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Our amazing team

The Team
Team

Our directors

Maria Nilsson

Maria Nilsson

Director

John Ward

John Ward

Assistant Director

Our team

Abdalla Ali

Abdalla Ali

Chef

Ahmed Faraman

Ahmed Faraman

Associate Professor

Ahmed Mansour

Ahmed Mansour

Site Leader

Anders Andersson

Anders Andersson

Photographer

Barbara Veselka

Barbara Veselka

Osteoarchaeologist

Bob Mittelstaedt

Bob Mittelstaedt

Photographer

Darren King

Darren King

Web Guy

Huibert van Verseveld

Huibert van Verseveld

Volunteer

Jo Derbyshire-Farmery

Jo Derbyshire-Farmery

Egyptologist

Karen Thomas

Karen Thomas

Volunteer

Kelly Evans

Kelly Evans

PR Manager

Nils Billing

Nils Billing

Egyptologist

Tony Jibbefors

Tony Jibbefors

Archaeologist

Tricia Coletto

Tricia Coletto

Archaeologist

Ulrika Lindblom

Ulrika Lindblom

Volunteer

John Ward

John Ward

Assistant Director

Originally from Hereford in the UK, I’m an archaeologist with more than 20 years’ experience of living and working in Egypt. I’m currently based in Sweden.

Along with my wife, Professor Dr Maria Nilsson, we set up the Gebel el-Silsila Project in 2012. It’s the only Swedish-led archaeological mission in Egypt.

My role is that of Assistant Director and I am responsible for all the logistics and security on site and ensuring the team’s health and safety protocols are in place.

Getting a team of people on a boat and across the Nile, along with all their equipment, is no small task.

We all need to be on site and ready to start work by 7.30am, once all the kit has been dragged up the hill. I take a roll call once we’re on the other side of the river and make sure teams are allocated to the correct areas on site. Security is so important so I make sure I know where every team member is at any given time.

Maria and I are on-call every second that we’re on site – to make sure everything is being undertaken correctly and safely and to keep abreast of any discoveries and ensure everything is recorded accurately.

Amongst our other work, we have published material from the last 12 years of on-site research and documentation, presented results at over 50 international conferences or symposia, and written two books.

Every season me, Maria, and our two children, Freja and Jonathan, decamp to Egypt for several months so we can continue our fieldwork and research.

I’m a familiar face to those with an interest in ancient Egypt, having appeared with Maria on National Geographic’s Egypt’s Treasure Guardians as well as the Travel Channel’s Expedition Unknown and the Science Channel’s Unearthed.

I’m also a National Geographic Explorer and an Explorers Club Fellow, and one of the founding trustees of Friends of Silsila.

My interests lie in quarry marks, rock art, and ancient graffiti, iconography, ancient quarries, and of Gebel el-Silsila, which tells the story of the everyday people who built ancient Egypt.

Tricia Coletto

Maria Nilsson

Director

I have lived and breathed archaeology and research since I was a child and I’ve always known I was going to be an archaeologist. That we are here today, working to explore and preserve Gebel el-Silsila, is not a surprise.

I am passionate about my work, my family (who join me on site every season), and my team who number more than 10, coming from all over the world and together creating an amazing interdisciplinary group!

I started the Gebel el-Silsila Project in 2012, the only Swedish-led archaeological mission in Egypt, with my husband and research partner John Ward.

As Director of the Project, I am responsible for seeking funding for the fieldwork and ongoing conservation of the site and producing reports for the Ministry of Antiquities and ensuring that everything we do on site is in accordance with their regulations. I also work to promote and preserve the site and train local workmen and ministerial inspectors.

I previously lived in Egypt for more than a decade but am now based in Sweden, with John and our two children, Freja and Jonathan. My research on Gebel el-Silsila is combined with my senior lectureship at Lund University.

Amongst my work I have written two books and presented results at over 50 international conferences or symposia. I am a familiar face to viewers of documentaries on National Geographic and the Travel Channel.

I have a special interest in quarry marks, rock art, and ancient graffiti, iconography, ancient quarries and the overall site of Gebel el-Silsila, including the most intriguing life stories of the ancient people who built Egypt!

