There isn't much to share today about the site. We're still excavating our bones - it takes a long time! I dug out a trench that we're supposing was used for drainage for the cathedral during the medieval times, but we're not sure about that yet. Tomorrow and Friday are our last working days, and part of that time has to be used for clean up and securing the site, because no more work will happen until next summer, so we won't be uncovering anything new now, just finishing up the old stuff.
The weekend was fun. Two other people and I rented a car and drove to Volterra, San Gimignano, Siena, and Radda in Chianti. I'll tell you more about this trip when I get home. It was fun, except for when we found out the hotel's website reflected the incorrect address and we were sitting at a closed gate on a dirt road with no one around on Saturday night. Gladys (my GPS) was dying and the one Italian cell phone we had was almost dead, too. It was almost an "OMG, what are we going to do now" moment, but it all turned out ok in the end.
That's all for now, it's almost time to go to dinner. This is our last dinner as a complete group at our usual restaurant. Tomorrow night some of us are going to a special dinner at another place. Some of the students have opted not to go because we'll have to pay for this one. On Friday night, some of the townspeople of Altopascio want to cook for us. That will be fun.
There are three elderly ladies that are sitting on a brick wall every night when we walk home from the restaurant (I calculated that we walk a minimum of 3 miles every day!). Last night another woman from my group and I stopped to talk to them...or try to, I should say! It's too bad I didn't realize they were willing to talk to someone who speaks horrible Italian - I would have spent some time with them trying to improve my fairly sorry skills!
Ok. This is probably my last post. I'm looking forward to seeing you all, or at least talking to you very soon sonI can hear what's been up with you over the last month!
Until then,
MB
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Friday, August 12, 2011
August 11
Good news! We found a midieval skeleton! Unfortunately, it's a secondary burial, meaning that the bones have been moved from their original site, but they're the most complete bones we've found yet. Most of the day yesterday and all day today was spent on excavation and removal of these bones, and we hope to finish it up on Tuesday (Monday is a holiday of some sort, so we're not working).
I spent all day today picking, shoving, and scraping, and I'm exhausted. On Tuesday I'll have my turn with the bones.
Tomorrow I'm going to Siena for the weekend with a couple of other people. I'm looking forward to spending a few days with only two others instead of 22 others!
'Til Tuesday,
MB
I spent all day today picking, shoving, and scraping, and I'm exhausted. On Tuesday I'll have my turn with the bones.
Tomorrow I'm going to Siena for the weekend with a couple of other people. I'm looking forward to spending a few days with only two others instead of 22 others!
'Til Tuesday,
MB
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
August 8, 9, 10
Sunday in Firenze was good. David was spectacular! So was the Uffizi museum. Saw some of the masters. Two museums, some souvenir shopping and I headed for home.
Buckets of rain Sunday night, so the site was muddy Monday morning. Apparently that kind of rain isn't good for removing bones, so site 2000 had some issues to deal with (they're the ones that have all the burials). We, at site 1000, wouldn't know since we didn't have any bones! At least the wet soil was easier to remove. With the rain came cooler temperatures - thank God! We were roasting!
Notice that I said we "didn't" have any bones? On Tuesday, bones! At least a few. I found a partial occipital bone (back of head), and a partial mandible. I got to get them ready for removal, and then I removed them from the soil. It was very exciting!
Today, we found even more bones. Again, it's not a primary burial, but a secondary one, and as such, there are only a few bones, and they're not articulated with other bones of the skeleton. But it's something. We have some good bones this time - femur, humerus, part of the pelvis, and a couple of tarsals so far. It's given us all hope that all our picking might not be for naught.
We removed several more inches of soil today. I think we're going to push hard this week to get as low as we can, because until we do that, we're probably not going to find the medieval burials we're looking for.
Today we had a lecture from Dr. Forniciari, a professor from the University of Pisa, and one of the two directors of our project (the other is Dr. Clark Larson). He lectured on the study of the remains of the Medici family, specifically pathologies.
On a lighter note, did I mention that our 20 women share four toilets? Two of them are squatters! I actually like them better than the sit-down toilets, for sanitary reasons. Is that too much information?
I would like to end this post on a note of complaint. My hands hurt. My feet hurt. My knees hurt. So does my back. I have callouses on my hands, mosquito bites on every part of my body. The conversations of a bunch of 20-somethings could possibly drive me crazy before the trip is over! Today it was "which one of us would we eat if we had to eat one of us?" Please remind me about why I thought this trip was a good idea! :-)
Thanks for listening,
The 50+ woman who thinks she's only 30.
