see the holes where the bores go down another thirty centimetres. We established the depth with that small test pit, which had bones and charcoal which we have bagged. I have the full scan on my laptop for you to look at. The other flags dotted about are, I think, more fireplaces. It will take a much longer dig if we want to find the remains of walls. I saw shadows on the radar images, but don’t have the experience to fully interpret them.”

That afternoon, Abbas and Khepri left in the helicopter, taking a copy of the radar survey and the items we had already bagged with them. Gyasi had brought a kitbag, and the army loaned us a camp bed, which he set up in the meal tent. He had also brought a video setup, with a tripod, which he carefully placed to cover the finds and record further excavation.

The next morning, he led six of our girls in recording and bagging every item he could see. I led the rest of them in setting out a new search area and getting the radars working. It was going away from the camp and gave us some indication of the boundary of the settlement, as half of the survey had no indications of any finds. Over the next few weeks, he cleared the layer of finds and had conducted test digs where we had the best signals from the radar, coming up with a couple of blanks and another couple of fireplaces.

I had laid out another survey area, between our tents and the army. I had the thought that whoever had decided that this was a good place to set up the camps, must have been following the thoughts of the original settlers. The last week we were in the camp, I showed Gyasi the results of the radar imaging. Between the two sets of tents were more signs of rubbish tips, and one area that looked the right measurements to be a burial site.

He got our group and the army girls together and told us to stay quiet about what we had found, as it was likely to rewrite the history books. The last thing we needed was treasure hunters swooping in with mechanical digger. Our part in the search would be made clear when it was time to tell the world about it. With the army, we filled in all of the pits and made ready to leave. Next morning, we were visited by four Chinooks, and both camps were pulled down and loaded into two of them. The army girls left in another, while we all loaded our things into the last one. I was by the open tail ramp as we left and could see the site as we gained height. There were only tracks to the toilets to show we had been there, and they would be eliminated in the next high wind.

Abbas was waiting with a bus when we landed. He had organised the swanky hotel for us, and our cases had already been taken there. All it needed was for us all to check in and have long showers. We all got together for a meal, all in good dresses and with make-up for the first time in weeks. We didn’t say much about what we had found but did talk about the experience of working a remote dig. Not one of the twelve students would drop out of the course now. It had been hard work and totally different from anything they had done before, but exposing the layer of finds and then recording them under the tutelage of one of the world experts had been life changing.

We all spent the afternoon at the pool, taking turns to rub each other with sunscreen and hydrating oils. We were all a lot browner than when we started. Abbas came by in the late afternoon to tell us that we would be picked up for a good dinner, and that we could have our pick of the hotel dress shop if we didn’t have anything dressy. The Museum would be picking up the tab.

Marianne Gregory © 2024