Iklaina Day 11
I didn’t get much sleep the night before but thankfully the trip to Mycenae and subsequent late wake up call (6:30 am, oh luxury!) meant I was better rested from the day before and able to forge through the day. I was a little cranky nonetheless and just as we were pulling away I realized I had forgotten my hat and my headphones in my room which made napping on the bus difficult and necessitated I borrow a bandana from my ever-awesome roommate Catherine. However, my mood was vastly improved when I got a motorcycle ride from a tall, dark and handsome Greek man ~_^ Actually it was Alex, the fieldworker at our trench riding his motorcycle to the site and he was nice enough o let me ride behind him. It was absolutely exhilarating racing across the dirt paths through the olive groves in the cold morning air, definitely the only way to travel!
I was once again in the trench away from the one I originated it, cleaning out the wall which was slow and somewhat dull work as most of the dirt was sterile (until we got down to the level that we stopped at, there was some pottery there). The early hours are the best because its cool out, really the worst hours are 10-11 (the hour before lunch) and the time until we leave at 1:30pm, when the day is at its hottest. It can be quite brutal but fortunately our supervisor is very understanding of our periodic shade and water breaks. During the last half hour we were sadly idle because we had gotten the level down of the site and swept it all clean and tidy, and prepared it for the photographer….who was very busy and couldn’t get to us. So we tagged our finds (pottery and animal bones) and hung out in the shade until the bell rang.
I had a lovely lunch by myself at a seaside restaurant. It was a dish I believe is called kalaphagos - it’s like baked feta cheese but it also includes ham, peppers, tomatoes, and eggplant. So yummy! Anyway, had a beer with that and watched the fish in the turquoise sea next to me nibble at the bread I threw to them. It was an altogether lovely experience, definitely one of the highlights of the trip. Afterwards I wandered over to the little beach where some of the other girls (Sophie, Lori, Christine) were sunning themselves. I finally took the opportunity to write my postcards. I’m sure my handwriting is atrocious but at least they’ve been written and those of you who requested postcards will be receiving them before long (who knows if I’ll be home before you do :-P). Today is intended to be something of an errand day, so I got a chain for my new necklace (I picked it up in Napflion, it’s a sparrow in flight embedded with three little amber stones, to yellow and one green. Its so pretty!), some groceries, and I intend to pick up some bread and cherries for tomorrow’s meal. I also intend to clean and repack my bags, both travel and dig bag so I don’t have anything unnecessary still lying around inside and I can stop living in such a mess. Oh, I also need to catch up on the rest of this journal and post all my pictures. It’s a habit I’ve been too tired or occupied (or just plane forget) to keep up with for the last few days. Anyway, right now I’m sitting in an archaeobotany taking notes (also a convenient time to write my journal, as I’ve discovered) in the other MS word window. The teacher is Dr. Susan Allen, and she has one of the most pleasant and endearing voices I’ve ever heard. She has a very gentle demeanor but it obviously comes with an incredibly intelligent mind. I hope to get to sleep early this evening, hopefully no later than 9 (though the sun will still be up, and will probably be treating the Bay of Navarino to another beautiful sunset). I hate missing anything but if I want to not miss things tomorrow I should probably get some sleep tonight ~_^
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6/9/09
Ugh, getting up this morning was terrible but fortunately I had packed everything I needed the night before so all I had to do was dress, eat breakfast, and go.
Despite sleepiness however I’ve discovered that the first hour is my best in the excavation. The cool air means I can work as hard as I want and still make progress, which is what I did, pedestalling a stone wall so we could see where all the rocks fell and whatnot. Fortunately, the soil was pretty is to work through so I just scraped away at it with a pickaxe and got most of it cleaned up in the first hour.
Then, at 8 am, it started to get hot. Needless to say this did not bode well as we were only an hour into an 7 hour or so excavation. So basically it was a descendo of progress throughout the day so you gotta get as much done as you can. The biggest thing today was the brief period where I thought I had a human burial. It had a bunch of pottery piled around it and we had turned up a bunch of other bones and teeth. Of course it turned out to be an animal, (some sort of quadruped) but it was still pretty exciting. Lunch was fun, my chicken and eggplant sandwich (somewhat soggy) was delicious and we munched on my kilo of cherries (shared amongst the group) before giving the remaining pound or so to the work men. They seemed appreciative ☺ They were pretty awesome cherries.
The rest of the day consisted of slowly wilting in the heat. It seems that the lack of sleep has caught up to me because after my shower when I got back I conked out for a nap. After that was a class on physical anthropology by a woman who examined the bones from the Chaironeia Battlefield finds. Basically this is the battle where Greece made its last decisive stand (and lost) against Alexander the soon-to-be-Great, and his father Phillip of Macedonia. This is where the Sacred Band of Thebes made its last stand. The Sacred Band of Thebes was a Spartan level (the Spartans had long since lost their hereditary glory by the 300s BCE) training. Their secret? Being gay.
No seriously, they were a band of 400 men, each of which was in a homosexual relationship. The theory was that this way the men would fight more ferociously to defend their lovers, and also fight more courageously so to not seem cowardly in their lover’s eyes. They fell almost to a man at this battle, felled by Alexander’s cavalry as witnessed by the sword strokes across their heads (one so powerful it literally amputated a man’s face). Alexander was so impressed by their valour that he built a monument to them even though they lost, a very rare occurrence. She also talked about the dead baby well in the agora of Athens, where over 400 infant skeletons (basically babies that had died from birth defects) were buried. Truly fodder for many a dead-baby joke.
After the lecture it was the standard dinner night, with baklava at the end. Seriously it was the most delicious baklava I’ve ever tasted. My group and I finished planning our ferries for our week of travel after the dig. We’ve decided to wing it otherwise, just appearing at the islands and hoping for the best 0.o Whatever happens it will be an adventure.
Right now I’m just finishing up this journal entry. I’m staying up past my bedtime, drinking beer in the Pylos platia (main square) with a sea breeze lightly ruffling my hair as we celebrate Justin’s birthday and chatting with some people back home. Those who requested postcards should be getting them soon.
Until tomorrow.