P.S. In spite of my complaining, I AM having fun!
Saturday, August 6, 2011
August 7, 2011
Thank you all for your comments to my earlier blog postings. It's so nice to hear voices from home.
Just a quick update - I'm in Florence and don't have my keyboard with me, so typing is slower than I would like.
Florence is beautiful, but crowded, and very hot! It was 79 degrees at 11:00 last night, so I suspect that it reached mid 90's yesterday. And it's humid. Yikes! I chose yesterday to climb the 464 steps to the top of the bell tower. The view over the city was beautiful. I wonder if the people I was dropping sweat on as I leaned over the edge to look down thought it was raining!
Besides other sights, I sat on the Piazzale Michaelangelo and had a glass of wine while looking over the city (I saw quite a bit of the top of Florence), had dinner, and went to bed. I was exhausted. So here it is, Sunday morning, and I've had the first night of more than 4 hours of interrupted sleep I've had in two weeks! No bells, no snoring, no talking, and no bathroom light in my eyes! 7 hours of sleep - a luxury! I would stay in bed longer, but I have to go see Michaeangelo's David soon. This is a hard life!
To answer some of your questions, no Jess, unfortunately I can't take pictures of the site or the bones. We'll have to make do with the pictures that are on the Field School site for now. I'll see if I can get some loaded to Picasa soon. No, Manny, Shelby cannot have any of the bones I find. She'll have to stick with the boring old animal variety. Dr. Bouton, you were right about the bug bites! I have more mosquito bites than I can count. I've been resisting the bug spray, but I'm going to have to give in - I look like a pink-spotted leopard! As for the hangover, so far, no problem there. I can't even imagine working on this heat with a hangover! Jim, I'm sure Georgia IS like another country! Aren't you glad we live in the country of Californa?
As for work, no real news there. We've removed up to 15 inches of soil from our site now. Unfortunately, I expect we have another 15 inches to go before we hit any burials. Hopefully we can speed up the process a little. One thin layer of dirt at a time takes a long Time, because after each layer is removed, the surface has to be cleaned (can you imagine cleaning dirt?), measurements have to be taken, and photos, before we can start to remove the next layer.
Dr. Larsen is gone now, but before he left, he gave a lecture to the townspeople about a project he had in Georgia and how it relates to the project we're doing in Badia Pozzeveri. They seemed to enjoy it, and are happy that we're here. One man brings us fresh fruit everyday!
That's all for now. It's time for breakfast. I didn't mean to write a book when I started this!
More later,
The Body Snatcher (thanks, Jess!)
Just a quick update - I'm in Florence and don't have my keyboard with me, so typing is slower than I would like.
Florence is beautiful, but crowded, and very hot! It was 79 degrees at 11:00 last night, so I suspect that it reached mid 90's yesterday. And it's humid. Yikes! I chose yesterday to climb the 464 steps to the top of the bell tower. The view over the city was beautiful. I wonder if the people I was dropping sweat on as I leaned over the edge to look down thought it was raining!
Besides other sights, I sat on the Piazzale Michaelangelo and had a glass of wine while looking over the city (I saw quite a bit of the top of Florence), had dinner, and went to bed. I was exhausted. So here it is, Sunday morning, and I've had the first night of more than 4 hours of interrupted sleep I've had in two weeks! No bells, no snoring, no talking, and no bathroom light in my eyes! 7 hours of sleep - a luxury! I would stay in bed longer, but I have to go see Michaeangelo's David soon. This is a hard life!
To answer some of your questions, no Jess, unfortunately I can't take pictures of the site or the bones. We'll have to make do with the pictures that are on the Field School site for now. I'll see if I can get some loaded to Picasa soon. No, Manny, Shelby cannot have any of the bones I find. She'll have to stick with the boring old animal variety. Dr. Bouton, you were right about the bug bites! I have more mosquito bites than I can count. I've been resisting the bug spray, but I'm going to have to give in - I look like a pink-spotted leopard! As for the hangover, so far, no problem there. I can't even imagine working on this heat with a hangover! Jim, I'm sure Georgia IS like another country! Aren't you glad we live in the country of Californa?
