An example of red figure pottery from the National Archaeological Museum 
Carter and myself setting out on our AVT adventure!
(left-right): Alex, Carter, Ingva, Dwanna, Katie, myself, and Kenny on Aegina (Lindsey is taking this photo)
(left-right): myself, Alex, Ingva, Katie, Carter, Dwanna, Kenny, and Lindsey being AWESOME in front of the Temple to Aphaia at Aegina
The Temple to Aphaia at Aegina
My pottery bucket at the beginning of last week- it was totally full by Friday
The original trench crew of Beta Zeta! (left-right): myself, Lindsey, Kenny, Alicia, Kat, Marcie, Elizabetta, Katherine, and Jamie
Dwanna and I at Potluck Tuesday- I attempted to make the mango guac (of course), but my avacados were rotten! I made mango salsa instead-it turned out to be suprisingly delicious!Now that the first week’s uncertainty has worn off, time has been flying by. It seems like only a few hours ago that I was sitting in Starbucks (where I can always go to get a taste of home) writing my first blog post! Thank you all so much for your support through blog comments and e-mails- these have definitely helped me to adjust to life far from home.
This second week has passed so quickly! I spent most of my time in BZ (the same trench I was in during the first week), and I enjoyed my second week there as much as I enjoyed the first. Now that I feel more confident in my abilities as an excavator (and now that my muscles are starting to get used to all the squatting), I’ve been able to relax and really enjoy digging- although I’m not sure if I’ll ever get used to waking up at 5:30 am! During this week, I’ve continued to learn about the art of archaeology and some of the little tricks that accompany the trade. For example, on Monday I presented a fellow digger with yet another artifact and asked her to help me discern whether it was a red rock or a piece of pottery. “Why don’t you just lick it and find out yourself?” was her response. I thought she was kidding until she explained that because pottery is porous, it will stick to your tongue when licked, whereas rocks are not porous so they’ll slide right off! Ever since that conversation I seem to be continually sticking dirty artifacts in my mouth. It works incredibly well- I’m not just deliberately ignoring the childhood lessons my mom taught me!
I also learned that only a very small fraction of the finds we make in the field are actually saved, and even fewer are catalogued (recorded by the location they were found in, or provenience, and the artifact’s type/period). The Agora excavations have been going on for over 50 years, so although we are constantly finding more artifacts, the only pieces worth saving are those which are especially interesting or those that can teach us something new about the area in which they were found. For example, in the last 2 weeks, I’ve discovered a small bucket’s worth of pot sherds (probably about 70 pieces of various shapes and sizes), and of those 70-ish pieces, less than 10 will be saved and maybe only one of them will be catalogued. Needless to say, it’s a bit heartbreaking to watch the supervisors go through the finds and decide what’s worth keeping and what is not.
One of the most exciting finds I made this week (the one find that might be catalogued) was a small red figure* pot sherd depicting the profile of a young man! Due to the dirt, I couldn’t tell at first what the picture was of so I brought it up to my supervisor, Marcie, who cleaned it off and revealed the youth’s face. I have to admit that I shed a few tears of joy over this find. In BZ, this is the first piece of red figure pottery we’ve found- all of the other pieces have depicted black figure imagery. This was a significant find because red figure pottery is thought to be more recent than black figure, so we can now date the walls of the room in which I was digging according to the time period of the red figure sherd! Unfortunately, I’ve learned that the Greek government would prefer if the diggers would refrain from posting close up pictures of our finds on public internet sites, so I can’t post the red figure profile on my blog. If you’re interested, however, shoot me a note and I can e-mail the picture to you personally.
*Red figure pottery basically means that the original vase would have been coated in black paint except for the pictures on the outside, which would have been etched into the black paint and thus remained a reddish color like the clay of the pot. Correspondingly, black figure pottery means that the original vase would have been the terracotta color of the clay and the figures would have been drawn on with black paint. Red figure pottery is typically thought to be “newer” than black figure- red figure is said to have been invented around 525 BC, and black figure around 625 BC.
