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!

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!

Cold and Hot

This is what I put on every morning (minus socks and under-garments). In case you can't tell, that's long pants, a head bandana, thick scarf, tank top, work shirt, long-sleeved t-shirt, fleece, sunglasses and 90+ and 85+ SPF sunscreen. It's kind of funny how I can put on so many layers, still be cold, AND need such high sun protection.

- Wacky Wardrobe Wearer

Way Up High

Today we went somewhere I never thought would be possible. Shall I give you a hint?

No, no, we didn't go to Edfu temple (well, we did, but we go there every day). We went up. Up onto the top of the pylon (what you see in the picture above). That's right: we climbed 237 guano-covered steps (oh yes, I counted) with very little light and stood on top of the pylon. The view was incredible.

This is looking into the first courtyard. If I looked the other way, you'd see where I was standing to take the above photo. The city is in the background.

Above is the tell where we work. The mats laid out there just to the right of center hold all of Tasha's pottery sherds. If you look down in the very bottom right, you can see things that look like brown solar panels- those are the little covered benches we draw under.

I wish I could post all of my photos- the view of Edfu and the temple and all of the tell that we're working on were so cool. On all of my adventures, I keep wishing Dan were with me. He would have loved being up there and a part of it was a little bittersweet. That being said, I'll still get up there again if I ever have another chance. :)

- Pylon Climber

It's All Fun and Games

I’ve said a few times that I’m having fun here. Perhaps I should clarify: I have fun in the house; on site, it is all work and no play. For instance, today, I by no means turned my calipers into a Calipersaurus Rex. My Capilersaurus surely did not have another Calipersaurus available to play with. I did not giggle every time I went to measure a sherd today. And I certainly did not have permission to do these things from Tasha, whose calipers are definitely not the previously mentioned Calipersaurus Rex friend. That would be completely silly and way too much fun for site. We are serious ceramicists here, thank you!

Mine is the one eating the sherd.

In other news, we’ll be taking a quick trip to El Kab tomorrow to see the tombs there. There’s a very famous one (Ahmose, son of Ibana) that I’m really excited to see. On Thursday we’ll be finishing early so that we can head to Luxor for Chicago House’s annual Thanksgiving dinner, which they’ve very graciously invited us to. Should be a fun next few days!

- Calipersaurus Rex Maker

Double Post Day!

Here's a better view of the Old Kingdom part of the tell from above. The New Kingdom silo area is to the right in the picture, and where Susan and I are working is just past the bottom of the picture (if the photographer had looked down, he would have seen our heads).

Here's a slightly better over-all view of the Old Kingdom area Susan and I are working on. My demolition layer is just to Susan's left, and she's working on the door:

- Site Explainer

Time to Start Drawing

I finished my little area today. Wanna see? The left side will get excavated at some later date by someone else.

Notice the little ledge on the right? That's probably a shoring-up of the bottom of the wall in ancient times when it started to bow.

 That little pot sticking out there came out eventually. I found lots of good things. Here are the best:

The top thing is a 6th Dynasty bread mould. The bottom left is a 5th Dynasty bowl, and the rim of the right one is a 4th dynasty bowl. So, you know, solidly Old Kingdom.

After I got done excavating, I had to start drawing the profile of the area that's not yet excavated (so not the nice flat wall in the back, but instead against the area that will be excavated later).

Don't I look studious? This wasn't a staged photo at all.

This is what my profile looks like so far:

That's pretty much all I have to say today. I found some things, now I'm drawing. I'll finish up tomorrow and then we'll head to Luxor. Next week it'll be back to pottery drawing.

- Rasama (remember your Arabic? It means "drawer")

More Crazy Food!

So glad you all liked my post of the pigeon! I swear I'll have a true food one coming later, but to whet your appetites, let's talk about what I had for dinner last night. We had bolti-fish! In fact, we had whole bolti-fish, heads on and everything. It had been battered, so you couldn't see much, but it was for sure looking at you. The cook had stuffed it with some nice herbs and it has the flakiness of tilapia. I was even super adventurous- Nadine said that the best part of the fish was actually the cheek. No one else braved digging through the fish head for this little piece of meat, but where else am I going to get fish cheek from a fish caught not more than 500 ft. away only hours earlier? Before I found the cheek, though, I did discover the eyeball. I wasn't quite *that* adventurous (though the Food Network tells me they are delicious). No idea what's on tap for tonight, but I'm guessing we'll go back to chicken or beef.

Last night I went up to the roof to read and found one of our men sitting there. Houses in Egypt are left unfinished for two reasons: you don't pay taxes if your house isn't done, and you are only allowed to build up, not out. So the roofs are typically quite nice and can be walked/sat on. Anyway, I was telling Ahmed that I'm trying to learn Arabic and so he started teaching me some more words. I can now add clothesline, clothespin, flip-flop, bench, and mat to my list of useless words I know. I can also say, "I draw pottery" and "I'm crazy"- both are true and both come in handy fairly often. The guys get a big kick out of me trying to learn Arabic b/c I get very excited when I remember a word and tend to yell it out. They probably wonder why I'm always yelling "mosquito" and "teddy bear". We're headed to Luxor this weekend and I won't get a chance to physically blog daily, so I've got a few things read to post, one of which is a list of words that I know in Arabic. So stay tuned.

