TAA i.12.04

                                                                                                  (5)

<1^ST Step>

of my native staff / <who> confidentially told me o/<i>n removing

the very first hut, a step in the rock had been discovered,                                           

and that was the real reason why the work had been temporarily

stopped.

          I descended with him to the hollow of the trench where he

pointed out to me his evidence – a small portion of a step

cut in the bed-rock of the vale<l>ey, but sufficient to show that

we had found the beginning of a sunken staircase, about four 

metres below the entrance of the tomb of Ramses VI.

          The manner of the cutting was that common to tombs of the

Eighteenth Dynasty, and I almost dared to hope that we had at

last found our goal.

          The work of clearing continued feverishly throughout the

rest of the day. However, it was not until the following

evening that we succeeded in removing the rubbish that overlay

the cutting, and we <were> able to demarcate the upper edges of the

stairway on all its four sides.

                                             <16 Steps>

          Then, with ill-suppressed excitement, I watched the des-

 cending steps, one by one, as theu/<y> were revealed. Our work

 progressed, and at the level of the twelfth step there was

 disclosed the upper part of a doorway, blocked, plastered 

 and sealed.

          It was a thrilling moment for an excavator, alone, save

for his native workmen, after years of unproductive labour,

on the threshold of what might prove to be a magnificent

discovery. Anything, literally anything, might lie beyond

that sealed door and passage, and it needed all my self control

to keep from breaking down the blocking of that doorway, and

investigating then and there.