Digging Holes: At D.E.P.A.S. Field School
 
Good and  bad. First, we found mostly red in my trench and haven’t found any sort of  architecture, so Trench 33 is officially closed for the season. =( The bad side is that all of us were spread out. Kate, my awesome trenchmaster, was sent to “wall chase” in 44, 45, looking for a section of wall that we know for sure is there, but not necessarily excavating the entire trench. She took Allison and Ella with her. Dan has his own couple E.U.s all the way across the site and is excavating there by himself. I am now excavating a bulk (rows E and 1 are kept
in place as a pathway during regular excavation and it’s referred to as a “bulk”) in trench 54 under Γιοργία (or Georgia  in English). It’s between two walls and near an “L-shaped” grouping of rocks that Professor Maggidis believes could’ve been the base of a wooden staircase. That’s because within the “L” there are two round sections missing, possibly where wooden beams went to support the stairs. The big question is, where is the staircase to? The two walls aren’t parallel to each other and only one lines up with the “stairway”. We also found a lot of “kitchen-ware” pottery sherds (big stuff with handles and the like) and there
was a pit that has been excavated but is still on the plans that were drawn up. 
 So basically, like everything in this dig, we’re not sure what’s going on. That’s why the next
  five years, DEPAS is going to excavate in Gla and people are going to study what we’ve excavated in the Lower Town at Mycenae. I liked the way Jen described it to me. She likened it to looking at pictures of the Earth. When you look at a tree or a group of trees, you can’t really see the size, shape, or type of forest. But when you zoom out and look at it from satellite, it all
  becomes a little easier. Of course, that doesn’t stop archaeologists from trying to identify the rainforest by looking at a few leaves, if you get what I’m sayin’. Right now we’re looking at a close up, but the five years of study will help us get a bigger picture, and then maybe it will begin to make sense.
The really cool part of today wasn’t the staircase, though. We were pulling out a lot of rocks and rubble in the bulk when Andreanos, our workman, pulled out…a figurine torso! It was so COOL!!!! Angelos and Professor Maggidis both identified it at a Late Mycenaean and Antonia said it was female. Basically, the reason they say it’s Late Mycenaean is the stylistic features. It’s HIGHLY STYLIZED, so we’re not looking at something that resembles a human all that much. It’s kinda got the same shape, and the head is obvious, but that’s about it. I said before, I’m fairly certain my little cousin could replicate one of these figurines, and the same holds true for this one. But it is REALLY BEAUTIFUL, in its own way. The eyes, shoulder pads (like shoulder loops on a uniform), and medallion around its neck are all added (as in attached after the original piece was sculpted) which means its Late Mycenaean. Earlier Mycenaean figurines don’t have those attachments. They are very plain. Also, the face is pinched. It’s basically like someone took the clay between thumb and forefinger and pulled it forward, pinching it outwards to make a nose and mouth.
Honestly, it doesn’t look like much to your average person, maybe something a child made at day-care that you’d put on your mantle because they were really proud of it, not necessarily
because it was a work of artistic genius. But you should’ve seen everyone when it was pulled out. Andreanos handed it to me and I showed it to Georgia and Angelos and it was like a new mommy had brought their baby to work. Everyone was crowding around, cooing over it, talking “archaeologist” about all of the features. Heidi named it «Αφροδίτη»(Aphrodite) because of how pretty it was. I had to go get a number for it because we had to take a point on its find location with the Total station (aka“Hal” after the evil computer from 2001: A Space Odyssey) and it took me a good twenty minutes to get it registered. Joe took a photo of me and Aphrodite, even though Andreanos found it. But because I was the student in the trench, I end
  up being the “go-for” for all the numbers and etc., I took it to the registration tent and that’s where everyone came up to see it. Professor Maggidis said it’s possibly, and I quote “the best figurine found so far” (in reference to the dig in general, not Mycenae of course!). =)
 It was all cool and although I feel like a turncoat saying this, I like the new trench. Georgia is obviously Greek, so I get to practice some of my Greek, including listening to native speakers. She speaks slowly enough naturally that I can better understand her words, and typically when Angelos or one of the other supervisors, or Professor Maggidis comes to talk to her, they speak in Greek, so I can pick up some excavation terms as well. It’s difficult, but my Greek is already better. I understand more of what I hear, though my speaking remains BAAAAAD. Of course, I’m going to go home and lose it all, but we’ll cross that hill when we get there.
There is just one and a half weeks remaining and I can’t believe how quickly this month is flying by. It’s already the 19th, and I come home at the end of July! Only one more Saturday here! I guess I’ll have to go to the beach this weekend and get in my last swim of the Aegean (at least for this trip…=)).  Hopefully I’ll have more cool things to talk about next time!
P.S. Updates will be sporadic the rest of the month. Sometimes I have things to talk about, sometimes I don't, and sometimes the Internet just goes to caput.