And We're Done

Well, today was our last day on site. We packed up the last of the pottery and shoved all 90 new boxes into the pylon. It actually went really quickly: Nadine and 2 of the guys raced each other for who could load the wheelbarrows faster; then they brought them to me at the base of the pylon, where I lined them up for Ahmed (who constantly commented on how strong I was and would run down the bat-poo-covered steps to take the boxes from me); then they went into the pylon where Lindsey and 2 more guys fought the bats to put all the boxes in numerical order for next season. A few trips to our storehouse to pack up the tables, chairs, and sunshades and we were finished! This is looking down on all the boxes that we packed today:

I’ve been wanting this next picture for a while. This is what 90 guys can do in 4 weeks. My head was where the ground-level was when we arrived, and I’m standing on the new “floor”. The whole area is probably half a football field or so. Impressive.

Finally, here’s the site that greeted me this morning: my last dawn at the temple. It’s kind of sad knowing we’re leaving, but you have no idea how much I want to see my husband and a giant pizza. 

Now we’re packing up the house and getting things ready for leaving tomorrow. Tonight we’ll have a huge party with our remaining workmen and the inspectors. It should be a lot of fun and chef is making way too much meat, but we’re all tired and hoping it will be a fast party.

Since we’ll be going to Luxor tomorrow, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to blog Thursday and Friday, but I have a special post for Saturday. So the next time some of you hear from me, it will probably be in person! I’ve got to say, though, knowing how cold it is here at 60 degrees, I’m not looking forward to the 15 degrees and 5 inches of snow that apparently awaits me in Minnesota...

- Pylon Packer

PS. If all goes according to plan, next year's season could be really interesting for me. Stay tuned! I might have some completely different things to talk about next year :) Insha'allah!

So. Many. Sherds.

Today was our last day of drawing! Tomorrow we'll finish closing up the boxes, then shove all 209+ of them into the pylon. Are you ready for the grand total? How about a whopping 444?! And of those 385 were draw by yours truly :) That's pretty darn impressive, if I do say so myself! That only averages out to about 11 sherds a day, but when you factor in that on some of those days I do things other than draw, 11 is a pretty good number.

Only a few more days until I'm home! After packing up the pylon tomorrow, we'll start packing up the house and we'll be in Luxor by early afternoon (at the latest) on Thursday! Then it's some well-deserved rest, hot showers, and good food for us worker bees before a loooong flight home.

- Fastest rasama in Egypt

PS. Unfortunately, this means there are 444 new scans to ink when we get back to the states- ick.

The Real Final Countdown

I can add anything thing to my count- Number of Arabic words I know: 126 (and growing). Also, since we are speed demons, Tasha added a few more sherds for us to draw, which means we have 10 left.

Today we boxed like crazy people. Our awesome worker Ahmed was on hand to help us tie up the boxes. We're at almost 200 boxes of pottery (we've only boxed about half that number this year). So yeah, there's some pottery in that there tell.

Sorry this is such a lame post, but I'm running out of things to talk about! I can't wait to come home and upload all of my pictures for you all, but that day is not today. Instead, how about a really gross picture. I'm warning you, it's not pretty. Look away now if you're squeamish. Everyone good? Okay. This is our fan right above the fridge. I wish I could say that it was only this fan that looked like this, and I wish I could say this was a particularly heavy day. In fact, it's all the fans and this is a particularly LIGHT day.

Yeah, those are flies. And nothing kills them.

 How about we wash that down with an adorable kitten in a libation basin?

Much better.

- Fly Hater, Kitten Lover

Pyramids and Christmas Music

Today we got to go see the Edfu pyramid that Greg and Hratch are working on. Like I told you yesterday, I can’t really give you any details on it, but I think I’m ok showing you this photo! Those are the girls, standing atop the pyramid (I promise we are). From left to right we have Kat, Tasha, me, and Lindsey.

After the pyramid visit it was back to drawing. We’re frantically trying to finish because, oh, hey, we’re in the final week! Today was our last “Monday”, which I don’t think anyone is complaining about, but everything has to be packed up to be put away by Wednesday morning at 11, so we’re busy little bees. I wouldn’t be surprised if I’ve done over 500 sherds at this point.

Tomorrow, our friends from Chicago House are coming to site to visit us. After they see everything, our cook is planning on a big feast to make their chef jealous (it’s apparently a big rivalry and we reap the benefits!).

