There’s a lecture going on now, but I decided to blog instead. Let’s see, what fun things happened today? I’ve been reading Last Words by George Carlin, his sortabiography. I am almost done and it’s a very good read. It’s given me a lot of insight into George as a person and how that relates to his material. I think any true Carlin fan ought to give it a look.
I had a weird dream last night. Bob Mullens, our field archaeologist, was performing brain surgery on a patient who I knew but now can’t remember. Dan (my roommate) and I were assisting Bob, who for some reason had removed the patient’s entire head to perfroe the operation. We had removed the brain, which looked like raw chicken, and Bob was cutting it into pieces. In the meantime, Dan was perforating the edge of the piece skull we had cut off so the needle could get through it easier when we sewed it back together. Like I said, it was weird. The good news is, not major head injuries today.
Back in real life land, we began lowering the last little bit of balk we had sticking up in our F8 extension (the one I posted a picture of last time). The goal was to peel it back in layers to reveal the cobble surface that continued into the balk. It was important that we see where it ended so we could draw the whole thing, then rip it out and start moving down again.
So that’s what we did. Phil, Beth and I started hacking through the upper fill layers and quickly came upon the hard packed surface underneath. We came to the conclusion that the surface was probably not the cobbles themselves but rather a hard packed layer just above them. The stones acted merely as a foundation for the real floor. We didn’t sift any of the material above the floor, which I think might have been a mistake, but I understand there’s pressure to keep moving and sifting takes forever.
While the three of us were taking the balk section down, Sam and Ian were leveling the non-balk section of the F8 extension. This area is fill material, but it yields approximately a fuckton of potsherds (Word does not have “fuckton” in its dictionary). I think Sam and Ian pulled something like five buckets worth of pottery out in just one and a half passes, only about 15 cm. of dirt. There were a number of large pieces that may be reconstructable. We are toying with the idea that some whole or nearly whole vessels were tossed in to serve as fill because of the apparent completeness of the vessels in the fill, even though none was smashed in situ.
Yesterday, in the same general area that Sam and Ian were working in, I cleared a relatively small section and pulled out at least two buckets of pottery, maybe three, and much of it looked like it was potentially from the same couple of vessels. I just finished washing that bucket this afternoon. I went up to pottery washing early to make sure I got that bucket, because people are enticed by big pieces and those buckets go fast. I think they should enforce the rule that you have to wash your own pottery first, that way the people who pick up the little shit sherds have to wash them themselves. Our square tries to wash all out own pottery, so when I toss a dinky sherd in, I know either I’m gonna wash it or my teammate is. If you aren’t responsible for washing the sherd, there is less of an inclination to be selective about what you pick up. Also, I don’t trust these other clowns to clean my pottery well (except Eric, he’s a hero among mortals).
Something else I forgot to mention about yesterday is the terrible thing that has happened to my pinkies, and now on ring finger too.
I was picking up an overfilled sandbag full of rocks (they’re not supposed to be overfilled or have lots of rocks in them) that the squares next door made us. Thanks but no thanks. I wasn’t prepared for the bag to be to full and it slipped in my hands, causing the many sharp rocks in the bag to skive off the top layer of my pinkies. The damage to my ring finger is just wear and tear caused by the fact that I don’t like working in gloves. I almost got it from a scorpion today, too, but then I picked it up to toss it away and I think it was already dead. If it wasn’t, it was doing a very good impression.
We ended fifteen minutes early today because we needed to eat lunch fast. There was a large group coming in after us and so the hotel wanted us out of there ASAP so our smelly bodies wouldn’t offend them. Of course, someone forgot to tell the bus driver to come early, and indeed he in fact came late, so we were still eating when this other crowd walked in. Not a big deal, but they were older people dressed all nice and we were a bunch of filthy archaeologists covered in eight kinds of filth wearing the same clothes we have been for several days. I was amused.
Today also marks a very exciting time in a young archaeologists career: laundry day!
So we’re a little low on drying space. I am going to look into getting a clothesline or something. I am still soaking my dig clothes in really hot water and detergent to try and blast some of the dust out of them. I have no idea where I am going to end up hanging those, but the water is too hot still for me to touch them so I don’t have to worry for now.
That will be all for now. I am going to post this after dinner, but if you are reading this, I already have, so I feel like Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy might have a thing or two to say about how I construct my tenses.
How do get rid of counterfeit money: put it in the collection plate at church. -GC
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