Working conditions were harsh and a thermometer photo showed the team enduring temperatures as high as 63 degrees Celsius! But the cooler breeze on the cliffs makes this place more bearable than the conditions in the valleys below, so it could be refreshing for the crew to sit and relax in the cooler evening air after a day's work.

During the four seasons of surveying, the Finnish team found that the existing layout of the remains of the huts did not always correspond to the map published by Bernard Bruyère in 1939. The numbering of the huts used by Bruyère also had to be adjusted due to inaccuracies. Bruyère's notebooks, which he kept during the excavation in April 1935, have been published by the French Institute and are now available online:
 
Archives de Bernard Bruyère (1879-1971)
MS_2004_0156_024 ; 7 April 1935 - 8 April 1935
http://www.ifao.egnet.net/bases/archives/bruyere/?&os=557
 
MS_2004_0156_025 ; 9 April 1935 - 14 April 1935
http://www.ifao.egnet.net/bases/archives/bruyere/?&os=558
 
MS_2004_0156_026 ; 9 April 1935 - 14 April 1935
http://www.ifao.egnet.net/bases/archives/bruyere/?&os=559
 
The Finnish team used Bruyère's numbering with modifications and published a new map of the existing layout in their preliminary report of the work carried out during the fourth season in 2011-2012 (the link to which can be found at the bottom of this page). The French team published their finds from the 1935 season in the village of Deir el-Medina together with the finds from the area around the huts, without distinguishing the sites, so that it is now impossible to know which objects came from the area that the Finnish team is concerned with.

We were shown slides of some fascinating finds: an intact New Kingdom bowl, a fragment of a votive stele dedicated to the goddess Meretseger, and several ostraka, mainly pictorial. One large ostrakon was found in many pieces and is now being assembled like a large jigsaw puzzle. A bundle of linen carpets was found along with 27 lamp wicks - the only complete set of wicks ever found. The wicks were of different thicknesses and lengths and the linen was of different types. Rosalind Janssen, who was in the audience, will be studying the find in the future. As well as being an expert on Deir el-Medina, she is also an expert on textiles and this is her main research (resulting in a publication: Hall, Rosalind: Egyptian textiles).

Several slides documented the condition of the rooms before the clearance and their condition after the work. Floor plaster was found in some of the huts: it had been laid in three layers - two layers of limestone plaster mixed with earth, and the top layer was thin and white pure plaster. A slide of a stone door post with a recess for a wooden door peg and a photograph of another, taller, upright door post were among the architectural finds that documented the way the huts were once enclosed.
These were found in several places. We were also shown a picture of the original plaster that had survived intact on the wall of one of the huts.

Most huts consisted of 2 rooms, but the hut of Kenherkhepshef, who held the office of scribe from at least year 40 of Ramesses II and continued until year 1 of Siptah (c. years 1239-1193 BC), was the largest and most centrally located hut in the settlement and consisted of 3 rooms. We were shown slides of Kenherkhepshef's room, which was paved with limestone slabs, and his seat made of limestone blocks. It was U-shaped, as if to imitate the wooden seats of the furniture in the village houses.

The team found nearly 20 fireplaces, some inside the huts, some outside. Two of the fireplaces contained New Kingdom pottery and ash, which helped to date their use to the New Kingdom. It has been suggested that the function of the fires outside the huts may have been to keep wolves away.

While the team was working on the site, a snake about 1.5 metres long passed by the team and made its way up the cliffs of Al-Qurn to bask in the sun. The photo of the large snake was a sobering sight for those who had visited the huts in the past and, like us, walked around and sat down on the ground to eat or just to reflect on the past.

The analysis of the ruins of the shrine, located to the south of the huts at the foot of the rising mountain, was problematic. Clearing the area revealed steps carved into the rock flanking the south wall of the shrine. They reach above the shrine. The entire structure consisted of only a few original layers of New Kingdom stone. The modern walls built by the French team were dismantled by the Finns. The layout itself raises questions. It is possible that it consisted of a central altar room bordered on each side by a room. This would be a typical "tripartite sanctuary" for the holy triad. However, there is no evidence to clarify to whom or to which gods the sanctuary was dedicated. It is interesting to note that it is the only building on the site that faces the temple of Karnak on the east bank. At the moment it is not even possible to say with certainty that the flanked units were actually "rooms", the team call them "dummy rooms".

The seminar ended with a stimulating discussion about the possible functions of the site. Was the site a gentlemen's club? Game pieces and a game board were found at the site. Rosalind Janssen mentioned a text referring to "a place of hard drinking", which has not yet been identified. Was it a pub? Other suggestions for the use of the site included a checkpoint, an administrative centre for the workers, an infirmary or even a place where tomb robbers hid to share their booty. The Finnish team has one more season - the last - to resolve these questions and find the answer to the project's objective: what was the purpose of the huts during the Ramesside period?

I would like to thank Andrea from Sweden and Malcolm Dennes from Somerset, UK, who both attended the seminar with me, for their valuable contributions to the content of this page.