To Mr. Clarke, besides the
financial support mentioned already, we owe thanks for help in the
work of excavation, in plan-making, drawing, etc., and for his
untiring hospitality. To Miss A. A. Pirie, who was with us for the
later two-thirds of the season, we are indebted for several coloured
drawings of tombs, etc., now at University College, and to her, as
also to my sister, for constant aid in the varied daily occupations of
the digger, tasks in which their experience makes them most valuable
helpers, and which they cheerfully added to the labours of desert
housekeeping. In England, several friends have helped in the work of
unpacking, exhibiting, drawing plates, etc., notably Miss Griffith,
Miss Murray, Mr. Herbert Thompson and Dr. Walker. Few outside the
little ring of diggers and their friends know how much drudgery in
Egypt and in England is taken off our hands by friendly helpers,
working without a thought of reward.

2. The site of El Kab is a large one. The area inside the town walls
alone would have required to clear it five times the money we had at
our disposal; and besides that, there was the hill of XVIIIth dynasty
tombs, the cemeteries outside the walls, and the temples far up on the
desert. It was necessary to make careful choice of such spots as would
repay the labour expended on them. The most obvious place to search
would be the sandstone hill in which we lived, where the fine
inscribed tombs of Paheri and Aahmes are well known. But is there much
chance of finding inscribed tombs anywhere in Egypt except at Thebes?
We know that the tomb was left open for the visits of relatives, and
open it must always have remained, unless it got drifted up with sand,
or unless the quarrying of another tomb on a higher level sent down a
mass of chips which hid it. At the capital, tombs were often lost for
long periods in this way; in less crowded cemeteries the accident
would seem to be less likely to happen. Many traces in the existing
tombs at El Kab show that earlier tombs were quarried away in order to
make room for them. This would seem to minimise the chances of finding
anything valuable of early date; and if by chance some inscribed tomb
still remains hidden in the talus of chips in the lower part of the
hill, the business of making a thorough search there would be so long
and expensive that it will probably remain undiscovered.

3. The greatest monument at El Kab is the town wall, the huge mass of
which mus