Week 3: 18-24 January 2026
Our second day in Alexandria started on the rooftop of our hotel. Whilst looking at the waves of the sea, we enjoyed our breakfast of cheese, eggs, beans, vegetables, and bread. After breakfast, we hopped in the bus for our first stop of the day, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. We first visited the Antiquities Museum before our tour around the library started. Our guide told us more about the historic and modern library. Nowadays, the library functions not only as a research centre, but also as a cultural centre, with several exhibitions which we were able to visit as well.
After the visit to the library, we drove to the Centre d’Études Alexandrines (CEAlex) and got a tour around the building by the director, Thomas Faucher. We visited several stations, such as the archaeological lab, ceramics, cartography, and archiving. After meeting several of the staff members, we got to have lunch with them, which was delicious! After lunch, Kathrin Machinek told us about her research on the medieval architecture and restoration of the Qaitbay Fortress, which we got to see for ourselves afterwards. We wandered around the fort before we left for Cairo again, where we arrived around 20:30. We ordered some food and took a well-deserved shower after a lovely weekend in Alexandria.
On Monday, we only had an Arabic lesson scheduled at 14:00, so we had some time off to recover from our first overnight trip. Some of us went to the bank to get euros exchanged for the visa extension. Afterwards, we went to the Egyptian Museum database to work on the museum assignment and to research our paper topics. During our Arabic lesson, we learned about fruits and vegetables, as well as counting to 20. We’re slowly but steadily making good progress!
Tuesday was filled with visits to two archaeological institutes. The first stop of the day was the Institut français d’archéologie orientale (Ifao). We got information on the building and the history of the institute from its scientific mediator, Amr Bahgat. We visited the archival room, library, C14 lab (which is the only C14 lab in Africa!), the restoration and conservation lab, and (my personal favourite of the day) the printing house. It felt like we were standing in a small museum, and what made it even better was that we got to print our own canvas bags with the old printing press. Our second stop was the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE). Yasmin el-Shazly, the deputy director for research and programs, showed us around the institute. We got a detailed explanation of their archives and library. After the tour ended, we enjoyed a cup of coffee or tea in the main hall, before we all went our separate ways back to our apartments.
On Wednesday, we finally visited the Grand Egyptian Museum! We visited the Tutankhamun galleries first with the whole group and saw his mask and all his other tomb equipment. Afterwards, we split into smaller groups to wander around the very impressive museum and hunt for the three objects we had to find. We had a nice lunch before we headed to the boat museum together. We already saw the boat pits at Giza, so it was really amazing to see the actual boat as well. In the evening, we joined the lecture of Dietrich Raue at the Ifao, and a book signing at ARCE by Anna Stevens, where some of us acquired a beautiful book about Amarna.
Thursday was another early morning, because we had to extend our visas. The process was pretty quick, so we had time to enjoy some cakes and ‘second breakfast’. At 11:00, we attended a lecture at the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology (PCMA) by Dagmara Dabrowska about tomb architecture in Alexandria and Cyrene in the Hellenistic Period. Most of us took the metro back to Zamalek, which was an experience. In the afternoon, we had our last Arabic lesson. Now that we know the basics, we can at least make ourselves understood a little bit in Arabic for the remainder of the time here. We grabbed a coffee and later went to the lecture at NVIC by Fatma Keshk titled “People and Places: Oral Histories in Egyptology.”
Friday and Saturday were free days, which meant catching up with our assignments, kashkuls, and paper topics. On Friday, we organized a group dinner and played some games in one of the apartments. On Saturday, we slept in and started packing and preparing for our two-week trip to Luxor. So exciting!
Dagmar Niemeijer