Tricia Coletto

Tricia Coletto

Archaeologist

Tricia is a field and research archaeologist, who has been working with the Gebel el-Silsila Project since 2016. After earning her Master of Arts in Archaeology and Heritage Management from the University of Exeter in 2013, Tricia first gained extensive experience in the field working at an Early Bronze Age settlement and a Roman Legion Camp before landing with the Gebel e-Silsila mission.

As a team member, her work has focused on several sites, including the 18th Dynasty and Roman Necropolises; the Thutmosid-Roman Temple of Kheny; the quarry of Amenhotep III; and the Tutankhamun workers village. In addition to large scale and comprehensive excavation, Tricia’s duties encompass all aspects of the mission’s work such as: tomb identification; landscape analysis; site survey and documentation; and small finds and artifact analysis, registration, and photography.

While not on site, Tricia has been privileged to conduct research and present the team’s work through professional conference papers and public presentations. Some of these include: the American Research Center in Egypt; the Archaeological Institute of America; University College London’s Friends of the Petrie Museum; and New York University’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World.

In concert with her archaeological philosophy, Tricia believes that scholarly findings do not belong solely cloistered in the ivory towers of academia, but should also be disseminated to the greater world. With this in mind, she founded Meet the Archaeologist, an educational program designed to introduce school children and interested general audiences to the wonders of archaeology and the ancient world. She believes that through archaeology we open a door and get a glimpse of the distant past, the shared past of all humanity.

Wendy

Wendy Fillmore

Nanny

I’m Wendy and I live in Las Vegas, Nevada and I’ve been married for the last 30 years. I’m known as the nanny who scalped herself. I’ll explain:

I became involved in the Silsila project in the spring of 2018. I was following someone on Facebook who knows Maria and John. Maria had posted in his feed that she needed a nanny. I applied for it and got to be the lucky one to go. Weird but that’s how life works sometimes.

My day-to-day role was to keep Freja, the free-spirited goddess, on a schedule for learning things like penmanship, story time, arts and crafts. I brought a couple of dry erase books for drawing letters and we would “race” to see who got through the alphabet first.

Our favourite activity was reading stories together. I let her pick the story and it got to where she could recite some of the lines by memory.

Freja has a doll that looks like a ballerina and one day she brought the doll to me and said “This is your daughter.” I named the doll Caitlin and she became a great help with Freja.

One day I was taking Freja’s brother Jonathan to the main room where we held “school” every day. As we reached the hallway my right foot caught on the edge of the throw rug, and I fell forward. Since Jonathan was in front of me I took those few seconds to set him to the left as I rolled to the right. I hit my head on the bedroom doorjamb… hard.

I started bleeding so I called for Mohammad Shajed who arrived and turned rather pale, grabbed Jonathan, and took off to call John. As it turns out I had split my scalp for several inches and I ended up with over 30 stitches along the top right side of my head. I said that I expected to be remembered as the nanny who scalped herself and it seems to have stuck.

Gebel el-Silsila is a beautiful site and I really enjoyed our morning walks along the Nile and into the quarries. I saw lots of interesting track marks from bugs and small animals, I even saw a hawk one day. There were several riding the wind inside the quarry, and it was an awesome site.

Freja is a bright, beautiful young lady and I’m honoured that Maria and John kept me the whole five months to keep an eye on her while they went to “play with dead people” every day. And it was lovely meeting Caitlin too – she was a team member almost as much as I was.

Ulrika Lindblom

Volunteer

I came in to the Silsila family in 2015 by pure coincidence. I had seen an article in one of Sweden’s newspapers about a Swedish-founded project that had found the remains of a temple in Silsila.

My grandfather was a "hobby Egyptologist" and had been telling me stories about pharaohs and pyramids ever since I can remember so this news was amazing to me. I looked up Maria on the university website where she works and emailed her and said congratulations. After some corresponding she asked if I would like to join them in that year’s season as an volunteer - and the rest is, as they say, history.

