The Nile, despite its status as bringer of life and civilization, has barely been explored as a source of archaeological material. Underwater archaeology is not foremost on people’s minds in a desert, I suppose.

That’s beginning to change now, though, as a four-month underwater survey of the Nile at Aswan has born fruit.

Forty metres beneath the surface the divers discovered a complete portico of the temple of Khnum; two huge, unidentified columns; and four pollards from the Coptic era. Hawass said these pieces would remain on the river bed as they were too heavy to be lifted out the water. Early studies show that the pollards may be part of a Christian church that may have once been located in the area but for unknown reasons was demolished or destroyed. Several 26th-Dynasty decorative pieces, along with Roman amphora and a collection of clay vessels, have been also found and removed from the Nile bed so they can be restored and placed on display.

This is just the beginning. During the next archaeological season, divers will be exploring the Nile between Aswan and Luxor, which is known to hold obelisks and other statuary that fell into the river during transport.

The Colossi of Memnon, two giant statues of pharaoh Amenhotep III guarding the entrance to his funerary temple in Thebes, will soon have company.

Thanks to a huge donation from cognac heiress Monique Hennessy, archaeologists have discovered four other Amenhotep colossi, two made out of red quartz and two out of extremely delicate alabaster.

The red quartz ones will be put back up next year. The alabaster ones will take longer due to their fragility.

But that’s not all. The excavation has also turned up:

two sphinxes, 84 statues of the war goddess Sekhmet depicted as a lioness, and a stele whose 150 fragments were spread across a site which has to be constantly drained.

It is planned that five years from now the statues of Sekhmet the lion-headed goddess will stand again.

The tenth annual dig, which ends this month, has already unearthed a 3.62-metre- (11.9 feet-) tall statue of Tiya, Amenhotep’s wife.

“She has an extraordinary beauty”, Sourouzian said.

When the two 15-metre red quartz colossi of Amenhotep become upright again in 2009 Tiya’s statue will once again stand next to those of her spouse.

This will be the only temple in the neighborhood with intact statuary, so even beyond the wonder of the individual finds, their return to their former positions will be a great thing.

The Stonehenge dig is over. The trench has been refilled and the sod relayed, while a group of local Druids offered blessings and songs.

For such a tiny excavation area explored over just 11 days of full work, they found all kinds of neat stuff and the analysis of the findings will doubtless turn up much new information. Some of the finds (courtesy of the Smithsonian dispatches):

• a piece of finely patterned pottery from the “Bell-Beaker culture” that existed throughout western Europe around 3,000-2,000 B.C.
• Part of a broach, along with a Roman coin dating from the 4th c.
• Material retrieved from the bluestone sockets, possibly dateable
• Snail shells, definitely dateable
• Bluestone and sarsen fragments indicating pilgrims chiseled off pieces to take home

Now the big job of analyzing the finds begins. Two tons of excavated material will make its way to various universities for in depth analysis. We’ll be hearing about these wee dig for a long time to come, I suspect.

On an unrelated note, how awesome is that Knights Who Say Ni druid?