[MUSIC PLAYING]
PETER DER MANUELIAN: As we talk about the mechanics
of these great expeditions from the beginning of the 20th century,
it's important to think about who is doing the work
and how the information was being disseminated.
So in this section, I'd like to talk a little bit about the Egyptian workmen.
So often in the literature the focus, because these are Western expeditions
organized by Westerners--
British, French, German, Italian, Americans--
the focus is on these individuals, the three or four or five
foreigners who come in and run the dig.
They're the ones doing the writing.
They're the ones disseminating the publications.
And so there's been a focus--
you might almost say an overfocus on their achievements--
and lost in the sauce in a way are the achievements of the Egyptians.
Now they're the ones of course doing the work.
And maybe many of them are illiterate and they're not
writing up publications of the work, but nevertheless some of them
reached tremendously skilled heights and were
integral to the success of many of these expeditions.
In fact, a tradition was started by Flinders Petrie
of going to a place called Koft and recruiting individuals there
who then became so adept in archaeological method
that they were always the foremen, the [? rayas, ?] of the expedition.
And so this tradition expanded far beyond Petrie to the point
where everyone wants a [? Koftie ?] to be in charge of the other, perhaps
less skilled, labor on an expedition.
We still do this today.
So Koft is quite famous for delivering archaeological talent--
native archaeological talent.
So in the old days, of course, there were 75 men, 100 men, 150 men.
It was a lot to organize, and to keep them paid,
and keep the fundraising going.
And in this section I'd just like to highlight a few of these images.
And you can see how hard the men are working,
and then, of course, what a family atmosphere developed along the way.
This is a sort of team photo in the 1930s.
And you see George Reisner over on the right.
He's smiling, one of the few times he smiles in one of these photos.
And standing with them is Mr. Edgell, the Museum of Fine Arts director,
who's actually come out to Giza for a visit.
So while there might have been 75, or 100, 150 workmen,
the group you see here are the core of the expedition.
These are the ones handling the accounts, making the decisions,
overseeing the men, driving the cars, cooking the meals,
taking dictation and helping typing up the manuscripts,
solving problems and disputes, lending money, handling funerals, you name it.
And in fact George Reisner came to be a sort
of father figure for these individuals.
Many of them started with him as boys, grew up in his presence,
and in fact had families and children.
And the children started to work for the expedition, too.
So you can imagine what a calamity it was when he finally died in 1942.
Many of these people had known no other career, no other employment,
and they were, in effect, set adrift.
It's time to put names to these faces and to give credit where credit is due.
The Egyptians came to revere Reisner and they looked up to him
as a great leader.
In fact, some of them even nominated him to be
the khedive in a newspaper article in 1914
that made it all the way back to the Boston press.
That must have been a little embarrassing for George Reisner.
But all of this was based, of course, at Harvard Camp where the red arrow is
pointing in this aerial photograph.
So this is west of the Khafre pyramid.
This collection of modest mud brick buildings grew over time.
And this is where the objects were recorded and processed, photographed.
It's where the publications were written.
It's where Reisner and his family stayed.
And they held court basically for many, many decades.
Here is the road to Harvard Camp with a sign indicating
what you're about to see when you drive up to visit the boss.
And in this aerial photograph, you can see, by the 1930s,
it was quite a cluster of buildings.
So Reisner trained many of the Egyptians in photographic methods.
And so for most of the expedition, it was
Egyptians such as Mohammedani Ibrahim who
was taking the bulk of the images on these glass plate negatives.
In the photograph here, you see Mohammed Shadduf was actually
shooing a little puppy named Patrick Kheops away from the glass plates
because they are trying to make-- printing out paper prints based
on sunlight here, so you don't want your dog kicking up sand
in the middle of the photographs.
The Egyptians were running the photographic studio.
And here is Hag Ahmed Youssef, who was an employee of the Egyptian Museum
and a master conservator.
Reisner enlisted his help to help restore the funeral furniture of Queen
Hetep-heres.
In the photograph here, you see Ahmed Youssef
making a copy of the curtain box of the queen
after he's already restored the original in new wood.
His handiwork can be seen in the Egyptian Museum Cairo today,
and later Youssef became quite famous as the man who restored
the Khufu boat discovered in 1954.
Here again is the aerial view of Harvard Camp and then in recent years
what it looked like semirestored, sometimes put to use and sometimes not,
and now unfortunately demolished once and for all
because part of the tourist pathway for an electric train
was intended to go right through this area.
So Harvard Camp itself is no more.
But this is the view standing in that area looking
eastwards towards the Khafre and Khufu pyramids
and the Nile Valley in the distance.
It was a spectacular place to live.
When Reisner turned 70, he had a special surprise birthday
party and all the men gathered, and the workmen and the families.
And here they are sitting in the courtyard of Harvard Camp
handing out presents and taking photographs.
This was his family.
The men came and congratulated him one by one
on reaching the ripe old age of 70 years old.
And of course he wasn't going to slow down.
He kept on going.
Some of the events are actually quite interesting and amusing.
This photograph confused me for a long time from 1938.
They're in the courtyard of Harvard Camp.
The men have pick axes.
Everyone's laughing.
And there was an individual named Mr. Schechter talking to Reisner.
Eventually, I realized what this was.
It was the dress rehearsal for a live radio broadcast to happen that night.
Of course late at night in Cairo makes it back live at dinner time in the US,
and many, many newspaper articles recorded this event.
So Reisner was interviewed.
His daughter was interviewed.
Several other Egyptologists spoke.
And in the background the Egyptians were making the digging songs and digging
noises with their pick axes, and that's what that photograph was.
It was a rehearsal for the first ever live radio broadcast via NBC
from Cairo around the world.
Along the way, a few individuals were particularly valuable to Reisner.
Said Ahmed Said began as a boy carrying the photographic equipment
and stayed with Reisner for decades.
Unfortunately, he died suddenly in 1926 during the excavation
of the shaft tomb of Hetep-heres.
But he left behind some talented family members, and two of his sons
stepped in, Mohammed Said and Mahmoud Said.
Mohammed ran the dig for the rest of Reisner's career.
Mahmoud learned English and was up at the dig camp
taking dictation and helping prepare a lot of the manuscripts.
These two first rate individuals had inherited
all the intelligence and the skills of their father
and they were like sons to Reisner.
Without him, he would not have been able to run the excavation.
I was fortunate enough to meet one of the sons of Mohammed
Said in recent years, and here he is.
And he had some of the Arabic diaries that his father and uncle
had been recording.
And thanks to him they are now part of our excavation documentation.
It was a great privilege to go back in time and hear the stories of someone
who knew Reisner and as a boy had played up at Harvard Camp
and watched all the great discoveries of the expedition unfold.