So there has been a very good reason why I haven't updated in the last three days. Actually, there are two good reasons...
1) Internet is still sketchy so now we can only use it for personal things after 9 PM. But we have to get up at 5 AM so...yeah...
2) RED DEATH!
Yes, we have hit plenty of Red Death, the river was/deposit that is basically sterile (meaning there are absolutely no finds in it). The majority of our upper half of Trench 33 is covered in the stuff and it SUUUUUCKS! Trench 34 has been retired for the season since we couldn't really keep up with it and frankly we wanted to focus on what was being found in Trench 33. This was, of course, before we found so much red.
I blame Sarah. The running theory is that the abundance of Red Death is a curse brought on by Sarah, our supervisor. When Sarah was a trenchmaster she had LOTS of Red Death. They dug down through two full meters of the stuff without finding a single pottery sherd. It's all because Sarah was, at one point, engaged to a Turkish man. It didn't work out, which is good or bad, depending on whether you hold to the Greek mindset. Since the majority of those working on the site are Greek...yeah...
So rather than talk about all the really AWESOME sifting I've done of other people's soil, I figured I'd talk about the trip we took to the Mycenaean citadel. THAT was interesting! We got to go into sections that are closed to the general public ("This is where the magic happens"-Dr. Katie), including a building called the cult center. Basically it was a room, slightly larger than your average shed, with a little croft that was used to store the cult idols. These cult idols...well I'm fairly certain given a picture, my five year-old cousin could produce a fair replica. They were intentionally ugly, actually. The coolest part of the cult center is actually that everything was found "in situ", meaning in place. About 70% of what archaeologists know is based on where and how features/finds were found. So finding stuff in their original places...BIG DEAL!
The cult center was actually REALLY CREEPY. And not just because of the ugly figurines. Those were in the museum. It was covered over by a tin roof with some rotting wooden beams and no light. There were snake tracks all over the floor and some serious spider webs. I'm talking Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, walking through the booby traps before the Holy Grail room, serious. Not to mention, you could hear shuffling through the walls. CRREEEPY!
We also got to see a series of mudbrick walls, which was actually REALLY COOL! These walls are amazingly in good shape, even though they are being propped up by wooden two-by-fours. But mudbrick isn't exactly the most durable of materials and these mudbrick walls survived an earthquake/fire (that is, a fire started by a preceeding earthquake). So we all basically had to hold our breaths when going through the covered area where the mudbrick was found. The first thing Dr. Katie said was "DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING!"
Of course we also climbed up and over the citadel and down into the cistern, but the cult center and the mudbrick really was the coolest part.
So that was our Mycenaean citadel tour. Yeah, all the tourists looked really jealous. ;-)
I think that's it for now. I'm going to talk more tomorrow, hopefully. We are going to Monemvasia tomorrow. Swimming, medieval ruins, and Byzantine churches. Yay!
1) Internet is still sketchy so now we can only use it for personal things after 9 PM. But we have to get up at 5 AM so...yeah...
2) RED DEATH!
Yes, we have hit plenty of Red Death, the river was/deposit that is basically sterile (meaning there are absolutely no finds in it). The majority of our upper half of Trench 33 is covered in the stuff and it SUUUUUCKS! Trench 34 has been retired for the season since we couldn't really keep up with it and frankly we wanted to focus on what was being found in Trench 33. This was, of course, before we found so much red.
I blame Sarah. The running theory is that the abundance of Red Death is a curse brought on by Sarah, our supervisor. When Sarah was a trenchmaster she had LOTS of Red Death. They dug down through two full meters of the stuff without finding a single pottery sherd. It's all because Sarah was, at one point, engaged to a Turkish man. It didn't work out, which is good or bad, depending on whether you hold to the Greek mindset. Since the majority of those working on the site are Greek...yeah...
So rather than talk about all the really AWESOME sifting I've done of other people's soil, I figured I'd talk about the trip we took to the Mycenaean citadel. THAT was interesting! We got to go into sections that are closed to the general public ("This is where the magic happens"-Dr. Katie), including a building called the cult center. Basically it was a room, slightly larger than your average shed, with a little croft that was used to store the cult idols. These cult idols...well I'm fairly certain given a picture, my five year-old cousin could produce a fair replica. They were intentionally ugly, actually. The coolest part of the cult center is actually that everything was found "in situ", meaning in place. About 70% of what archaeologists know is based on where and how features/finds were found. So finding stuff in their original places...BIG DEAL!
The cult center was actually REALLY CREEPY. And not just because of the ugly figurines. Those were in the museum. It was covered over by a tin roof with some rotting wooden beams and no light. There were snake tracks all over the floor and some serious spider webs. I'm talking Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, walking through the booby traps before the Holy Grail room, serious. Not to mention, you could hear shuffling through the walls. CRREEEPY!
We also got to see a series of mudbrick walls, which was actually REALLY COOL! These walls are amazingly in good shape, even though they are being propped up by wooden two-by-fours. But mudbrick isn't exactly the most durable of materials and these mudbrick walls survived an earthquake/fire (that is, a fire started by a preceeding earthquake). So we all basically had to hold our breaths when going through the covered area where the mudbrick was found. The first thing Dr. Katie said was "DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING!"
Of course we also climbed up and over the citadel and down into the cistern, but the cult center and the mudbrick really was the coolest part.
So that was our Mycenaean citadel tour. Yeah, all the tourists looked really jealous. ;-)
I think that's it for now. I'm going to talk more tomorrow, hopefully. We are going to Monemvasia tomorrow. Swimming, medieval ruins, and Byzantine churches. Yay!