- Pyramid Lover

PS. The girls laughed at me today because I had Christmas music on my ipod. Um, hello, it’s December! Also, I’m of the crazy opinion that CHRISTmas music should be somewhat religious, so I usually hate listening to Christmas music on the radio. By Christmas I’m so sick of hearing “Jingle Bells” and “Frosty” and crap like that on commercials, that I usually just end up dreading the season. Having my own music is much more pleasant!

PPS. Here’s a picture from our trip yesterday. That’s our inspector, Osama, on the left, and Hratch (my old Egyptian professor) with the beard on the right).

One Week Left

Since we officially end excavation next Thursday, the end of today marks one week left (and slightly less for us, since we have to pack up the pottery next Wednesday). The mood in the house has shifted a bit with us dropping to just one week left: everyone seems a little anxious. Some are anxious about the amount of stuff that has to get done, while others of us are anxious to go home to civilization.

Aurelie, our excavator from Switzerland left yesterday and Valerie, the Old Kingdom ceramicist from France (though she’s currently living in Cairo) leaves tomorrow. One by one, our numbers are dwindling. It does mean more room at the dining table and more hot water in the shower, but it’s kind of sad to think that the season is almost over and I’ll soon have to return to real life responsibilities (like re-learning the language phase I’m supposed to be teaching next quarter). But going home does mean Christmas, Dan, kitties, and pizza (which shall be my first "home" meal).

Since we’re getting so close, today Lindsey and I started packing the pottery into boxes. There is a TON of pottery, so it’s going to take us a while. We’re doing little bits every morning when it’s too cold to draw. Packing up really isn’t a hard task, though the fact that the feral dogs on the tell like to pee on our bags makes the going sometimes not so fun. Otherwise, things progress normally.

- Countdowner

PS. Friday we're going to Hierakonpolis with our inspector, so I hope to have a late post with some pictures!

I'm Gonna Be Famous!

Tasha and Nadine are working on a really big article (and it will kind of change the history of the late Middle Kingdom and early Second Intermediate Period as we know it). So yeah, it's a big deal. There's a ton of pottery that need's to be drawn so that Tasha can pick what she wants to put into the entire plate she's getting for the article. She's letting me draw most of it, so (at least) one of my drawings will be published! Sure, she's going over everything with a fine-toothes comb and changing anything that she doesn't like even a little bit, but she hasn't kicked me off the sherds yet, so I must be doing at least something right.

Also, I know I have to be getting better, because when I started drawing this summer, even I knew my fingerprint drawings looked abysmal. And today, she didn't even change my prints at all (on one pot). Want to see?

A little fuzzy and light, but those upside-tree-things on the left are fingerprints.

I'll try to let you all know when the article comes out. They are preparing things for publication, so hopefully soon?

- Rasama-mama (as Tasha calls me)

Wind, Wind, Go Away

The biggest enemy to a rasama is not the blinding sun; it’s not the cold temperatures that freeze your fingers; it’s not the adorable kitten distractions. No, because you see, there’s always shade somewhere, you can throw on another layer of clothes, and what can be bad about kitten distractions?

No, the greatest enemy is, in fact, the wind. The damn wind gets under your papers, no matter how many things you have holding it down; it flings pottery sherds off of your table; it blows sand and dirt into your eyes. And there’s nothing that can be done about it but to go home! Going behind the little wall we have only creates dust devils. Twice last week, we’ve wanted to stay late, but couldn’t because the wind got too bad. While it normally doesn’t pick up until about noon, today it started almost immediately on getting on site. And dealing with that for 8 hours is a nightmare, let me tell you.

- Wind hater

Extreme Puzzling

Yesterday I gave you a peek of what Uhu glue can do (yes, Ellie, the same stuff you have lying around your house). Today, I got to use it ALL DAY! Lindsey and I got to sit all day with a bunch of sherds and see if anything could go together. Want to see some of what we ended up with?

This is Lindsey with her pot. There's actually one side that I was working on separately, then I looked at her pot and realized I was actually working on the other half. The colors looked completely different.

While I wasn't able to get the whole profile of a pot like she did, I made up for it by going bananas on not 1, not 2, but 3 pots! The one I'm holding in my right hand is the one I'm most proud of.

These were the prettiest things we were able to make, but we found several more joins between 2 or 3 pieces. All of the pots are 18th Dynasty beer jars, which were really crappily made: the rims aren't very circular, there are the potter's fingerprints all over the place, they have a ton of chaff in them, and don't even think about surface decoration. Unfortunately, while the Uhu is a good strong glue, it's not really made for the super porous surfaces that are these beer jars and we usually had to put on 2 or 3 layers of glue before the sherds would stick together. And now that they are beautiful, I'm sure I'm going to have to draw them.