As for work, no real news there. We've removed up to 15 inches of soil from our site now. Unfortunately, I expect we have another 15 inches to go before we hit any burials. Hopefully we can speed up the process a little. One thin layer of dirt at a time takes a long Time, because after each layer is removed, the surface has to be cleaned (can you imagine cleaning dirt?), measurements have to be taken, and photos, before we can start to remove the next layer.
Dr. Larsen is gone now, but before he left, he gave a lecture to the townspeople about a project he had in Georgia and how it relates to the project we're doing in Badia Pozzeveri. They seemed to enjoy it, and are happy that we're here. One man brings us fresh fruit everyday!
That's all for now. It's time for breakfast. I didn't mean to write a book when I started this!
More later,
The Body Snatcher (thanks, Jess!)
Monday, August 1, 2011
JULY 29, 30, 31, and August 1
So - after I finished my last blog entry at about 1:00, I got ready for bed. I went in the bathroom and made the mistake of closing the stall door behind me. Boy was I surprised when the door didn't open! So I pounded and yelled, and finally someone heard me and let me out - thank goodness!
Let's start with the Italian words for the day - formiche (ants), api (bees), ragni (spiders). Does that give you any idea of what my days are like now? Regarding ants, I now know the words for ants, anthills, and pins-n-needles, which is a dirivitive of the word for ants. I can carry on a whole language using ant-words!
Friday was another day of removing another layer of dirt. There isn't a bone in my body that doesn't hurt! Friday night, though, was lovely. I took a shower and then went across the street to the bar and had a glass of wine before dinner. It was wonderful - sitting outside in the sunshine in Italy, drinking a glass of chianti and watching the world go by.
On Saturday I took the train to Pisa with one of my field schooHenares. The Leaning Tower is much more impressive than I expected. It's amazing that it is still standing, given the degree to which it's tilting. I saw the tower, the cathedral (which was beautiful), the Duomo, which wasn't as good as I had hoped, but it was interesting. We also saw the Camposanto, which is a cemetery - very cool. There were tombs in the floor, similar to what we see in some of the old churches, and a chapel with ossuaries. In one of the ossuaries the skull was facing outwards, so it looked like he was yelling, "let me out of here!" I also went into a couple of museums. We met up with some other class friends for lunch, and then after some roaming around, we headed to Lucca.
Lucca was fun because after dinner, when we were heading to the train station to catch the 2nd to the last train back to Altopascio, we saw some street performers doing an act with their bicycles, singing and dancing. As they finished up their song and left the piazza, they motioned for the crowd to follow them, so we did. They performed in the next piazza, motioned for us to follow again, and we did. We did that through their whole performance, which was fun but by the time they finished, we had missed our 2nd to the last train, and so we took the last train home...or so we thought. As it turned out, we took the wrong train and ended up on the coast in Viareggio, which was about 40 miles away from where we wanted to be. The problem was that there were no more trains that were going to Altopascio that night. We were virtualy stranded in Viareggio at midnight. To make a long story very short, I paid for a cab to take us home - and let me just say it was not cheap!
Sunday I took a walk around Altopascio and then we rode our bikes to Lucca and made another tour of the city.
So now it's Monday and what did we do? We removed another layer of dirt from our site. We did expose the rest of another wall, and we excavated a hole (a round one) that we decided must have once held a tree. However, since we found a gun shell casing in the hole, it was obvious that it was a modern hole and not anything we needed to be concerned about in the future. We also started removing the few bones that we knew were in the site when we started the excavation. The bad news is that so far we haven't found any other bones of any significance.
One other thing - Dr. Clark Larson, who "wrote the book on bioarchaeology" and is currently teaching at Ohio State is here this week. It's going to be really interesting hearing him lecture about the projects he's working on. We've all met him now, and he's a very nice man. This is almost the equivalent of meeting Dr. Leakey!
I sit here wishing the bar across the street was open, but apparently a lot of restaurants close on Mondays in Italy. I'm going to bed early tonight, because tomorrow promises to be another hard day.
Thanks for taking the time to read my rambles,
MB
Let's start with the Italian words for the day - formiche (ants), api (bees), ragni (spiders). Does that give you any idea of what my days are like now? Regarding ants, I now know the words for ants, anthills, and pins-n-needles, which is a dirivitive of the word for ants. I can carry on a whole language using ant-words!
