I met Albert for the first time in the early 1980s. Albert was the first archaeological geophysicist from Western Europe who started cooperation with us in Poland (then the Geophysical Laboratory of the Institute of the History of Material Culture of the Polish Academy of Sciences). His cordiality, directness, curiosity of the unknown country and its inhabitants, and openness to joint research projects were striking. Albert created an invaluable opportunity for us to go on scholarships to Garchy. When I was unable to obtain consent from the Polish authorities for political reasons, Albert funded a private scholarship for me: I lived with him in Saint Satur, and every day I traveled to Garchy with him in a car or on his son’s bicycle, when I wanted to work until late evening. I was very glad to repay him with hospitality in Cairo during his research in Alexandria and Deir El-Bahari.
It was a great pleasure for me to dedicate a volume to him from the ICAP conference in 2003 in Krakow (photo). Not all of us know that Albert painted watercolors. He did it on every occasion – a joint trip to the Tatra Mountains, during a barbecue in Igołomia, after a trip to the salt mine in Wieliczka (also ICAP 2003 – photo). The watercolors he painted in Egypt were later exhibited in Alexandria (e.g. a watercolor with a view of a medieval Coptic monastery in Wadi Natrun – photo)
Albert was a valuable source of information for me during my work on the history of archaeological geophysics. He was patiently revising my article on the history of magnetic methods. It was he who led me to S. Breiner’s research, conducted in Mexico from a …horse. Unfortunately, to the last question – about studying the magnetism of Nile mud – he didn’t give me an answer. First, he asked me to wait quietly, and then – it was too late …