In other news, today was the last day of excavation. Oh, don't worry, I'm not coming home any time soon, we still have 3 weeks of work left! But today was the last day that we are hiring local men to dig in the Old Kingdom area. Starting Saturday, our guys from Luxor, Greg, Aurelie, and Nadine will move to the Old Kingdom Edfu pyramid to clean it and get it protected so they can really excavate next season. Even though we'll have Lindsey joining us to draw, it's still going to be really quite with just Tasha, Lindsey, Valerie and myself on site every day drawing. We've got a lot to get through and not a whole lot of time, so we'll be staying late most days.

Since everyone is starting to feel the effects of little sleep and the temperature changing, we're all getting a little sick. Hopefully, my sore throat and runny nose are the worst of it, but we'll see. Tomorrow is our day off, so I'll get lots of rest and hopefully be recuperated by Saturday. Insha'allah.

- Puzzle solver and pot putter back togetherer

Sticky Situations

Sometimes they let me play with fun things, like glue. Which means I can make this:

look like this:

We use this fancy stuff:

It's made by the Germans, so you'd think they'd have a better designed bottle than one that doesn't allow any to come out when you need it, then starts to overflow all over the place without stopping. Either way, I do like gluing things together.

- Gluer

16 Tons And What Do You Get?

Oh my, today was long. I don’t mean that I was tired and we worked hard and so the day dragged on, I mean that today was long because Tasha and I stayed until 4 instead of our normal 1:30 (oh yes, a few Aleve are on tap for tonight). I got 18 drawings done today- not a record, but Tasha was pleasantly surprised when I gave her my final total. I took a picture of my first full page of drawings for you. It didn’t turn out very well since we do them in pencil, but oh well:

Since basically all I did today was draw, it was pretty boring. I did oversee something pretty cool, though. Have you ever watched one of those Discovery Channel shows where they try to figure out how the pyramids were built? Sure “lame-stream archaeology” will tell you that they used wooden rollers and ramps. But come on, those blocks are huge and there’s no way a human could do it (must be aliens!). To them I show this picture:

Yes, the blocks are about half the size of a lot of the Giza ones. Yes, they only moved about 10 today and a lot more would have had to be moved daily in ancient times. Yes, they were a little uncoordinated. But they prove the concept! Our guys were moving a bunch of blocks out of the way of the Old Kingdom area I’ll hopefully get to excavate. :)

- Crack-pot theory buster

PS. I got hurt today. Nothing serious, I just rammed my arm into a stake poking out of a wall. I have a nice red/purple/blue bruise now. Hopefully that’s the worst that happens this trip! Insha’Allah (“God willing”), as they say here.

Some pictures

After 10 minutes, I was able to get a few pictures loaded! You should be able to click to enlarge them. Here's "Tasha Town", where all of the pottery from the site is stored, ready to be drawn... by me. Looks like I have my work cut out for me...

Assignments and Permits

Molasses. Turtles. Snails. Dial-up internet. The SAC (the Egyptian department in charge of excavations). All of these things are synonyms for one thing: slow. We still do not have our permits for Egypt, which means we can't book plane tickets. Sure, you and I know that the longer we wait, the higher airfare gets, but does the Egyptian gov't care? Not so much.

So we wait. I want to add a countdown clock over on the right of time until I leave, but I have no leave date. So that waits, too. Dear Patience, won't you be my neighbor?

In other news, Greg (married to my advisor Nadine, he's sort of co-owner of this site) sent out the tentative plan for who is doing what when. I thought I'd be drawing Second Intermediate Period (SIP) pottery for 9 weeks. But I'm not! I'll be mostly working on SIP pottery, but after the first 3 weeks, I also get to dig! Hello shovel, this is Patience, care to make this a trio?

For those of you curious folk who have been keeping up with the Tel Edfu excavations (and really, who hasn't been?), we'll be working on 3, count 'em THREE areas this season (along with drawing pottery and cataloging small finds). We'll be finishing up the Middle Kingdom columned hall and silo area that had Nadine all aflutter on the Tel Edfu excavation page in previous seasons. There's also a First Intermediate Period (FIP- comes between the Old and Middle Kingdoms) enclosure wall that they want to clean. And finally, they want to start excavating the (super massive) Old Kingdom layers! I'm thrilled because I love me some Old Kingdom.

But wait! If you keep reading now, I'll double your order and throw in this free Old Kingdom pyramid cleaning! There's a small pyramid at South Edfu that Greg will be heading up at the end of the season. I won't be doing much (if anything) on that, but I might get to go see it. Did I mention I love the Old Kingdom?