Excavation Days

Today was my third day of excavating! I am exhausted. Also covered in sand. Also happy! Because excavating is really just as exciting as you'd think it might be. (Or it's getting there.)

I am excavating an area called "Street 2" just outside of a Roman era villa that is being beautifully reconstructed at the edge of the site. An architect worked to build it last season (I think, but maybe two seasons ago, or something), and an Egyptologist named Dorotea is painting the inside this season - because several of the rooms were beautifully painted with geometric designs, from Homer, and depictions of the gods. It is an INCREDIBLE reconstruction.

But anyway, excavation is exciting and interesting and just as cool as you'd think it should be, but also quite different. And not that exciting to describe. So unless you're my parents, probably don't even want to keep reading this post. (Thanks for hanging in there, though, Mom and Dad!)

Here comes the long description...

In Egypt, there are laws about how you can work at a site, and those regulations mostly mean that you must hire Egyptian workmen. Which means that we, the Europeans/Americans/white people order the Egyptian workmen around as they move the sand. And then when anything particularly interesting appears, we move in.

So that is a little strange, to say the least. But otherwise, excavation days are long and hot and sandy and awesome.

We/I wake up at approximately 5:30am (which usually ends up being more like 5:45 or 5:50, if I think I can get away with it.) Breakfast, which you know all about, is at 6am. By 6:30 we are on our way, in a bus (not on camels, sadly...) to the dig site, which is 30-45 minutes away.

Arriving at about 7am, we all stamp our feet in an effort to get warm (it's FREEZING in the morning! And by freezing I mean 40s and 50s...), and gather our gear.

Then, we walk from the cafeteria where we are dropped off (near the reconstructed villa!!) to the site, which is just over a hill covered in potsherds.

As I mentioned, my site is Street 2, excavated by Mirjam (who is Dutch! Another of the languages often spoken here that I don't speak...). My fellow student is named Christine, and we usually start the morning by setting up an automatic level and taking the "day height." The automatic level lives in an orange box, and it is just a small telescope/microscope oriented horizontally and featuring an automatic level (the kind with the bubble of liquid!) in the base. So we set that up on top of a tripod, and then either Christine or I will grab a "stadia rod" (a really long, retractable stick that can measure up to 4 meters) and carry it over to a point, marked by a nail, that the topographers have measured for us. This spot is marked by a nail, and ours is 139.00 meters tall. Whoever is not holding the stadia rod then looks through the "telescope," reads a height on the stadia rod, and adds that number to 139. And THAT is the day height (the height of our automatic level!).

Whenever we need to figure out the elevation of anything in the field, we just have to look at the stadia rod through the "telescope" on the automatic level, and read the number. And then subtract it from the day height... You're getting this, right? You'd tell me if you were bored, right? Sorry...

So that is Christine's and my main duty for the day. After that, we just do what Mirjam, or her assistant Sander, or Ellen (because she's working with us too) tell us to do. We take pictures. And measure things. And take elevations. And watch the workmen move sand...

This doesn't make it sound very exciting, and the truth is that it's pretty slow, but it's also quite exciting. We've uncovered walls, and pits, and groups of bricks, and even something that might be a doorway! We think there will be more going on when we actually reach the level that
the street was probably on. Right now we're just sifting through sand that has accumulated above this level.

And that is excavation! So far... I'll let you know when it picks up.