18 April 1929

[By George Horsfield and Agnes Conway]

​Visited dig first thing. Have decided to abandon it, as it is impossible to find anything further.  Several wine jar handles inscribed turned up; also part of a small polished black lamp which seems to be the prototype of the inexplicable ugly one produced locally.  Found another tomb exactly the same as before, but opened it without allowing much earth to enter.  The corpse lay straight on its back with hands crossed on stomach; very crumbly; bones and all fell in bits when disturbed.  No objects.
 
Moved the workmen to “Caliph” to dig further into this mound from which some fairly good fragments turned up.  Found nothing on going deeper in – a mass of building rubbish lime and red sand with certain streaks of wood ash.  This was followed up and finally abandoned.  Paid off 30 workmen.  The Circassians have got up a separate mess with Ali as cook, which it is hoped will prove more satisfactory.  
 
Dr. Tewfik Canaan left us to-day, to our regret.  He came as a stranger to all of us – but our nearer acquaintance with him proved his worth. He set an excellent example by his energy, cheeriness and resource.  As a friend he left us.  He doctored all and sundry, making friends with all with whom he came in contact.  
 
A.E.C. went to see High Places with Dr Nielsen in the Siyagh, and then to measure the large house found two days ago opposite the Theatre.  There, in some mysterious manner, she lost Dr Canaan’s watch!  She went straight up the Wady bed of the Ma’aisera el Gharbiyah, from the Turkamaniya to the wall at the top, in the afternoon noting all the silted up caves in the Wady bed, and higher up the banks, of which there are a great many.  Facaded tombs do not begin till very high up, and end with a large clump of them right at the top.    Then there is a building with sides like a tomb and the proportions of its neighbours, but open, front and back, with a platform on the Wady side.  A large tomb at the back, of the “Serai” type, still has a grave niche, filled with large stones to the very top, though the bottom row has been removed.  She came back over the highest top of the ridge between the Gharbiyah and the Wady Marris Hamdan and found quarrying on the sky-line.  The water channel from the top flows into the cistern behind Kennedy’s Stibadium to Brunnow 559.  

Reference:Horsfield, G. [and Conway, A.] 1929 (transcribed by A. Thornton). Petra Exploration Fund Diary. "Business Papers to be Kept", Horsfield Collection Box 8, UCL Institute of Archaeology, 18 April: 42-43.