This week I also learned of many “weekly digger traditions”. For example, Tuesdays after work the diggers go to the James Joyce Pub and order bowls and bowls of homemade mashed potatoes and then head home to prepare a dish for the newly instituted Tuesday pot luck dinner, Thursdays are when each trench crew comes together to hang out before pizza a Professor Camp’s, Fridays are when diggers usually go out for dinner together to celebrate pay day and to treat themselves after a week’s hard work, etc. These traditions and the time spent together in the trench and after work have been great sources of community for all of us and through them I’ve gotten to know many more wonderful people! I speak for many of us when I say that the friendships formed on the dig are the type that last for a lifetime.
Another lesson I learned this week was rather disheartening. On Saturday a large group of diggers took a ferry to a nearby island called Aegina. Our plan was to rent scooters and drive around the coast to visit the Temple to Aphaia and the beautiful beaches the island boasts. Those of you who know of my love for scooters will understand my excitement about the weekend’s prospects. When we arrived at Aegina, we turned over our licenses, paid for our scooters, and put on our helmets to take off. Soon, however, the Greek scooter dealer discovered that none of us had driven a 2-wheeled vehicle before, and he wouldn’t let us take the scooters! He wouldn’t even give us a lesson on how to drive them and he actually made us take ATV’s instead because he said we’d all kill ourselves for sure if we even attempted to sit on a scooter. We may have believed him except for the fact that some other diggers (who had also never driven scooters before) arrived at Aegina an hour later and they were allowed to rent scooters from a different dealer, despite their identical lack of scooter experience! Now, more than ever, I am resolved to drive a scooter before I leave Greece. Despite the scooter fiasco, our day on Aegina was a fantastic time. The ATV’s were good fun, the beach was restful and quiet, and the Temple to Aphaia was, of course, both awesome and beautiful. It’s great to be surrounded by people who appreciate and understand the history of this place and yet can also appreciate the natural and cultural beauty that Greece has to offer.
Today was a restful day and a few of us spent the majority of the afternoon at the National Archaeological Museum of Athens on the pot floor. I don’t think I could ever tire of looking at the pots of antiquity- they have so many stories to tell! I’ve really enjoyed being surrounded on all sides by museums (all of which the excavators have free entry to-thanks to the American School). I’m especially excited to check out the new Acropolis Museum in the next few weeks. The whole city has been buzzing lately about the grand opening because it has been several years in the making.
Tomorrow I’ll start working in a new trench, beta theta, which is one of the newest areas that’s been opened for excavation in the Agora. From what I’ve heard about this area, I’ll be doing a good deal of “dirt moving” and digging in Byzantine levels for the next 2 weeks. We’ll see what turns up during this rotation! I’m excited to be in a new area, although I will really miss my old trench and the diggers I have been working with thus far. But every day I’m learning something new, and I can only learn more by working in a new trench with new people.
This second week has passed so quickly! I spent most of my time in BZ (the same trench I was in during the first week), and I enjoyed my second week there as much as I enjoyed the first. Now that I feel more confident in my abilities as an excavator (and now that my muscles are starting to get used to all the squatting), I’ve been able to relax and really enjoy digging- although I’m not sure if I’ll ever get used to waking up at 5:30 am! During this week, I’ve continued to learn about the art of archaeology and some of the little tricks that accompany the trade. For example, on Monday I presented a fellow digger with yet another artifact and asked her to help me discern whether it was a red rock or a piece of pottery. “Why don’t you just lick it and find out yourself?” was her response. I thought she was kidding until she explained that because pottery is porous, it will stick to your tongue when licked, whereas rocks are not porous so they’ll slide right off! Ever since that conversation I seem to be continually sticking dirty artifacts in my mouth. It works incredibly well- I’m not just deliberately ignoring the childhood lessons my mom taught me!
I also learned that only a very small fraction of the finds we make in the field are actually saved, and even fewer are catalogued (recorded by the location they were found in, or provenience, and the artifact’s type/period). The Agora excavations have been going on for over 50 years, so although we are constantly finding more artifacts, the only pieces worth saving are those which are especially interesting or those that can teach us something new about the area in which they were found. For example, in the last 2 weeks, I’ve discovered a small bucket’s worth of pot sherds (probably about 70 pieces of various shapes and sizes), and of those 70-ish pieces, less than 10 will be saved and maybe only one of them will be catalogued. Needless to say, it’s a bit heartbreaking to watch the supervisors go through the finds and decide what’s worth keeping and what is not.