On site I have mainly had the role as an assistant to the archologists; helping them with whatever they need. Sifting sand, counting chards, registering small finds. I’ve also helped Maria to register (measuring, weighing, drawing) all the small finds from the sites.

It is really indescribable, the feeling when you are holding all these different artifacts. You feel lost in time and start thinking of the person/people that used them. Who were they? What did they do? What happened to them? Your thoughts just wonder off. You feel such a respect for the people of the past.

One season that I really recall was when we had found tons of beads and decided to make them into necklaces once again. It was amazing to see how they came back to life. And that’s what the project is aiming to do – bring the site back to life.

Outside of my work on Silsila, I am mum to a lovely baby girl who will be two years old in the summer. We live in Stockholm, Sweden.

Tony Jibbefors

Archaeologist

I first became involved in the Gebel el-Silsila Project in 2016, about a year and a half after I completed by masters in archaeology from Lund University.

I have studied the more technical things in archaeology, so I do a lot of 3D models of graves, sites and finds. There can be a lot of photography work – I take photos of 3D models that I will process later in the afternoon or work with the total station shooting point in the temple or around the site.

When I am free from the technical stuff I dig anything from tombs to the temple. I love it when you get the chance to dig a tomb and that happens once or twice a season. It is very hard since we can’t use machines in Egypt. That means everything must be done by hand.

I once had the task of digging out a small mastaba tomb next to the guardian’s house. The tomb was shaped like an ‘L’ with a square shaft 3m down with the mastaba tomb at the bottom.

The tomb was filled up with sand and other trash but there was one thing that kept showing up in my sift… beads! After half the shaft was dug, I had a couple of hundred beads in different colours and shapes. By the time I got down to the bottom of the shaft and into the tomb I had found over 2,000 beads. They were the only thing the grave robbers did not take. They most likely came from a ceremonial breastplate that was torn apart.

I have been to Silsila five times now and my main reason for coming back is the people. They are like my second family away from home. To work so tightly with people for weeks and miss them when you leave for home is amazing.

To work in Silsila is like being in a bubble where the outside world doesn’t disturb you. To be outside the modern world for a time is very good for the soul and I highly recommend it. For an archaeologist, finding remains of the past it is like heaven. In a couple of days, you will find more ancient remains than you will find in a lifetime in Swedish archaeology.

I am eternally grateful to Maria and John that I get to experience something larger than myself and to see and learn all about Egyptian culture.

Outside of Egypt, I live with my girlfriend in Mariestad, Sweden.

Nils Billing

Egyptologist

I’ve lived and worked in Uppsala, Sweden since 1986, as a lecturer and associate professor in the History of Religions. I have a PhD in Egyptology and another PhD in the History of Religions.

I was invited to work with Maria and John at Gebel el-Silsila after talking to Maria at a conference in Florence in 2015. I joined the mission the year after. My role is primarily as an epigrapher; documenting and interpreting the texts (hieroglyphic and hieratic) but I also do excavation work. My daily tasks depend a little bit on where we work and when and the specific objectives for the season.

I am so passionate about our work because it breathes life back into Gebel el-Silsila. It also breathes life to everyone in the team who works on the mission.

I have so many memorable days on site but I remember one season I was excavating a substantial tomb. Day after day I found nothing apart from bones and a few pottery sherds (important in itself of course but not exciting). Then one day, beside a stone sarcophagus, cut out in the floor-bed, there was a large concentration of well-preserved sherds from the same pot, decorated with lines in different colours. It was a typical pot of the late 18th dynasty (circa 1,350 BC).

Later onboard the boat, John spent the entire night piecing more than 50 sherds together. He sent me a picture in the morning displaying its original grandeur after more than 3,000 years beneath the soil.

Another memorable moment was when I discovered a little sherd with written text on it, so-called ostracon, which popped out when digging by a shrine on the eastern side. It was found in the same layer where there were signs of fires with which the workmen, around 1,400 BC, perhaps had kept themselves warm during night, or cooked themselves a hearty meal. The text was simple, a title repeated twice but there was a living hand behind it.

