(no subject)
Salve!
Two days on site and I'm already a living example of the fact that fair Norwegian skin was not meant to ever see the sun, no matter when it sets. Even through 100+ spf, the backs of my shoulders are a perfect tank top demarkation of crispy. We'll switch to the cotton t-shirts for a while. We've mostly been clipping, clearing and de-backfilling---it's variously referred to as landscaping or grunt work. It seems the newbies, and I myself when I first came, are always surprised at the initial nature of the site. Even though it's an active dig, we backfill at the end of every summer, which means we put plastic at the base of the trenches with the designation and year written on it and then re-fill the trench with dirt and branches. This is mostly for the benefit of the slightly inebriated cinghiali hunters (wild boar--delicious) who seem to have an alarming tendency to fall in our trenches and set off their shotguns in the process. So when we first get up to the site every year, it's had about 9 months to regrow all the vegetation and settle the dirt, which means it always looks like walking into a slightly pitted jungle. Unfortunately this year, this means that several of last year's trenches that we'll be continuing are full of stagnant water, immediately dubbed typhoid water or swine flu cess pits. Thus follows a great comedy of errors in which 15 successful archaeologists are given a hose and told to siphon the water off and ends with at least one of them wallowing in said cess pit and another threatening to vomit in the woods after unsuccessfully attempting to create suction on the hose (the former sewage drainage from the old scavi house) by sucking on it (yes, this led to jokes that I refuse to explain or repeat.). That first day, the water remained. By Tuesday, however, we'd managed to reason out the basic physics, as well as the basic principles of a bucket brigade. Most of the trenches are at least dry, if not totally cut down to dirt, and the beast of a trench I'll be assisting on has started backfilling, shoveling out heavy, sodden mud. I'm working on some great shoveling blisters, but have at least proved that I remember my way around a pick pass.
The first year students are all here by now and it's a totally different experience as a staff member (and yes, I technically come in as staff now!)--watching the students and remembering past years while trying to figure out which ones will be legendary for their sheer stupidity and which for their ability to annoy. Seem a certain pink person made quite an impression--she's still the one to beat for sheer want-to-kill-and-cast-from-trench status two years later. There are a couple here who look promising however, and it was very satisfying to watch them all try and climb the hill for the first time today and get the 'oh *I&%*&$, we have to do this every day' looks.
Amusingly enough, I thought the staff--which now mostly consists of the most dedicated (and coincidentally most drunken) members of my year plus the old stand-bys--was loud. They do have personality, but this afternoon after a day on the hill, we all ended up outside on the next block over to avoid the screaming first years. I'd say I'm certain we were never that loud, but we probably were--we've now just developed better timing.
window.
Speaking of living situations, we have managed to get the dining situation settled and have already settled into our steady diet of pasta and salad. Delicious, although I'll undoubtedly be dying for protein in a matter of weeks. We do have student fridges now, and staff are already beginning to suck up to higher staff who have kitchenettes in their apartments. It seems that it'll work out regardless.
6/24
First real day of work for all the kids and although we have a couple of real clunkers in the cultural dept (really, did anyone ever legitimately like the spice girls, much less still actually take them seriously?) the group as a whole seems to be willing and in good morale. It may not have hurt that we've discovered what happens when you cover the base of a meter deep hole in the ground with plastic, throw dirt on the plastic and let it sit through one of the rainiest seasons Italy's had in years. The result is of course several nice mud pits which once revealed caused the collective age of the staff to drop to about five or six. The students spent most of the afternoon watching us throw mud at each other and paint our faces between passing buckets. They were amused, but since none of them joined in, I think we may have scared them a bit.
We went up to the mag after the hill to quickly talk out trench assignments and Tony took one look at us, shook his head and cracked up. Turns out I'm going to start right out co-running a trench (yay! but also, yikes!) with C, who's very amiable and has always seemed to be made of sunshine. We're going to be up on the top of the hill by the archaic wall, I think looking for the bedrock drop-off and the possible end of the drainage channel. This means I need to go read trenchbooks and figure out how to keep one. It's all very exciting and looks like it'll be a decent summer. The kids seem to have quieted down a bit after a full day on the hill has taken all the stuffing out of them.
Still cold here though and it's actually clouding up in the afternoons regularly, which is a nice change from the 105 we usually get.