Friday was another day of removing another layer of dirt. There isn't a bone in my body that doesn't hurt! Friday night, though, was lovely. I took a shower and then went across the street to the bar and had a glass of wine before dinner. It was wonderful - sitting outside in the sunshine in Italy, drinking a glass of chianti and watching the world go by.
On Saturday I took the train to Pisa with one of my field schooHenares. The Leaning Tower is much more impressive than I expected. It's amazing that it is still standing, given the degree to which it's tilting. I saw the tower, the cathedral (which was beautiful), the Duomo, which wasn't as good as I had hoped, but it was interesting. We also saw the Camposanto, which is a cemetery - very cool. There were tombs in the floor, similar to what we see in some of the old churches, and a chapel with ossuaries. In one of the ossuaries the skull was facing outwards, so it looked like he was yelling, "let me out of here!" I also went into a couple of museums. We met up with some other class friends for lunch, and then after some roaming around, we headed to Lucca.
Lucca was fun because after dinner, when we were heading to the train station to catch the 2nd to the last train back to Altopascio, we saw some street performers doing an act with their bicycles, singing and dancing. As they finished up their song and left the piazza, they motioned for the crowd to follow them, so we did. They performed in the next piazza, motioned for us to follow again, and we did. We did that through their whole performance, which was fun but by the time they finished, we had missed our 2nd to the last train, and so we took the last train home...or so we thought. As it turned out, we took the wrong train and ended up on the coast in Viareggio, which was about 40 miles away from where we wanted to be. The problem was that there were no more trains that were going to Altopascio that night. We were virtualy stranded in Viareggio at midnight. To make a long story very short, I paid for a cab to take us home - and let me just say it was not cheap!
Sunday I took a walk around Altopascio and then we rode our bikes to Lucca and made another tour of the city.
So now it's Monday and what did we do? We removed another layer of dirt from our site. We did expose the rest of another wall, and we excavated a hole (a round one) that we decided must have once held a tree. However, since we found a gun shell casing in the hole, it was obvious that it was a modern hole and not anything we needed to be concerned about in the future. We also started removing the few bones that we knew were in the site when we started the excavation. The bad news is that so far we haven't found any other bones of any significance.
One other thing - Dr. Clark Larson, who "wrote the book on bioarchaeology" and is currently teaching at Ohio State is here this week. It's going to be really interesting hearing him lecture about the projects he's working on. We've all met him now, and he's a very nice man. This is almost the equivalent of meeting Dr. Leakey!
I sit here wishing the bar across the street was open, but apparently a lot of restaurants close on Mondays in Italy. I'm going to bed early tonight, because tomorrow promises to be another hard day.
Thanks for taking the time to read my rambles,
MB
Thursday, July 28, 2011
JULY 27 & 28, WEDNESDAY AND THURSDAY
Let me start off by saying the internet access has been the biggest challenge so far. It makes sleeping in the same room as 11 other women and sharing 3 showers among 20 women easy! It turns out that updating this blog everyday is going to be difficult because I can't always get access when I want it, but I'll do the best I can.
Yesterday was a quiet day. We finished scraping the dirt off the site so a photograph could be taken. Then we wrote our Strategraphic Context sheet, and then...it rained! So, plans changed. Instead of working outside, we went inside for lunch and then a lecture on GIS methods, followed by one on analyzing a human skeleton (for age, sex, stature, acenstry). The analysing human skeletons was basic, but I usually like that kind of stuff anyway. This time, I was so sleepy that I was dozing off in the lecture...in the front row! I finally realized that jet lag combined with only a few hours of interrupted sleep and then only 5 or 6 hours total had finally caught up with me. So I went to bed early, and actually slept through the bells until 5:00! Progress! Anyway, after the rain stopped, we went back outside and removed another layer.
Today the weather was better and we were able to work outside all day. Unfortunately, we had to scrape the site again because of the damage the rain caused. Then we had to measure, photograph, write-up, etc. That's a long process that usually results, it appears, in having people sit around while measurements are taken. We all participated, but still. Finally that was done and we started work again. The good news is that we found some bones! Not alot - a mastoid process, rib, cranial fragment, but it's something. These bones are disarticulated (randomly placed) but we're hoping that tomorrow we'll uncover some skeletons that we can actually analyze.
We've had some visitors, some people return day after day and have become regulars at the site. A professor from the University of Pisa came today and brought a write up that was in the Tusany newspaper. It was written in Italian, of course, so I couldn't read it. But we've heard that we've been written up in three other papers so far.
