Our Colleague, Dr. Mohamed Abdelaziz

Our Colleague, Dr. Mohamed Abdelaziz

Diana Craig Patch

When you work in Egypt, part of the process of getting into the field is signing the contract that allows you to work at your site.  This step is carried out in the office of the Head of Foreign Missions of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) in Cairo.  For me, signing the contract is very serious business because when my signature as expedition director is added to the paper I accept the responsibility of an important site, Malqata, for the period of time I am working there. 

After receiving the contract, I take this agreement to be approved at the local level, which for Malqata requires signatures from the Luxor and West Bank inspectorates of the SCA.  This season I was the last mission to have its contract approved in Luxor by the former General Director of Upper Egypt, Dr. Mohamed Abdelaziz, who retired last Monday.  I have known Dr. Abdelaziz for many years because he served as the General Director of the West Bank inspectorate for three of the seasons (2012-2014) we have worked at Malqata. In this position, Dr. Abdelaziz was in charge of what could take place at Malqata during the excavation, so we were in regularly contact each year.  I always found him welcoming and helpful in supporting the work at our site.  By 2015, he had been promoted and we no longer saw him on the West Bank, but instead greeted him in the East Bank office, although we saw him much less often. 

Diana Craig Patch and Mohamed Abdel Aziz in the East Bank office.

Now that he has retired, the team working at Malqata will miss a good friend, but we wish him all the very best in the coming years and hope he will come to visit us.