Obviously, two people do not a dig make. Krista added two more archaeologists, both women, to help here at Al-Baleed.
Sarah Graff is at Arizona State University and specializes in ceramics. She has dug in a variety of places but has spent most of her time in Syria. Sarah brought her five year old daughter Anastasia along with her. Can you imagine how cool it would be to be five and on a dig!
Lamya Khalidi is based at the French National Center for Scientific Research and has also done a variety of digs; she worked with Krista in Yemen. Lamya is also a lithics (that rocks to some of you) specialist.
So we have an all female team of archaeologists.
In case you've only seen archaeology in the movies it's more than just sticking a shovel in some dirt. There is a ton of planning, processing, and analysis that goes on (while you are sticking your shovel in the dirt.) There are many steps to a dig that most people have never heard of. Our first days were spent making plans. Boring sounding things like making databases, organizing numbering systems, laying out grids, arranging the lab for optimum use, etc, etc. (Those things are all actually really interesting and having the four of us sit down and brain storm has led to great ideas and a lot of laughing.)
Today was actually the first "real" dig day. We are lucky enough to have workers helping us out. Almost all digs hire local people to help with clearing land, moving things and eventually some are trained to help dig. We seem to have between 10-12 helping us this season, some have worked at Al-Baleed before some are new to the area and the site. We have a mix of men from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and a few other places. Between us four women we have the ability to fake or fluently speak about 7 languages, the one language none of us know is Urdu... guess what most of our workers speak! We have found a couple that have some English and a few who know Arabic so we are getting by. We are lucky that they seem not to care that we are a group of women, so far they have been respectful and done whatever we have asked.
This week we will all work in the field but starting next week I will be mostly in the lab while they continue to dig. As I said, there are many steps that must be taken to get things from the ground to a museum, but more on that later.
Since it's so warm we are staring at 6 AM so it's off to bed for us. But I wanted to give you an idea of what it's like to dig in sand next to the ocean. Here is a shot of my "dig feet." Keen's (sandals) are great for digging in sand but you pay a price. I had to excavate the dirt out of my shoes when I got back to the house!
Note: There is another important member of our team that I don't want to leave out, my husband Brian is here as well. He is an artist and is going to do various things to help us out. We are teaching him to draw pottery and he will also do some renditions of the site when the time comes. Ironically, Brian has just what it takes to be an archaeologist, you need to be both left & right brained to combine data & art and that is what he does everyday.
Sarah Graff is at Arizona State University and specializes in ceramics. She has dug in a variety of places but has spent most of her time in Syria. Sarah brought her five year old daughter Anastasia along with her. Can you imagine how cool it would be to be five and on a dig!
Lamya Khalidi is based at the French National Center for Scientific Research and has also done a variety of digs; she worked with Krista in Yemen. Lamya is also a lithics (that rocks to some of you) specialist.
So we have an all female team of archaeologists.
In case you've only seen archaeology in the movies it's more than just sticking a shovel in some dirt. There is a ton of planning, processing, and analysis that goes on (while you are sticking your shovel in the dirt.) There are many steps to a dig that most people have never heard of. Our first days were spent making plans. Boring sounding things like making databases, organizing numbering systems, laying out grids, arranging the lab for optimum use, etc, etc. (Those things are all actually really interesting and having the four of us sit down and brain storm has led to great ideas and a lot of laughing.)
Today was actually the first "real" dig day. We are lucky enough to have workers helping us out. Almost all digs hire local people to help with clearing land, moving things and eventually some are trained to help dig. We seem to have between 10-12 helping us this season, some have worked at Al-Baleed before some are new to the area and the site. We have a mix of men from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and a few other places. Between us four women we have the ability to fake or fluently speak about 7 languages, the one language none of us know is Urdu... guess what most of our workers speak! We have found a couple that have some English and a few who know Arabic so we are getting by. We are lucky that they seem not to care that we are a group of women, so far they have been respectful and done whatever we have asked.
This week we will all work in the field but starting next week I will be mostly in the lab while they continue to dig. As I said, there are many steps that must be taken to get things from the ground to a museum, but more on that later.
Since it's so warm we are staring at 6 AM so it's off to bed for us. But I wanted to give you an idea of what it's like to dig in sand next to the ocean. Here is a shot of my "dig feet." Keen's (sandals) are great for digging in sand but you pay a price. I had to excavate the dirt out of my shoes when I got back to the house!
Note: There is another important member of our team that I don't want to leave out, my husband Brian is here as well. He is an artist and is going to do various things to help us out. We are teaching him to draw pottery and he will also do some renditions of the site when the time comes. Ironically, Brian has just what it takes to be an archaeologist, you need to be both left & right brained to combine data & art and that is what he does everyday.
I don't what happened but your blog ate my comment. Anyway, I was just waffling about how jealous I was, how exciting it all looked, and that sort of thing. Fabulous pedicure by the way!
ReplyDeleteThat's too cool! I hope you guys are having fun!
ReplyDeleteHi, Kristy! Remember I captioned your archeology class and you hooked me up with Debbie? Anyway, from time to time I work cruises and I don't care how good the food is, you get sick of eating the same thing, even on a rotated basis. After only a week I'm always craving something! Hope you are enjoying your time away!
ReplyDelete