And that is what our work does – it brings the ancient Egyptians back to life for all of us.

Kelly Evans

PR Manager

I’m a media and communications specialist who works for a charity but my heart and soul lies with Egyptology.

It’s a subject I’ve been passionate about since I was ten years old when my dad used to go to the Middle East on business regularly.

Lockdown afforded me the opportunity to combine my experience and my passion by volunteering my PR and media skills in the world of Egyptology.

I have helped secure a series of articles in the Daily Express, local TV and print news, as well as international coverage for Egyptologists and broadcasters. I have been supporting Maria and John’s work by publicising their Friends of Silsila fund which is raising money for the ongoing excavation and preservation of the site.

I have been on several excavations in the UK, mainly on Roman, medieval and Saxon sites. I’m looking forward to joining the team for their next season on site and falling under the spell of Madame Silsila.

Karen Thomas

Volunteer

I live in a suburb around 37km from Melbourne called Mooroolbark (meaning 'red earth' or 'place where the wide waters meet'). It is near the Dandenong Ranges and Yarra Valley (a well-known wine growing district).

My involvement in the Silsila project started pre-covid. After watching Treasure Guardians with Maria and John I became interested in the work they were doing and had a question that I wanted an answer to.

I found an email address and sent off my question which was: “Once the dig season is over, what is to stop others from breaking into the tombs”. This led to various conversations and eventually Maria asked if I would like to put my name down as a volunteer on the dig.

I was in hospital at that time and became very excited at the thought of joining the dig that when the nurse walked in to take my blood pressure she took one look at me, asked what had me so excited, and after giving her the answer she decided to wait a while before trying to get an accurate blood pressure reading.

After a couple of false starts due to Covid I finally got to go in September 2022.

My role on site was as a volunteer so I did whatever I was asked to do. This included trowelling; removing rocks and sand; sweeping sand off foundations; sifting - both wet and dry; looking for any beads, bones and pottery; photographing artefacts; and recording artefacts into a logbook at Kom Ombo.

My most memorable day was when I was able to go down into tomb 42 (the Water Tomb) – a vertical climb down a ladder then into the horizontally laid out chambers. I had seen John in this tomb on a couple of programs, one with Tony Robinson, and said I would LOVE to go down into that tomb so was very happy to get my wish!

I have truly fallen under the spell of Madam Silsila. Seeing the foundations of an ancient temple rise from the sand is so incredible. It is hard, hot work but it’s worth it. And to see John's drawings of how it might have looked are terrific.

The rock drawings and carvings that Maria was looking for are amazing - seeing the animals, 'feet' of people from so long ago, the symbols. There is so much history in that region from the tombs, temple and of course the quarry itself.

Standing there looking at where ancient workers toiled and seeing their chisel marks brings the past back to life for me.

I loved being part of the group. We had a mix of nationalities and experience and it was a great way to learn more about different aspects of archaeology and Egyptology. Watching Barbara put a skeleton back together on a table was fascinating yet sad at the same time. Lunchtimes sitting on the ground with the workers was a great experience too; they’re wonderful people.

Outside of the Silsila team, I work as a Health, Safety, Environment and Quality Administrator for an engineering solutions company. I’m married to Barry and we have one child (a daughter) and six grandchildren (three boys and three girls). Our middle granddaughter is very interested in Egyptology.

I have a Diploma and Certificates in Egyptology from the University of Manchester. I also have diplomas in Health and Safety and Quality.

Jo Derbyshire-Farmery

Egyptologist

Jo is an Egyptologist who has been working with the Silsila project since 2020.

After earning her Masters in Egyptology from Manchester University, Jo is now a PhD candidate at Durham University (Archaeology). Jo’s thesis focuses on cultic activity within quarries and industrial sites, focussing specifically on the cult of Sobek at Gebel el-Silsila.

Jo spends her time virtually piecing together the iconographic wall relief fragments from the recently re-discovered Temple of Sobek on the east bank.

Jo is the recipient scholar of the 2024 Barry Northrop Award, Hatfield College, Durham University.

