If you get a chance to financially support the Oriental Institute which runs Chicago House in Luxor go for it. I was there today and it is such a privilege to be able to use their facilities. I was reading for my second essay and it is so good to be able to get hold of all the books but the main use of the library is for field archeologists working in Luxor.
They have such wonderful resources that you even have to use white gloves. Dr Otto Schaden the discoverer of KV63 was doing this. researching some of his discoveries from the tomb, it is a study season this year.
I left at 3pm having spent 8-2 reading for my essay and the last hour I was waiting for taxi and just picked a volume at random of the shelves, as a little treat.
It was Ancient Egypt 1934-1935, some A5 magazines bound in tooled leather bindings. Published by UCL price 7s (that is old British money about 35p or 50 cents). The telephone number was MUS 8101, do you remember when London codes were letters. There were some total gems in there Mr Mallowen going to Iraq because that was a troubled region and there was limited time to excavate. He was the husband of Agatha Christie. The obituary for Budge, Breasted and Quibell. Articles by Margret Murray and Flinders Petrie. Permissions being granted by the Persian government. Flinders Petrie talking about paying 2 piastres (5d) for every ancient weight bought to him. It was one of his clever moves to stop locals selling to tourists, to pay for articles bough to him. 5d is five old pence about 2p British. There was a report of the Kings Birthday Honors awarding a knighthood and a Lantern Lecture being given by Flinders Petrie. But in amongst all this was some little gems, an article about false eyes, a report on a statue of Titeshiry, the Syrian problem in the Amarna letters as well as some dated conclusions regarding matriarchal descent.
And that was just one volume, fabulous. However I am aware that the librarian has a limited budget to buy new books so please support their work. http://oi.uchicago.edu/research/projects/epi/ It really adds to the work going on in Luxor by every archeologist. Never mind all the work they do themselves
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