One of the most exciting finds I made this week (the one find that might be catalogued) was a small red figure* pot sherd depicting the profile of a young man! Due to the dirt, I couldn’t tell at first what the picture was of so I brought it up to my supervisor, Marcie, who cleaned it off and revealed the youth’s face. I have to admit that I shed a few tears of joy over this find. In BZ, this is the first piece of red figure pottery we’ve found- all of the other pieces have depicted black figure imagery. This was a significant find because red figure pottery is thought to be more recent than black figure, so we can now date the walls of the room in which I was digging according to the time period of the red figure sherd! Unfortunately, I’ve learned that the Greek government would prefer if the diggers would refrain from posting close up pictures of our finds on public internet sites, so I can’t post the red figure profile on my blog. If you’re interested, however, shoot me a note and I can e-mail the picture to you personally.
*Red figure pottery basically means that the original vase would have been coated in black paint except for the pictures on the outside, which would have been etched into the black paint and thus remained a reddish color like the clay of the pot. Correspondingly, black figure pottery means that the original vase would have been the terracotta color of the clay and the figures would have been drawn on with black paint. Red figure pottery is typically thought to be “newer” than black figure- red figure is said to have been invented around 525 BC, and black figure around 625 BC.
This week I also learned of many “weekly digger traditions”. For example, Tuesdays after work the diggers go to the James Joyce Pub and order bowls and bowls of homemade mashed potatoes and then head home to prepare a dish for the newly instituted Tuesday pot luck dinner, Thursdays are when each trench crew comes together to hang out before pizza a Professor Camp’s, Fridays are when diggers usually go out for dinner together to celebrate pay day and to treat themselves after a week’s hard work, etc. These traditions and the time spent together in the trench and after work have been great sources of community for all of us and through them I’ve gotten to know many more wonderful people! I speak for many of us when I say that the friendships formed on the dig are the type that last for a lifetime.
Another lesson I learned this week was rather disheartening. On Saturday a large group of diggers took a ferry to a nearby island called Aegina. Our plan was to rent scooters and drive around the coast to visit the Temple to Aphaia and the beautiful beaches the island boasts. Those of you who know of my love for scooters will understand my excitement about the weekend’s prospects. When we arrived at Aegina, we turned over our licenses, paid for our scooters, and put on our helmets to take off. Soon, however, the Greek scooter dealer discovered that none of us had driven a 2-wheeled vehicle before, and he wouldn’t let us take the scooters! He wouldn’t even give us a lesson on how to drive them and he actually made us take ATV’s instead because he said we’d all kill ourselves for sure if we even attempted to sit on a scooter. We may have believed him except for the fact that some other diggers (who had also never driven scooters before) arrived at Aegina an hour later and they were allowed to rent scooters from a different dealer, despite their identical lack of scooter experience! Now, more than ever, I am resolved to drive a scooter before I leave Greece. Despite the scooter fiasco, our day on Aegina was a fantastic time. The ATV’s were good fun, the beach was restful and quiet, and the Temple to Aphaia was, of course, both awesome and beautiful. It’s great to be surrounded by people who appreciate and understand the history of this place and yet can also appreciate the natural and cultural beauty that Greece has to offer.
Today was a restful day and a few of us spent the majority of the afternoon at the National Archaeological Museum of Athens on the pot floor. I don’t think I could ever tire of looking at the pots of antiquity- they have so many stories to tell! I’ve really enjoyed being surrounded on all sides by museums (all of which the excavators have free entry to-thanks to the American School). I’m especially excited to check out the new Acropolis Museum in the next few weeks. The whole city has been buzzing lately about the grand opening because it has been several years in the making.
Tomorrow I’ll start working in a new trench, beta theta, which is one of the newest areas that’s been opened for excavation in the Agora. From what I’ve heard about this area, I’ll be doing a good deal of “dirt moving” and digging in Byzantine levels for the next 2 weeks. We’ll see what turns up during this rotation! I’m excited to be in a new area, although I will really miss my old trench and the diggers I have been working with thus far. But every day I’m learning something new, and I can only learn more by working in a new trench with new people.
Is the new Acropolis Museum the one that we went to, but completed?
ReplyDeleteHey Michelle! I just got your email (I never check my Cord one anymore) and I'm super excited to read all of your blog (how new media of you!).
ReplyDeleteMuch Love,
Boosh.