Pierre Tallet excavations at Wadi el-Jarf

I wonder if people appreciate how remarkable it is to find papyrus containing written records from the Old Kingdom, the fourth dynasty, as the great pyramid was being built and the subject matter relating to how stones for the pyramid’s cover were transported along the Nile, and when, and how long that takes, and how commodities like copper and turquoise were transported from the Red Sea and how food and beer and drink were supplied to the gangs of sailors. Paper and the messages on them that survived for 4,500 years.

Around here I ask people, “Are these arrowheads real?”

They usually answer something like, “Those over there made into jewlry are not real. But these in this case are genuine finds.” 

Then I ask, “Isn’t it odd how they always find arrowheads but never find arrow shafts or the sinew or glue?” 

And they always answer reliably, “Those parts are organic. They deteriorated. Duh.” 

All those arrowheads and no shafts. And yet paper can last 10X longer. And the marks made on it in ink can actually be read.

I don’t even know how they do it sometimes. They have a knack that I don’t have. Here’s how to write Kufu, the king who built the biggest pyramid. If you look it up in browser images, they all show the same thing. You can sound it out.

Those are two little chicks that mean W or U, the same chick that’s in the cartouche for Tut.  With a short snake in the middle that means F.  And a circle with marks inside it at the end that means the sound "kh,"  actually the beginning because this time it’s written backwards, the chicks and the snake facing right. So you can sound it out, 

KH - U - F - U. 

But then in the discovered papyrus his name is written differently with extra animals inside his cartouche.

Half the articles open with this remnant papyrus. Even though much better papyrus samples were found. I think because it has the name Khufu.

Man, these experts sure know a lot. They impress the heck out of me. Until tonight I wouldn’t be able to see Kufu in that. But they are familiar with the variations. They already know sometimes the U is shared. A shortcut devised four and half thousand years ago. Probably because scribes got tired of drawing the same little bird over and over and everyone who could read back then already knew who it referred to and there weren’t 200 more pharaohs with five names each in lists to confuse them. You see the chick and the snake, boom, you got Kufu. You don’t need two chicks. Sometimes he has the god Khunum referenced in his name, and sometimes he has the double crown. Other times he doesn’t. They’re flexible. 

You wouldn’t believe the stupid arguments this discovery provoked. The psudo scientists who believe extraterrestrials built the Egyptian civilization immediately gathered to form their response. Then dared publish it. 

Arab scientists argued the ink on the papyrus is only a few centuries old. 

None of them work within the language to eek out little hints and form hypothesese from what they can learn and limit their reconstructions to what they know and what can be verified.

The papyrus they found are logs and the logs are repetitious and boring. 

Merer, the man who kept the logs details the construction operations for the Great Pyramid over several months. The pyramid project was nearing completion. They were moving the limestone casing along the Nile and they were transporting commodities to and from harbors built on the Red Sea.

They're actually reading papers written by a guy involved in supervising work groups building the great pyramid. Fascinating.

Apparently they're the oldest papyrus ever found, and the oldest harbor ever discovered. 

The harbor was previously discovered but operation was halted. Excavation was picked up again but an incident at the Suez Canal caused French to become unwelcome in Egypt so it was closed again. The third excavation revealed tremendous discoveries and insights into how the harbor worked, how labor was organized, when work was possible, how boats and barges  and equipment were disassembled and hidden and stored in numerous caves well away from the shore and all carved out similarly in the same shape and dimensions and closed up as tombs and concealed with mud and sand until the next flooding season allowed transportation by water. They learned how valuable the sailors were to the king by the amount of beef in their provisions and comparing that with provisions provided other workers. They have comparisons of what the sailors were expected to be paid in commodities and how much they were actually paid. The sailors were cheated repeatedly. 

Most significantly, the logs reveal there was a canal created that connected the Red Sea with the Nile. They reveal manmade lakes were created to flood and drain like the Panama Canal, to move boats from the sea to the river across the desert. The logs reveal tremendous engineering projects previously unknown or even imagined. That the degree of naval mastery was much greater and further advanced than previously understood. They show the time that it takes to load the boats with quarried stone and move them from quarries through river and across lakes and to the pyramid project and the routes that the navigators used. The logs reveal a specialized terminology that shows the sailors were intimately knowledgeable about every aspect of their navigation, every curve, and current, and landmark and trick and hazard of their waterways. 