Huibert van Verseveld

Volunteer

My name is Huibert Gerardus Martinus van Verseveld but everybody calls me Sheikh Ali in Egypt. I am Dutch, hence the very long name. I was born on the 7 of September in 1972 so I’m a very old man!

I have been volunteering for the Silsila team since 2015 and in total I’ve spent more than 230 days playing in the sand of Silsila. And yes I did survive John for all this time!

I’ve put together two publications – one about Silsila graffiti and the other about Elizabeth Thomas.

The thing I love about Gebel el-Silsila is the silence when you can work on your own, in a tomb. You can literally feel the connection with the past. Walking on site is one of the best things you can do.

I’ve followed a lot of classes in Holland about Egyptology I also went to the University of Leiden for some time but didn’t finish it. I am more an outside person than sitting behind a desk.

I have been to Egypt more than 27 times and seen a lot of the country. One of the things on my bucket list is to one day visit Wadi Hammamat and to walk the Theban Mountains again.

When I’m not volunteering on site, I live with my girlfriend Lisette and our cat Shiva in a small farmer’s house in the centre of Holland.

My hobbies outside of Egyptology include writing books about the second world war, selling books in my own shop HuibHistoryBooks and travelling around the world.

Darren

Darren King

Web Guy

I'm John's cousin and have been following his adventures over the years, watching him realise his dreams and discovering some amazing things.

I'm an all round nerd and geek (just ask the wife) and I spend far too much time in front of my computer creating websites and continuously learning new things when it comes to technology and web design.

It's an honour to create the new Silsila website and to help in any way I can, leaving John and Maria to concentrate on the real work!

Bob Mittelstaedt

Bob Mittelstaedt

Photographer

Since I was five or six years old it has been my dream to excavate in Egypt.

I have a varied academic background which began with a BA in Sociology from the University of Toledo in 1970. I also undertook an MA in Archaeology and Heritage at the University of Leicester in 2002.

I have worked as a military engineer in the army; a private pilot; I have excavated the Indian Hills site in Toledo; at Perrysburg Ohio; at Tell Jawa and Wadi Thamad near Yadooda and Madaba, in Jordan. I worked with the team there for two months each season and would add extra weeks on either before or after the excavation to further explore Jordan.

Initially I excavated and did photo work in the field and in the studio. I also set up and taught darkroom work to students. As time progressed and staff changed, I also worked as camp manager handling sourcing, purchasing, book-keeping, budgets and did all the tasks the director did not have time to complete to allow her to work with the students.

From 1996-98 I worked as the Assistant Director of the American Centre of Oriental Research (ACOR) in Amman, Jordan. My primary job was to deal with the staff; visitors; students; excavation directors and fellows to allow the director and his wife time to write and conduct tours in Jordan. I set up their first website in 1998.

My travels brought me to Egypt in 2013 when I visited sites in the Eastern Desert and searched for new ones with a geologist.

I first travelled to Silsila in 2014 and my main role is as on-site photographer. It previously involved excavation work but I have become slow at traversing sand and rocks. Among other duties I perform as needed, I also help the team by liaising with any injured workers and local hospitals or medical staff, along with Egyptian staff who speak Arabic.

Every day on site at Gebel el-Silsila is unique. The only thing certain about my day is that at 6.55am, just before the boat or truck leaves for the work site, my duties will change. These involve photo work in the field, studio or other locations as needed. Upon return to the boat activities usually run till 10pm or later.

Every day is memorable. There are always surprises but there is one that really stays with me and is one of the reasons I return annually. It was a summer day and on the boat the humidity was almost 100 per cent.

We were moored on the West Bank, south of the irrigation canal flowing into the Nile on the East bank. We were on deck sweating and seeking relief from the heat. Off in the east we observed an active thunderstorm far in the distance. As it approached us I noted that it looked strange – it was not very high and close to the ground. Hazy, dusty clouds surrounded it but we could see it was a short thunderstorm. It seemed to be coming straight towards us. As it got closer I noticed it was feeding from the canal and following its path. It seemed fully developed on a very small scale with lightning and rain. There was a vertical lightning strike. On the boat there was little wind.

