Happy Thanksgiving!

I can't believe that I forgot to mention yesterday that our awesome guys (seriously, they are the best) find joins in the blocks that we missed! There are 5 more blocks total that now join- 2 for one pair and 3 for another. It's really excited and they were pretty happy to help out.

Today we finished the benches, too! Bench one is nicely laid out with lots of different kinds of blocks so that tourists can see what we have (can I use this time to point out that I got really, unreasonably, excited when the first tourists came over to look?). Benches 2-4 are set up with things squished together a little more, but everything is upright and in the correct orientation, and for the most part, all similar stuff is together (columns, Ptolemaic, offering tables, etc). Greg and Nadine have been gone the past two days, so they were pretty floored when they came back and saw everything I had done (I can't take all the credit- I had a little help from Kat now and then, especially with Arabic words I didn't know).

Doing my best "Barker's Beauties" impression in front of bench 1 to show off my finished (for this season) block yard! Heck yeah!

The other side of the walkway looks so empty without 350 blocks strewn about.

For all of you in America, you know that it's Thanksgiving! Happy Thanksgiving!! Typically, we'd be hopping a bus to Luxor around 2 and heading to Chicago House for dinner. But this year, Chicago House was invited to the governor's mansion and we can't blame them at all for canceling the dinner. So we're doing up Thanksgiving Edfu style! Since our guys love any excuse to have a party, last night we tried to explain typical Thanksgiving fare. They understood the mashed potatoes, though the concept of not putting meat and cheese and spices in them was odd to them. Chef was really excited about the prospect of stealing the turkey from next door for us, but we convinced him chicken would be fine. After much back and forth (2 of the kitchen guys speak almost no English and the 3rd was gone), we finally explained to them the concept of mashed sweet potatoes. In Arabic, "potatoes" is batatis. And "sweet potatoes" is batata. We didn't know the word for sweet potato though, so we kept saying, "It's like a potato, but red."To them, sweet potatoes are not actually potatoes, so they were having a huge problem figuring out what we were talking about. Yes, the words sound super similar, but for some reason, they didn't get it until suddenly a light-bulb went off in Said's head, he ran to the fridge, and came running back with a sweet potato! They were going to put it in dessert (I know, it's odd), so instead they saved it for tonight. Again, they were really confused why we wanted 2 kinds of bland puree veggies, but we assured them it would be ok. Greg even picked up some marshmallows while in Cairo yesterday so that Lindsey and I could teach the Frenchies the weirdness that is... whatever you call the sweet potato and marshmallow dish. No cranberries here in Egypt, but we're using cranberries as a substitute. So dinner tonight should be: chicken, mashed potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes, some other kind of veggie (b/c chef doesn't consider either of the starches a veggie), bread, and pomegranate. I have no idea what dessert will be, but I requested kunaffa. Not American, I know, but it's not like we're going to get pumpkin or pecan pie. I'll let you know tomorrow how it turned out.

Tomorrow is our day off, but it'll be busy with all the last-minute things. We have a team from Aswan coming to visit our site, so we'll go out in the morning and show them around. The lead lady is someone whose work I'll be using a lot in my dissertation, so it'll be nice to meet her. In the afternoon, we need to clean the house to prepare for our departure and start packing up some of the supplies. Plus, this will be the last time some of us will be together until next season, so Valerie and I need to sit down and discuss the pottery that came out of Lindsey's First Intermediate Period (she's doing the other pottery and I get the bread moulds. It's actually pretty exciting because we found some things that have HUGE possibilities for being really important, so that's really cool for my work).

So, the big thing I'm thankful for today is that we have such an awesome team... and that we get to leave soon. haha.

Block Yard Update

Exciting news on the block yard project! After several weeks, we're finally able to start putting the blocks onto the benches for conservation with the help of our amazingly strong guys. It's so exciting to see these things finally in their final resting places. Next year, the exposed brick with be covered and painted, but with only a few days left to the season, this is how they have to stay for now. Look how far the project has come:

The block yard when we arrived.

After we moved most of the blocks to the other side of the walkway for analysis and so the benches could be built.

