Archaeology!

So this week ended a lot better than the past few weeks have ended. To start off on Wednesday, I received an email that made me borderline happy and wanting to kick anyone that came within a five mile radius of me. It was an email from the AUC Lost & Found saying that they had my wallet. After three weeks... They had my wallet. Furious, I left the library after my work for my next class was complete and marched across campus, out the gate, and up to the lost and found to find no one in the booth. I was fuming as I turned around, prepared to walk to Zionism & Modern Judaism, and then ran into Amal and Nancy from ISA, who had been helping me through the entire painstaking process of getting my debit cards back in order. They were happy and chipper, as there was a lecture ISA was putting on for something or other and they kept trying to rope me into it; I declined and told them what had just happened.

"Latlatlatlatlatlatlat!" was Amal's response. (Lat means "no" in Egyptian Arabic)

"Yeah!" I responded and then relayed the story of how no one was at the booth and I planned on going back later and demanding to know how long it had been there. And I did, I tried. They wouldn't tell me, but I tried. Angry and fuming, I bought myself an ice cream from the McDonald's on campus (I figured I deserved it, as is my excuse for most things now) and vowed to never let my wallet go out of my sight ever, ever again.

Thursday came and went with more stress in the morning because my new debit card should've arrived Monday, and it did not. After many failed attempts at communicating properly with the New York Office, we finally reached an understanding (with the help of home being able to call), and ISA was instructed to look for my envelope if it came in the previous Friday's pouch like it was supposed to. Low and behold, after an agonizing morning of thinking it was lost and gone and I'd have to deal with a lost card situation all over again, ISA had my card.

All was well.

Friday, I spent my day sitting inside doing homework. I woke up a little later than I intended to (11 am, that's 5 am for you East-coasters) and packed my back to sit downstairs and do all the work I could. We're reading an ethnography about Cairo in Peoples & Cultures of the Middle East/North Africa. It is, so far, far better than the last one we read, which was called Tournaments of Value which was essentially about the social life and hierarchy in a small Yemeni town called Zabid where people got really, really, angry with you if you didn't come to visit them, or return the favor by hosting them in your own home. Basically in Zabid, status and hierarchy relied on how you were social with your neighbors and connected families (the large, important families belonged to a bayt which is basically their version of the large, manor type homes), as well as how you presented yourself and controlled your anger with other families and your husband, etc. The author repeated herself a lot, and though her book's concept of reciprocal giving is based off of heavy anthropological theory, she didn't weave that in at all. I suppose some people may like that, but since I knew the theory behind what she was getting at, I would've liked to see her weave more in (thank you History of Anthropological Theory... Marcell Mauss!).

Regardless, I got started reading In An Antique Land and once finished my section of reading for that, read some for Zionism and Modern Judaism. I'm proud to say I also finished that, and then spent some time talking and attempting to start some of my coursework for archaeology on Wednesday. We are reading about archaeobotany now, and using plant remains to tell us things about diet, agriculture, and landscape. We covered this briefly in 106 back at Gettysburg, and we're actually using the same textbook, but all the same, it's different from a grad class point of view.

Kom al-Fakhry before excavation - cleaning out the dirt.
Taken from the website.

Which segways perfectly into my story about the second half of my weekend! I had to wake up super-dooper early this morning, for which I was not happy about, but hey - getting up at six am on a Saturday to go to Memphis (Egypt, not Tennessee) to visit an Archaeological field school run by Dr. Mark Lehner (Click HERE to read about him! I got to meet him!) who also helped excavate Giza. Now, due to some complicated ethics going on with archaeology sites in Egypt and looters, we were unable to take any pictures, but I will say that the entire floor of the site, Kom al-Fakhry, was littered in pottery sherds. We were allowed to go down into the excavation while everyone was having their breakfast (at 9:00 after about two or so hours of work), and learn about different aspects of the site. I literally had to look down everywhere I walked, for fear of stepping on something that may break under my boots. At one point, as we were being talked to about the stratigraphy of the site and how it was really interesting (I'll save you all from having me explain all that), I spotted almost an entire pot still in the side of the excavation. Just sitting there, covered with dirt, begging to be taken out, pieced together, and cleaned again.  (Also do want to let you know that all of the photographs and information to back up what we learned can be found HERE [click me!])

Such as how the modern day settlers of what is now Mit Rahina were planning to build a road, and as they started to bulldoze for the road (literally this area is covered in trash) they hit limestone and stopped. Turns out they sort of bulldozed right into the settlement. What is interesting is the fact that settlement archaeology has just recently started to boom in Egypt. Typically, the archaeology you hear about in Egypt is monumental archaeology: things like Temples, Pyramids and tombs. Settlement archaeology's goals are to create an understanding of those who actually made the pyramids and made the temples and were just your average every day Ancient Egyptian.

I discovered I'm much more interested in several parts of an excavation. Physical excavation of the site,  osteoarchaeology (human remains, so burial archaeology), or even pottery/ceramics and artifacts. Though, with that in mind, I'm still trying to figure out where I want to specialize in - historical archaeology (18th century America or historical archaeology in Britain) or medieval archaeology in France/Germany (think Merovingian Gaul!). Such good areas... all so fascinating!

Anyway, I loved the site, and another interesting thing was that most of the students are in training or have completed training to be inspectors for Egypt and are Egyptian, but they've never had the field experience before! Even some have Ph.D.'s... Dr. Lehner was saying about how some of the students, on the other hand, had more field experience than he had ever had because he had been more trained in academic archaeology - theory and classroom practicum. Nearly all of the workers at Kom al-Fakhry are Egyptian.

So, even if I don't get an internship or a field school (I'm not saying I don't want to anymore! That is a priority and I will continue to worry about it, Mom. c:) there might be a little bit of hope for me? Alas, I've started looking for this summer already. Archaeological assistant in Anchorage, Alaska, maybe (the position is there!)?

Colossus of Ramses II (my picture).

After the field school trip, we made a pit stop at Memphis Statuary Garden and saw a HUGE statue of Ramses II. From what I understand, this is the colossus of Ramses, and more info can be found HERE. The statuary garden was pretty cool. Decent, I guess. I did get in for free, which was awesome (thank you, AUC Egyptology department!). I did get to see a mummification table from New Kingdom (I believe), so that was pretty nifty.

Next week's adventures - a shortened week! Thursday I have off for armed forces day, which means I am spending Thursday/Friday in Alexandria, city of Alexander the Great! Yay for the Meditteranean Sea!