As the storm was feeding off the hot water in the canal, when it hit the Nile and its wide expanse of warm water, the built-up energy in the small thunderstorm and static electricity in the sand aloft, exploded with fury as it reached the heated surface water of the Nile.

Winds almost instantly built up and tossed the boat toward the riverbank, ripping out mooring lines and dropping the gang plank and drenching all with a horizontal rain that went through the windows, blew everything across the deck and into the Nile. We rushed to secure everything but quickly the wind dissipated. The vertical rain poured down and a grey fog settled over the Nile and the boat. The clean-up took longer than the storm itself.

The canal was a new one excavated from the remains of an ancient one. I wondered if the Temple of Sobek’s location at Gebel el-Silsila was intentional because of similar storms in ancient times. Events like that must have impacted the ancient Egyptians. Did they site things like temples based upon events like this?

In Jordan I found stones struck by lightning had their magnetic properties rearranged and John noted that one point in the bedrock of the temple had magnetic anomalies, before the storm. This raised lots of questions in my mind.

Over the years I’ve made many visits to Gebel el-Silsila and there are lots of reasons why I return. The enthusiasm and love for the site expressed by Maria and John is infectious. The history of the site is so important and needs to be captured for future generations. To experience how well everyone in the team works together and learns from each other. To live, work and go swimming in the Nile and to see the wildlife. To observe the Egyptians developing and planning for Gebel el-Silsila as a tourist site. These are just a few of the reasons that I keep coming back.

Barbara Veselka

Osteoarchaeologist

I'm a bioarchaeologist which means I study human remains on every level - microscopically, macroscopically, chemically, everything.

I'm from the time where Indiana Jones was still cool and you weren't considered to be an archaeologist if you hadn't been to Egypt. Egyptology was something totally different. To be a part of it was something really special. It was definitely something that was on my bucket list.

My career path has been a bit weird. I started doing archaeology in 1995. In the first year you had an introduction to everything – Mesopotamia, Egypt, Israel, the whole world. And then you needed to specialise. And I specialised in the indigenous Americas. I focussed on Mexico and I did my thesis on pottery.

I got disillusioned because there was no money in it so I decided to work. I started working as an entrepreneur advisor. I trained entrepreneurs to do their own marketing, finances and business plans.

It was nice for a while, I had two children, but I found I just couldn’t let go of archaeology. It’s in my blood.

Coincidentally I met with one of the professors who used to teach me and he said they had developed a new masters in human osteoarchaeology and funerary archaeology. I was blown away – that was exactly what I wanted to do so I did it.

That was a crazy year – a new masters, two small children. One thing led to another and I quit my job. I started working as a freelance physical anthropologist and did some commercial projects. Eventually I found my place at the at the University of Brussels.

I'm not a superstitious person but sometimes things are meant to be. Maria tweeted that she needed a bioarchaeologist for her Silsila project. I am quite active on Twitter and saw her post.

I secured some funding from my university and that paid for me to go and help on the Silsila project. It’s these wild, unexpected encounters, those one in a million opportunities. It's beautiful. It's like a like a pattern that starts weaving together, all these threads coming together. Maria wanted me to look at the remains in a consistent way which I did using up to date methods.

To be there, realising that dream – it was hard to believe it was real. You have to pinch yourself. To be on a beautiful boat on the Nile and see the site appear out of nowhere.

All the other sites in Egypt are great but this site shows what life was like for normal people. They’re so overlooked but the biggest percentage of people we find on site are normal everyday workers. And it’s their story that I want to tell.

We know a lot about the rich and famous of those times but the ones who experienced daily life, who suffered and actually made up most of the population – they are overlooked and that’s what really drives me.

When I examine the skeletons I have to do so systematically. I lay them out, asses what’s there and draw what’s missing and make a note of the state of preservation. If possible I’ll estimate the age at death, the sex and check for pathological anomalies. I take photos and make a note of anything that stands out.

Depending on what I find I’ll decide if I need to investigate further. For example, I found some individuals that seem to have vitamin D deficiency which is remarkable for a country like Egypt where you have so much sunlight. You have to wonder if they were they kept inside. The information you get informs the decisions you make.