Trenches being dug for bench foundations.

Bench foundations poured.

Then the layers of cement, bricks, tar, and sand.

Slowly, they start to look like benches!

A coat of lime paint gets added as a final barrier to water.

2 benches full of blocks. Don't they look good?

Next season, Jonathan and I will continue epigraphy, recording, and conservation of the blocks. As of right now, every block has a database entry, a high-quality photo, and measurements. By the end of next season, we hope that every block will also have a full database description (including transliterations and translations of texts) and epigraphic drawings.

Playing With Fire

Remember how I said yesterday was Valerie's birthday? Well, our kitchen guys love birthdays! They spent several hours in secret yesterday decorating where we eat:

And they got this very beautiful cake from the bakery. Take a minute to look at all the wonderfulness:

Yes, on top there are several different kinds of candied fruits, along with the candles that were inside the pumpkin, and pieces of chocolate in the shape of shooting stars, fans, and a guitar.

But decorations and cake weren't the only things we had. Oh, no! Our guys wanted this to be a TRUE celebration, so they found sparklers!

Valerie was a little confused by the sparklers (as were we all). We were even more confused when they started passing them out and lighting them. In the house. Over a plastic tablecloth...

I have to admit, the cake was pretty good. Nothing like we'd get in the US, but it was fairly moist and not overly sugary, so it wasn't half bad. They even got a vanilla AND chocolate cake this time- fancy!

Yes, I did get a fan and the guitar. :)

In other news, they finished the benches today (well, as finished as they are getting this year. The sides aren't fully covered in cement and painted, but we're running out of time, so that will happen next year.), which means we can start putting blocks up tomorrow. I suppose that means I should get off of the internet and figure out where they are actually going, huh?

Do The Wat-Wat Dance

I wish I had something to say, I really do. But I'm sure you all understand. Imagine writing a daily blog about YOUR job- it would get tough when you're really not doing anything! Once the benches are done (they are so close!) and we start putting things on them, I will have lots to say. But until then...

It's Valerie's birthday today, so there will be a cake! :)

Today Kat took all of the small objects to the magazine in El-Kab (about 45 mins away). It's a secure place where we store some of our smaller objects (like pieces of bone, tools, figurines, etc). After the director of the magazine looks at what we've found in a season, Kat packs everything up and takes it over to be stored. The director is allowed to choose pieces that then get registered with the SCA and go into their control (everything else just goes into a big room that we control). Usually, it's the really nice objects. Nadine has to go and write all of these registered objects in a big ledger. While I have never seen it, I'm told it's about the size of a desk, with hand-written notes from many, many excavators over the season. Unfortunately, our pottery is not special enough to go in the magazine, so it gets stored in the pylon with the wat-wat (bats). I don't mind the bats, it's the guano that can be nasty. On Sunday, we'll move all the boxes of pottery that we've taken out of the pylon back in to wait for us until next season.

Lindsey (in blue), Aaron (in green), and on of our workers Ahmed wait for the bats to clear from one of the pylon rooms at the beginning of the season. There are little shafts in each of the pylon rooms that originally let in fresh air and some light. The bats escape that way mainly, but occasionally, one will fly into your face from the main door, which is why they are all crouching. I believe this photo was taken right before one smacked Aaron.

Long Day

Nothing exciting to report today. I struggled through a couple of tough pots this morning, so after lunch, I went and did a few more stats on moulds that came out of Lindsey's area during yesterday's last day of excavation.

The benches are starting to look really good and they are covering them with a last layer of tar, some concrete, and then a layer of white paint with lime in it to help stop the water from getting at the blocks.

Sorry this is a short post, but after not sleeping well last night, the 10 hour shift really wore me out and I need some mental power for the work I still need to do this afternoon. We're in the mad final rush, so everyone is cramming as much as possible into the days. It's crazy around here.

