Newsletter, 15 June 1955

: The Cairo season is coining to an end, at least as far as the Center is concerned. In a few days this office will be closed until September and I shall move to Alexandria to work at the Graeco-Roman Museum there for a month or so. The past eight and a half months seem to have gone by very quickly, but in retrospect they were rich and rewarding and full of pleasant interruptions which made the routine of research, office work, and field trips a rather varied experience. For one thing, we now have a group of Members, admittedly few in number, here in Cairo who are genuinely interested in the antiquity and art of the Nile Valley and there is hope that some day, in the not too distant future insha'allah, a permanent institution will serve American historians and archaeologists in this part of the Near East. There also was the never-ending stream of casual visitors who came from far away to ask advice as to the best way in which to get around in Egypt or to tell about their experiences. Among them we had a young American student from the Free University of Berlin who, without knowing any Arabic, traveled up and down the country for several weeks without encountering any difficulties or having trouble in finding a place to sleep. There were the Sunday excursions when peaceful temple ruins were swarming with children, and there were the quiet happy afternoons when this ,writer walked the length and breadth of northern Mitrahine with John Dimick in order to learn something about the topography of ancient Memphis from one who knew his levels and map coordinates. The group of Fulbright grantees is breaking up, and some of them have left already, and a few of our friends in the U.S. Information Service are being transferred or are going on home leave.