The modern archaeologist project leader, Pierre Tallet, finished his book describing the new discoveries. An extract of the book in English and in Arabic is available here.

Here is a sample of the repetitive nature of Merer’s logs.

Phyle is a word that comes from Greek meaning a clan, a social division. Here the word refers to a work group of sailors. I  think he’s referring to a group of 40 people on a boat. Other pages online say that Merer oversaw 200 people. I think phyle is a smaller work group for one boat, but possibly a small fleet. I don’t know. 

[Day 25]: [Inspector Merer spends the day with his phyle [h]au[ling]? st[ones in Tura South]; spends the night at Tura South 

[Day 26]: Inspector Merer casts out  with his phyle from Tura [South], loaded with stone, for Akhet-Khufu; spends the night at She-Khufu.

Day 27: sets sail from She-Khufu, sails towards Akhet-Khufu, loaded with stone, spends the night at Akhet-Khufu. 

Day 28: casts out  from Akhet-Khufu in the morning; sails upriver <towards> Tura South. 

Day 29: Inspector Merer spends the day with his phyle hauling stones in Tura South; spends the night at Tura South. 

Day 30: Inspector Merer spends the day with his phyle hauling stones in Tura South; spends the night at Tura South.

Archaeologists haven’t yet pinpointed the locations of Tura South and Tura North. These are harbors near the white limestone quarries. They’re doing a lot of work determining which quarries were used. There were quite a lot of them, up to fifty. This work is stifled because some locations are presently under military control. They’re used to store modern military equipment so the archaeologists cannot get into them to look. There are variations in the limestone that can help pinpoint where the blocks were quarried and that can help pinpoint the locations of the sites mentioned in these papyri. 

Akhet-Khufu means the horizon of Khufu and it refers to the construction site of the great pyramid. 

Ground studies show there once were lakes nearby in the past. And connecting channels. She-Khufu is one of these lakes.  

There is a lot more great information at the link. And this discovery opens the way for future discoveries. Now it is known that where there is an ancient harbor there will also be caves within a few miles. The harbors were not stable. There were marauding tribes and various power factions attacking the sites. The Egyptians did not work throughout the year. It was not possible until the Nile was flooded and the other waterways can tap the flow for their canals. Entire lakes were flooded and drained to move boats and barges. 

A surprising number of stone anchors were found. Some 70 or so inside a building and more underwater inside the stone harbor and breakwater. Some of the anchors had rope tied through the hole. Some stones were marked with a gang sign that matched with a boat. The documents have these same signs. And some cave walls, and boat parts, blocks used to seal the caves, all have these same gang signs and all that describes how the labor was organized. 

This French archaeologist is an interesting fellow. In another interview he explains that he prefers digging around at the edges of things. That’s where the discoveries are made. He does not care to study royal tombs or the ancient towns and temples. He’d rather be away from known sites and from other archaeologist and apart from the politics that inevitably develops when professionals vie for position and for prestige. He’d rather nibble at the edges. That’s where the fun is. That’s where he gets most satisfaction.

If you have an hour and twenty minutes, and if this interests you, and if you find French accent amusing,  then you’ll like listening to Pierre Tallet describe what he found. He's charming. He’s made a profoundly significant mark in his area and he’s brought Egyptologists a very long way in comprehension of how the pyramids were constructed and how they conducted trade, and with much greater detail. And after all that he’s surprisingly humble. 

Skip to 3:50, the host is superfluous. 

I wonder. Pierre Tallet probably speaks and writes ancient Egyptian better than he speaks English. He knows the permutations of Kufu’s cartouches while there are English phonemes that his mouth cannot make and while his French language phonemes match more closely to Egyptian sounds than to English. What is so impossible about enunciating a voiced dental fricative “TH” phoneme?  You just stick the tip of your tongue between your teeth and blow and vocalize. Certain words crack me up, “tur-qua” for turquoise just kills me.