Last week I attended the launch of the Lolly Little Book of Soo Davis, Life on the edge of the desert: Memories of Bait Emery A memory of his time at the British Doug House in Saqara. The “Bait” is Arabic for the House and Brian Emery, who worked in this place for decades, was a great personality of the twentieth century in Egypt. He knew that Howard Carter worked in Armant with John Pandelibri, found out the burial of the X -group in Balana and Kadsol, leading British efforts during the UNESCO Rescue Campaign in Nobia, and seeking a number of tombs in the last year of his life to find a number of tombs to find a number of tombs in Sakara. The burial of thousands of animal mummies).
In the courtyard of this house, Brian Emery named him in his name at the time of the discovery of the holy animal. Image of the Nicopolis of the Saqara Holy Animals (SAQ-San) sub-archive. Saq-san.sli.e.010. Flickr.com is available online through the Society’s protected documents. Courtesy of Egypt Egypt Exploration Society.
The house was home to several British missions during the first decades of the century when it was regained by the Supreme Council of Antiquities. Shortly thereafter he was prepared for demolition, and the case told me at the launch last week that he no longer existed. No, I told him, I came in 2015 and took pictures, and in 2021 tried to go again with a film staff – we were removed but I was sure that it was still there, not ..? When Google Earth examined, I found that the case was fine, that’s not. But Google Earth also allows you to see old pictures and I can tell them that it lived until 2022 or 2023, so I was not as wrong as I was afraid of anyone. It does not matter, the building is over, and so is the amazing book of a hundred is now the nearest anyone who can come to experience it.
The then EESS representative, Dr. Esam Nagy, outside Bait Emery in 2015. I was somewhat crazy adventures that I was trying to pursue the struggle of Amotop’s tomb Amiri – see here.
I was so fortunate that it was still in use to visit the house but only once, in 2005, while the EES surveys led by David Jeffrey were the mid -season of the Memphs team. But while reading the book of the case, I wish I was able to spend more time there. His account is absolutely charming, with a clear explanation of work, home, staff, other missions, including Gabor al-Khhoriobi, including legendary Jean-Flip Laar, and the local population, Abasir, Mit Rahi and so on in the villages around him. I remember meeting Gabber, which was mentioned in the EES Committee meetings, as the ‘GABR donkey’ was presented in a budget survey every year, with each one entertainment places.
Anyway, for me, there is a huge romance, dealing with Spartan’s life in the desert, on the stories of crossing the sands in the morning, walking from the moonlight to the moonlight, and a very British ‘Mac work’ method of walking with things. The book’s book revives the entire experience in such a way that archaeological reports do not report, and reminds me of classical accounts of this kind, including Mary Chouz. Neffetti lived here Or Delis Paul’s Villa. It makes me thankful that there is something like this in Egypt elsewhere, but I wish I would have been able to spend more time in Bait Emiry.
Full disclosure, the case is a friend, but I will not be ashamed to recommend the book, which you can order here. I will be going to the Patri Museum with this amount so it is all for a good purpose too!
The day I interviewed him in 2009 for the EES Oral History project, Harry Smith.
The book, along with Professor Harry Smith, the successor of Emery in the UCL, is also a celebration of the long collaboration with Emri’s successor’s AdWares and the director of Sakkarawork, who died last year:
Harry was another giants in our field and another friend. Last year, I didn’t feel the need to say anything publicly when he died, because he was such a big and celebrity, other people would pay him a better tribute to me. But he was one of the most experts and most modest people who could be expected to meet despite his great achievements as an archaeologist and expert linguist (mostly Egyptian experts and not the other, both are both), and a writer, a teacher and a mentor. Immediately after I began working for EES, I was looking for a title for a thesis in the third current research at the Egyptian Conference (CRE), and decided to use the slides of Harry’s teachers, Stephen Gillen Valley’s successful professor, Jack Palmley, who was still in the office of the society. The basic relationship with the Palmali with EES was that he was the director of his excavation in Qasar Barm in Nubia. The trouble was that I knew very little about the work of Nobia or Society, so my boss, Patricia Spencer, advised that I ask Harry, who instructed the last archaeological survey of the Lower Nobia before the flood came, and I was involved in the Sakhara with Emery.
Harry Smith (L) and Eli Hassan were riding on the Nobian survey boot in 1961. Flickr.com is available online via EES Archives. Courtesy of Egypt Egypt Exploration Society. Here are more information and photos.
Despite my full knowing, and Harry, despite one of the most senior figures in the field, he favored me to meet me in the Lamb Natal Street in Bloomsri, Lamb, EES ‘favorite pub, I met me in the EES favorite pub. We both had fish and chips (which was priced by Harry) and he told me a wonderful story one after another. I got several lectures and a short article from this conversation. A few years later, on Save’s advice, I think, I re -interviewed Harry, this time on tape, for the EES Oral History project and you can hear some of these stories, such as Harry’s specific cautious and unclear voice through the EES YouTube channel, such as here and below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjfynpttt39a
When I was glad, a few years ago, Harry published a written account of his time in Nobia, Nobian Memories – Read another great.
Over the years, we have been in touch, and by the end of his life, Harry was still writing short notes in his immediate recognizable handwriting, often in response to the questions I recently sent about the search for Emery, the story of which made my first chapter. Lost tomb Book. Recently I came to a surprisingly touching message that Harry wrote when my mother died in 2010. I now treasure these notes. How lucky I am that I know it. And the case! And how lucky we are now to prosecute Harry and his house about his work, he, Emery and many others lived and worked.