Hope all goes well in the states.
Two days on site and I'm already a living example of the fact that fair Norwegian skin was not meant to ever see the sun, no matter when it sets. Even through 100+ spf, the backs of my shoulders are a perfect tank top demarkation of crispy. We'll switch to the cotton t-shirts for a while. We've mostly been clipping, clearing and de-backfilling---it's variously referred to as landscaping or grunt work. It seems the newbies, and I myself when I first came, are always surprised at the initial nature of the site. Even though it's an active dig, we backfill at the end of every summer, which means we put plastic at the base of the trenches with the designation and year written on it and then re-fill the trench with dirt and branches. This is mostly for the benefit of the slightly inebriated cinghiali hunters (wild boar--delicious) who seem to have an alarming tendency to fall in our trenches and set off their shotguns in the process. So when we first get up to the site every year, it's had about 9 months to regrow all the vegetation and settle the dirt, which means it always looks like walking into a slightly pitted jungle. Unfortunately this year, this means that several of last year's trenches that we'll be continuing are full of stagnant water, immediately dubbed typhoid water or swine flu cess pits. Thus follows a great comedy of errors in which 15 successful archaeologists are given a hose and told to siphon the water off and ends with at least one of them wallowing in said cess pit and another threatening to vomit in the woods after unsuccessfully attempting to create suction on the hose (the former sewage drainage from the old scavi house) by sucking on it (yes, this led to jokes that I refuse to explain or repeat.). That first day, the water remained. By Tuesday, however, we'd managed to reason out the basic physics, as well as the basic principles of a bucket brigade. Most of the trenches are at least dry, if not totally cut down to dirt, and the beast of a trench I'll be assisting on has started backfilling, shoveling out heavy, sodden mud. I'm working on some great shoveling blisters, but have at least proved that I remember my way around a pick pass.
The first year students are all here by now and it's a totally different experience as a staff member (and yes, I technically come in as staff now!)--watching the students and remembering past years while trying to figure out which ones will be legendary for their sheer stupidity and which for their ability to annoy. Seem a certain pink person made quite an impression--she's still the one to beat for sheer want-to-kill-and-cast-from-trench status two years later. There are a couple here who look promising however, and it was very satisfying to watch them all try and climb the hill for the first time today and get the 'oh *I&%*&$, we have to do this every day' looks.
Amusingly enough, I thought the staff--which now mostly consists of the most dedicated (and coincidentally most drunken) members of my year plus the old stand-bys--was loud. They do have personality, but this afternoon after a day on the hill, we all ended up outside on the next block over to avoid the screaming first years. I'd say I'm certain we were never that loud, but we probably were--we've now just developed better timing.
window.
Speaking of living situations, we have managed to get the dining situation settled and have already settled into our steady diet of pasta and salad. Delicious, although I'll undoubtedly be dying for protein in a matter of weeks. We do have student fridges now, and staff are already beginning to suck up to higher staff who have kitchenettes in their apartments. It seems that it'll work out regardless.
6/24
First real day of work for all the kids and although we have a couple of real clunkers in the cultural dept (really, did anyone ever legitimately like the spice girls, much less still actually take them seriously?) the group as a whole seems to be willing and in good morale. It may not have hurt that we've discovered what happens when you cover the base of a meter deep hole in the ground with plastic, throw dirt on the plastic and let it sit through one of the rainiest seasons Italy's had in years. The result is of course several nice mud pits which once revealed caused the collective age of the staff to drop to about five or six. The students spent most of the afternoon watching us throw mud at each other and paint our faces between passing buckets. They were amused, but since none of them joined in, I think we may have scared them a bit.
We went up to the mag after the hill to quickly talk out trench assignments and Tony took one look at us, shook his head and cracked up. Turns out I'm going to start right out co-running a trench (yay! but also, yikes!) with C, who's very amiable and has always seemed to be made of sunshine. We're going to be up on the top of the hill by the archaic wall, I think looking for the bedrock drop-off and the possible end of the drainage channel. This means I need to go read trenchbooks and figure out how to keep one. It's all very exciting and looks like it'll be a decent summer. The kids seem to have quieted down a bit after a full day on the hill has taken all the stuffing out of them.
Still cold here though and it's actually clouding up in the afternoons regularly, which is a nice change from the 105 we usually get.
Hope all goes well in the states.