The bones can tell us so much and combined with the presence of burial goods it can tell us a lot about someone’s socioeconomic status. And that is really where the storytelling begins.

I think my most memorable day on site was the day when I entered Tomb 42, the water-logged tomb. Going down the ladder into the tomb was amazing. The water was so warm. I can’t quite describe it – it was so overwhelming. It was like entering a time capsule; a different world.

Anders Andersson

Photographer

I’ve been a lucky member of the Silsila family since 2015, when I met Maria and John for a reportage for Hemmets veckotidning, a weekly magazine, on how they met and fell in love.

By pure coincidence (not) I happened to have my heavy lifter drone with me in the car, and just by the same coincidence I happened to show it to John who I think swallowed his cigarette in pure excitement. They didn’t have too hard a time to convince me to join their effort in Gebel el Silsila.

The drone work proved hard to accomplish though, as all kinds of flying is strictly prohibited in Egypt. After the first run, drones were impossible to even get into the country. Instead, I’ve been working with my normal hand held cameras, documenting the fieldwork, team members and findings.

I have a background in journalism but switched from pen to camera in 2001. First as a staff photographer at my local morning paper, and since 2007 as freelance.

Outside of Egyptology, I am father to two children - Nova 13 and Levi 11. I live with my girlfriend Kristi in Åled outside Halmstad.

Ahmed Mansour

Site Leader

I'm Ahmed and I'm from Al Biirat. I’ve been part of the Gebel el-Silsila team since 2017.

My role on site is to translate for the Egyptian workers so they know exactly what Maria and John need them to do for the day and that everyone is safe and is aware of any dangers. I also take part in excavation work myself.

In the mornings I get up early and help our Chef Abdalla prepare all the food and water to make sure we have enough for the day on site. Then together we put everything in the boat and sail the boat to the other side of the bank where our Egyptian team is waiting for us to begin work for the day.

We then take everything off the boat, discuss with Maria and John what areas we are focussing on that day and I translate for the Egyptian team so they know what’s needed. Throughout the day I keep checking in with the team to make sure everyone is ok and they have everything they need.

I help to prepare lunch to make sure everyone is fed, and at the end of the day I help pack up the boat again and take everything back to the magazine where it can be stored safely.

I love being part of the team. My most memorable day on site was when John and I found the door of Tomb 42 and we first looked inside. It was incredible.

I keep going back to Gebel el-Silsila because I love it – it’s like magic. Everything I’ve learned and all my training I did on site. It’s where I’ve grown both physically and mentally and it’s where I find myself and my soul. It’s also where I found my second family. Gebel el-Silsila is my inspiration.

Ahmed Faraman

Associate Professor

I'm Ahmed Faraman, an associate professor, department of Egyptology, Faculty of Archaeology, Aswan University.

I joined the Gebel el-Silsila team in 2016 and my role is to study the rock inscriptions.

My daily tasks consist of checking rock inscriptions in situ in order to distinguish the correct meaning and value of the graffiti signs on the rock. I think my most memorable day on the site was the day when we discovered a group of rock inscriptions surveying the northern portion of the quarry.

I believe Gebel el-Silsila is a very important site because it tells the story of the quarry workers from prehistory up till the Greco Roman period, and the team’s discoveries will shed light on the importance of the site as a touristic destination, to be included within tourism packages.

Abdalla Ali

Chef

I’ve been part of the Silsila team since 2014 but I’ve worked with Maria and John from 2008.

I look after everything for the team – from cooking to doing all the shopping.

I’ve loved Silsila from the first time I saw it. I love the place, the wonderful river Nile and the views of the mountains and sky. What makes the place special is because it is the mother of the temples of Egypt. Its quarries have helped give birth to so many of the monuments and temples across Egypt. Every season there tells a new story.

Most days on site are unforgettable because we get to speak with each other, play with kids and have fun. And because we are one family – happy together and sad together.

From the first day I started working with Maria and John I felt like they were my family. I am so proud of the work we do together as the Silsila family.