In order to counterbalance all the philosophy that came with the study, I started working on material culture. Archaeology greatly fascinated me and through a tipoff from a friend, who worked as a textile archaeologist, I decided to do a small research project on archaeological basketry. Because no one was working on this material, I had an opportunity to participate as a basketry specialist for perhaps the most famous archaeological project in Egypt: Barry Kemp’s excavation in Tell el-Amarna. After being accepted (it was a clear case of “bluff your way into archaeology”), I had a year of very intense, focused preparation, during which I designed a recording method and managed to find people in several laboratories prepared to teach me to do fiber identification and first-aid conservation. In hindsight I find it quite remarkable that so many people were willing to help an undergraduate who just wandered in with the question, “Can I work in your lab and can you teach me...”

Based on my first season of fieldwork, I wrote an article on ancient Egyptian basketry for the Amarna Reports. It dawned on me that this might be a better career than being a specialist on Egyptian religion. I decided to apply for a research grant to do a Ph.D. at Leiden University. Because the subject, ancient Egyptian basketry, fell somewhere in between the departments of Egyptology and Archaeology, I had supervisors in both. After reading the article, my archaeology supervisor said “that’s the work of a well-meaning amateur,” a remark that so shocked me that I frantically started to read up. A year later, after a lecture I presented, he paid me the best compliment he could give by saying “you have become an archaeologist.”

After a year or two my fascination with the subject of archaeological basketry was at its peak, but at the same time I realized that textile archaeologists may be considered “too specialized” to be hired for general archaeology. I felt I should broaden my field in order not to fall into that trap. My colleague Steven Sidebotham from the University of Delaware and I started the excavations at Berenike on the Red Sea coast in 1994. The next year I accepted a part-time position at the Netherlands Institute for Archaeology and Arabic Studies in Cairo.

Ancient Egyptian basketry is absolutely fascinating. The preservation in Egypt is quite good, so the actual baskets survive from sites dated as early as the Neolithic. For my dissertation, I took material from two sites in Egypt. I compared archaeological basketry with present-day baskets and mats from the same two areas, focusing mainly on the production process and use of raw materials. It appears that Egypt enjoys a strong regional continuity. Basketry from New Kingdom Middle Egypt (ca. 1350 bc) has more features in common with present-day basketry from Middle Egypt than with ancient basketry from Nubia. Similarly, there is a clear continuity between ancient and modern Nubian basketry.

Apart from looking at regional and temporal similarities and differences, the study also concentrated on ancient technology and specifically on aspects that are not easily apparent from the artifacts or their context but can be inferred through comparison with present production processes. An analysis of the present production processes was made using video, which was then referred back to the ancient material.

What is the state of work at Berenike?

We just finished the eighth excavation season at Berenike, a harbor town on the Red Sea coast founded in the third century bc and abandoned in the sixth century ad. It is a settlement through which an important part of the trade between the Roman Empire and the Far East passed. Most of our evidence for long distance trade comes from botanical analysis, but we also have important results from the analysis of beads, textiles, and pottery. Textual evidence for long-distance contacts is one Tamil-Brahmi graffito and a bilingual Greek-Palmyrene inscription.

Apart from the trade relations, the population of Berenike itself is an important area of study. The town’s composition changed during the eight centuries of habitation. The question of ethnicity, hazardous as it is, is relevant in this town where the original population is nomadic and the settled population originates in the Nile Valley, Palmyra, and possibly much further afield. Berenike is 300 km from the nearest trustworthy telephone line and shopping center. The area is at the moment inhabited by the Ababda nomads, with whom we work intensively, not only in the excavations but also in a project that sets out to preserve the Ababda cultural heritage. With the rapid advent of tourism in the area, the Ababda way of life will change dramatically. From 2002 to 2004, a large exhibition on Ababda culture will be on display in the museum of ethnography in Rotterdam.

Next year will be my last year of direct involvement in Berenike, because I am starting up two new fieldwork projects. In the Fayoum, we want to do a diachronical study of land and water use, involving excavations and survey in and around a number of settlements along the north shore of Lake Qarun. The second project, starting, we hope, in April 2002, concentrates on Theban Tomb 33, an important tomb on the west bank in Luxor that dates from the Late Period of Egyptian history (650 - 630 bc).

At the moment it is in use as a storage room for the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities. UCLA would like to start a large conservation project that would, first of all, provide a new depot into which the objects now stored in the tomb can be moved. This will be a kind of re-excavation, because objects stored there were excavated in the Luxor area from the 1920s to the 1990s. The baskets and botanical finds from the tomb of Tut-ankh-Amun, for instance, are stored in TT33. An inventory will be made and all objects will be photographed, repacked, and treated as necessary. The second phase will involve the documentation, conservation, and excavation of the tomb itself with the final objective of creating a site management plan for the wider area around the tomb.

How did you get involved in the expert research project on the feasibility of developing eco-tourism in the Fayoum?

When my position at the Netherlands Institute for Archaeology and Arabic Studies in Cairo (which by then was transformed into the Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo) ended, I was asked by a consultancy firm to be team leader for a research project on the feasibility of the development of eco-tourism in the Fayoum. The Fayoum is an oasis 100 km southwest of Cairo. It boasts a large lake, fed by a small branch of the Nile, but is mainly known for its agriculture. The Fayoum is not on the tourist itinerary and the Fayoum governorate would like to change that. Mass tourism does not seem to be feasible for the Fayoum, because the area has some serious problems: the lake has been polluted, and the antiquities in the area would only be interesting for a specialized public. Eco-tourism was thought to be a possible answer.

Eco-tourism is a form of low-impact tourism geared to preserving the nature and culture of the areas visited. Preservation of an area is best done through true involvement of the local population. By raising awareness and providing opportunities for (financial) benefits, preservation becomes a useful, rather than cumbersome principle. The typical eco-tourist is interested in interaction with the local population and in specialized tours with knowledgeable guides. Because there are many antiquities in the area an archaeologist was involved in the project. The project designed several routes with local transport (pickup trucks, camels, donkeys, horses) around a number of themes, such as birdwatching, geology/palaeontology, agricultural communities in the Graeco-Roman period, and crafts.

The project results were greeted with enthusiasm, but I kept having the feeling that we should be doing something real, rather than talking with and organizing workshops for Egyptian officials. I tried to pull the project to the ground, talk with the people in the Fayoum, and get something going so that they would see some results, but this was not at all what the consultancy firm expected nor wanted. I hope to start up an archaeological project in the Fayoum starting in 2003 and on the side try to accomplish some of the goals that were so well formulated in the project report.