Canadian Egyptologist - Rexine Hummel
Part VI - People and Critters - Tell El-Borg and Mendes excavations
I asked Rexine if she had any interesting stories about people she met or worked with on digs, and she provided me with the following. The first is her written article about Noël Siver, [1] who was the conservator at Tell el-Borg.[2] Rexine was the ceramicist on that dig for eight seasons from 2000-2008.
The second is an excerpt of a letter she had written home from the Mendes dig.[3] Rexine was the ceramicist there for five seasons, from1992-1997.
Noël Siver was the conservator on the Tell el-Borg dig. She was the ultimate professional, and she set up an entire laboratory on the dig work site. She was not shy in asking for her own demineralized water source in order to soak all the potsherds before we ceramicists even got to work on them. When the baskets of sherds arrived at the work area each basket would be emptied into a pail of water to begin the process of desalination. The next day the wet sherds would be set out on tables with screened bases to dry. I as ceramicist would go out and make a cover sheet on each corpus estimating the size, condition and probable date of the corpus. Noël would often join me, and if she saw an important vessel or mendable pieces of a vessel she would whisk it away to be conserved.
Noël checking the sherds.
One day very thick coarse silt sherds began appearing on the table. Although many of the pieces were large, they lacked any meaningful shape or decoration. They were also heavy and sometimes crumbly. I assumed that they were part of an oven, or an in-ground tub and ignored them.
Coarse silt sherds
Noël, however, found them interesting and began to collect them on a separate table. The pile of thick sherds grew and she found some matches. They became even more interesting when some of the sherds were found to be slightly curved. It soon became obvious that there were two separate tubs? So, she added another table. She spent hours matching these sherds and we all marveled at her determination. She was rewarded when it appeared that she had the body of a round coffin and perhaps even two coffins. The excitement increased when she found a large sherd with carved hands on it and discovered that the sherds on the second table belonged to the coffin on table one.
The pieces were very difficult to match since they crumbled easily. It would take a special kind of cement to glue these sherds together.
She worked for days, quietly matching sherds, taping sherds together while the special cement hardened.
How lucky we were to have Noël. She saved a pile of coarse ugly sherds from being discarded at the dump. Somehow she recognized something in those sherds that I did not see.
Noël in her lab.
Rexine writes: Here is a fragment of a letter from Mendes. Larry (Pavlish) made maps of the site and Rupert the artist (I don’t remember his last name but he was incredibly innovative, and curious) was always doing interesting things. I don’t remember this incident when he painted the snake, but he knew I did not want to see it so he did not allow me into the room at the time.
DD: I have transcribed a section below (and bolded a sentence) about some of the critters on site. I really love her stories. 🐍🐁🕷️🕸️🦟🪰
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You would love several of our team. They are fascinating people. Larry, the geologist from UofT has been walking all over our archaeological site (it’s very big) mapping its geology, another map shows all the different kinds of vegetation, another all the tracks of animals, reptiles and birds. He has discovered 3 major snake sites on the mound & has learned their habits by studying their trails. He said that these 3 areas are full of huge snakes, all kinds, cobras, vipers etc. and they come out at night and sit on a ledge. He has often seen fresh trails & the end of a tail slithering away. I’m not so keen to go out on the site but I stick right to the path when I have to.
Rupert desperately wants to see a big one. He has found several snake skins and they are longer than he is. Yesterday our neighbouring farmer killed a huge cobra in his field. Larry & Rupert brought its body in the art room so Rupert could paint its head and markings. Today they found a viper in Linda Welding’s square and did the same thing. They try to avoid me because they know how repelled I am, but I work in the same room so I was forced into confronting the viper. Larry was unhappy to learn that Egypt is also the home of the deadly spitting cobra, which kills 20,000 people every year in India. The locals say you should always wear boots and carry a stick. I still haven’t seen a live snake and I’m hoping to maintain my record until I leave.
We had a pet mouse in our room but he died one day. I think he was afraid of us. We are also keeping some large spiders in the corners to eat the mosquitoes. Flies are the main nuisance. I’m sitting here with a fly swatter close to hand.
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Thanks again Rexine for sharing these lovely memories. These stories really add colour to the academic reports that are usually published.
P.S. If anyone knows the full name of Rupert, please let me know in the comments.
[1] Siver, N. (2025) “Noël Siver, BSc Archaeological Conservation, 1980–3”, Archaeology International 27(1), 222–224. doi: https://doi.org/10.14324/AI.27.1.21 ; https://independent.academia.edu/No%C3%ABlSiver
[2] Tell el-Borg is a New Kingdom site on Egypt’s eastern frontier in the North Sinai. The excavations were directed by James Hoffmeier between 1999-2008. https://whitelevy.fas.harvard.edu/north-sinai-archaeological-project-tell-el-borg-excavations
[3] Mendes is located in the lush, eastern Delta. Don Redford was the director in the 1990s. https://topostext.org/place/310315UMen