OH! We figured out that the kitten is going to be fine. She actually lives with a guy who works on site. He lets us take her to stay with us during the day, but only on the condition that we bring her back to him in the afternoon. So everyone who was worried, she's going to be fine! :)

Pots and Breadsticks

It looks like we'll be cutting this block yard project VERY close. The guys are finishing up the benches, so they'll be done probably tomorrow. But then they need to dry for a few days. So starting on Thursday, we will be frantically throwing (nicely) blocks onto benches. Yes, Thursday is a short day, yes that means we only really then have Saturday and Sunday morning to finish up, but WE CAN DO IT!

Tasha was sick and had to stay home today, so it was just me and the pots for the most part! I was glad I brought my iPod for a little company. But the lack of distractions meant I drew about a million pots today (give or take a few). Ok, so maybe it was more like 25, but that's still really good for a day's work. I even got to draw a bread mould after lunch. The best part was that I got these bread-stick like thing in my picnic and was munching on one while I drew. It seemed so fitting that Nadine took a photo:

Now if only I had some spaghetti...

Update On The Crazy

It's Friday, which means 3 things: 1) a day off from site, 2) sleeping in, and 3) talking to Dan. I got up around 6:15 and took my computer outside to chat with Dan (well, I was outside for all of 15 minutes before my computer decided that even though it was 100% full of battery when I started my chat, it needed to be at 19% after 15 minutes... yeah, guess who is going to need a new computer for Christmas...). Side note, can I tell you how awesome my husband is? Sure, you read that I lost 30 pounds this summer, but he's down almost 75! In 7 months! And he's keeping it off, even with me being gone (we're not going to talk about what all the potatoes, carbs, french fries, and salt are doing to my waistline, but I don't really have a choice). He rocks. So anyway, after our chat, the girls and I made some breakfast, talked for a while over tea, then headed upstairs to tackle FileMaker.

I read the manual front to back and it's pretty much written for total idiots who have a degree in database design (I'm not saying those go together, I'm saying those were the criteria this manual assumed you fit). So it told me all about the fact that I could create tables and layouts and manage them and, oh! aren't you going to have so much fun relating fields? But it never told me the difference between tables and layouts, why I might want one over the other, or how to actually relate 2 fields. In other words, it taught me everything I already knew and nothing complex.

The only thing I got out of the whole thing was that I can relate fields. With that knowledge, I was able to at least answer one of my big issues: linking entries. So now I can have a sheet with all the basic data about an excavation layer, put all the pots I've numbered on that sheet, and when I click on a little button next to the number, it takes me to a whole new layout that will give me more detailed information about that specific pot. So that's cool. I'm sure there was an easier way to do it than sitting there and creating relations for all 30 fields and then creating link buttons, but whatever. It works, I know how to use it, and that's good enough for me.

There are still a few more things we need to figure out, like the silly portal thing (insert numerous Valve jokes here). I also need to figure out how to make certain fields auto-fill based on what I put into other fields. But for the most part, I have a working database. Granted, I thought that last time, too. The nice thing is that Tasha and Kat are building theirs right alongside me, so we can bounce ideas off of each other. We have a lot of the same issues, so it's nice to hear a cheer come from the other room because you know that means good things for everyone.

That's basically what I spent my day doing. Once I write this post, I've told myself I'm not allowed to look at the database again (7 hours is plenty for today). I'm going to read more of book #12 before dinner.

Tomorrow starts our last full week on site! There's a lot left to do and I'm frantically trying to help Tasha get more pots drawn for her dissertation. I'm just doing stats on my bread moulds this year- I'll actually start drawing my own stuff next year. Gotta be a team player first, especially since Tasha has been so great about teaching me all about pottery, giving me resources, letting me have access to all the bread moulds from her dissertation research, and getting me into the whole thing in the first place. So yeah, we'll work Saturday- Thursday, get Friday off, start packing up boxes of pottery on Saturday, then throw those boxes into the pylon and hit the road to Luxor to catch our flight to Cairo on Sunday. It feels so far away, but we're getting really close. Hurray!

That's all for now. Sorry if next week's posts are a little dull, but as you can see, it's kind of same-ol'-same-ol'. Once I get to Cairo, I'll have a LOT of fun things to talk about, promise! :)