- Eater of all the foodstuffs

PS. I told you yesterday that I'd try to post some pictures of the tell site. I try not to lie:

Looking up from where we draw pottery in the open-air museum. Those little roofs you see are probably 8 ft high.

Looking at the temple from the top of the tell. Hello, little people.

PPS. I can actually say 'I'm a crazy cat lady', too. Since we daily feed the 3 temple cats and 1 likes to come over and cuddle in the afternoon, most of the men think we are, in fact, crazy cat ladies.

Pot Sherds and Bat Poop

Remember how I said Thursday was awesome? Well today was DOUBLY awesome! I spent the morning sorting pottery with Tasha. That was just kind of so-so, since I don’t really know what I’m doing and I feel kind of useless putting things into piles only to have her completely re-do them.

We had THREE cats this morning and the mom, Patches, was soooooo cuddly because she wanted way more food than I was willing to give her. I got to pet Kiri, the same cat I saw last year, but she gave up on getting another handful of food much sooner than her greedy momma. Another one of last year’s kittens came for food, but he was very skittish and only stuck around long enough to get his food. Oh, you’d like to see pictures of them? Well, I was going to do a whole post on them (and still probably will...several times), but here’s a sneak preview:

Pretty Kiri

Patches (she reminds me of Koda)

After second breakfast, Greg and Nadine took me to a part of the site that is on the complete other side of the tell. It’s a bakery installation and has tons and tons of bread moulds! I have a really awesome idea for a dissertation, it’s just going to mean a few more years of coming to Edfu, and maybe spending a week or two on another dig to look at their stuff. I’m really excited, but I need to talk to Dan to see how feasible something this big is going to be for our marriage...

Once I got done drooling over all the fun bread things, Tasha, Susan, Nadine and I braved the pylon to get some of our old pottery from pervious years. A pylon is kind of the huge entrance gate of the temple. When you google Egyptian temples, it’s pretty much that huge trapezoid that forms the front of the temple. There were tons of boxes in a hot, tiny room full of bat poop (though the bats that produced the poop were very adorable). We thought the boxes would have been stacked in a certain order, but it turns out that of the 150ish boxes in the room, the ones we needed were in the back corner, behind and order all of the others. Needless to say, it took a bit to get what we needed. Oh, and did I mention there was no light, so we were all holding up our cell phones to be able to see? I’ve pretty much decided that I like getting dirty when it’s not super hot and humid outside.

I spent the rest of the workday drawing a few sherds that Tasha wanted done. They were actually pretty good and I only had to re-do one of them when Tasha said it didn’t look quite right. See? I’m working hard!

It took even me a minute to realize who this was.

I’ll spend this afternoon reading, then it’s dinner time, bed, and up at 5am to do it all again tomorrow. Sunday-Thursday Tasha has permission to stay until 4 instead of the normal 1:30. I’ll probably stay with her most days, so posts might end up later.

- Bat poop Treader

PS. I’m learning quite a bit of Arabic, but unfortunately the only words I can remember are stupid ones: mosquito, teddy bear, cat, and okay.

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...

My first day on site

I visited the site for the first time today, and while there are so many things I saw and did, the most pressing thing on my mind is a (slightly modified) lyric from Simon and Garfunkle:

“Hello insomnia, my old friend. You’ve come to bother me again.”

Last night after running a few errands and having dinner, we all climbed into bed around 9:30. I wish I could say I then promptly fell asleep, only to be awoken by my 5am alarm. But alas. 11- still awake. 12:45- still awake. 1:10- still awake. I finally took a sleeping pill then, but I still saw 3:30am on my alarm clock before falling asleep only to have the call to prayer wake me at 4 something. Then it was up to be on site at 6am.

The site is really cool and Nadine gave us a tour today. There are several levels and layers that they are excavating and I got to see where everything was located, including some of the things I’d read in the old French report.

After the site tour, we had our “second breakfast”, which is local sandwiches. I’ll write a post about the food once I get a little more in me. Then, while everyone else was getting set up, Lindsey, Susan and I headed for the temple that is literally steps away since Susan has never been to Egypt before.

Since it was only the first day and not everything was ready to go, we ended early and were home by 1pm. Lunch was next on the list.

I’m currently writing while waiting for my turn in the shower, then it is nap time! I don’t think I’ve ever so looked forward to taking a nap. A long day in the sun on 1.5hrs of sleep weakens even those with high stamina.

This is probably the time I’ll be able to write every day, though once we get to drawing, I’ll move from a play-by-play of my day and into more topical posts. So stayed tuned, there’s much to come.

- Sleepy kitty, over and out.

PS. Remember how I said Friday and Saturday were weekend days? I lied. It’s only Friday that we get off. Hurray 6-day workweeks.

PPS. We’re still working on the internet situation. For now, Nadine has a USB stick that connects to internet via the cell-phone network. It works ok, but everyone is sharing it and since we don’t want our computers to fry, we run off of battery. This means I can’t just pop on the internet any time I want, because it involves getting the stick and starting up my computer. We’re working on it. J