So - food. Dinner has been really good! We go to the same restaurant every night, and this place feeds 30+ people something different every night. Tonight's menu was salad, then two kinds of pasta, then rabbit (ick!) and pork scallopine and spinach, and finally dessert. Wine and water, both natural and frizzante, is served with every meal. The waitress and the person who runs the counter at the bar where we have breakfast every morning now know I like decaf coffee American-style (large). I'm a regular already!
Tonight, after work, we walked to downtown Altopascio, which is quite charming. Couldn't spend a lot of time there because we had to be back before dinner, but I did have time to carry on a conversation with the train-station attendant...in Italian!
That's all for tonight. I haven't been able to post pictures, but following is the link of the field school's blog. Pictures and more information about our progess are posted there, if you're interested. http://www.paleopatologia.it/Badiapozzeveri/BP11/giorno.php?recordID=1
More over the weekend,
MB
Yesterday was a quiet day. We finished scraping the dirt off the site so a photograph could be taken. Then we wrote our Strategraphic Context sheet, and then...it rained! So, plans changed. Instead of working outside, we went inside for lunch and then a lecture on GIS methods, followed by one on analyzing a human skeleton (for age, sex, stature, acenstry). The analysing human skeletons was basic, but I usually like that kind of stuff anyway. This time, I was so sleepy that I was dozing off in the lecture...in the front row! I finally realized that jet lag combined with only a few hours of interrupted sleep and then only 5 or 6 hours total had finally caught up with me. So I went to bed early, and actually slept through the bells until 5:00! Progress! Anyway, after the rain stopped, we went back outside and removed another layer.
Today the weather was better and we were able to work outside all day. Unfortunately, we had to scrape the site again because of the damage the rain caused. Then we had to measure, photograph, write-up, etc. That's a long process that usually results, it appears, in having people sit around while measurements are taken. We all participated, but still. Finally that was done and we started work again. The good news is that we found some bones! Not alot - a mastoid process, rib, cranial fragment, but it's something. These bones are disarticulated (randomly placed) but we're hoping that tomorrow we'll uncover some skeletons that we can actually analyze.
We've had some visitors, some people return day after day and have become regulars at the site. A professor from the University of Pisa came today and brought a write up that was in the Tusany newspaper. It was written in Italian, of course, so I couldn't read it. But we've heard that we've been written up in three other papers so far.
So - food. Dinner has been really good! We go to the same restaurant every night, and this place feeds 30+ people something different every night. Tonight's menu was salad, then two kinds of pasta, then rabbit (ick!) and pork scallopine and spinach, and finally dessert. Wine and water, both natural and frizzante, is served with every meal. The waitress and the person who runs the counter at the bar where we have breakfast every morning now know I like decaf coffee American-style (large). I'm a regular already!
Tonight, after work, we walked to downtown Altopascio, which is quite charming. Couldn't spend a lot of time there because we had to be back before dinner, but I did have time to carry on a conversation with the train-station attendant...in Italian!
That's all for tonight. I haven't been able to post pictures, but following is the link of the field school's blog. Pictures and more information about our progess are posted there, if you're interested. http://www.paleopatologia.it/Badiapozzeveri/BP11/giorno.php?recordID=1
More over the weekend,
MB
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
DAY 2 - JULY 26, 2011
We started the day with a lecture on archaeological stratigraphy. After that, we finished cleaning the top soil off of our site so that a picture could be taken of the surface layer. By the time that was finished, it was lunch time, followed by a lecture on osteology. It's a good thing we had that break, because our next activity was to begin removing the surface layer. We picked and shoveled, and shoveled and picked until every muscle in our bodies ached! Besides all that picking' and grinnin' (a reference that goes back to HeeHaw - that's really dating me!), I walked to the site, to the school and back at lunch, back to the school, then to the grocery store and back. And boy are my dogs tired! Anyway...in this surface layer, we found nails, plastic, pottery, tiles, metal, bricks, and some other things that lead us to believe that the layer was deposited as a result of construction work that was occurring nearby. We also found a human tooth - specifically an upper left molar.
I'm sitting here at midnight typing up this blog, when all of a sudden a loud banging noise starts. When you combine that with the church bell, it's quite a midnight cacophony. When we couldn't stand it any longer, we investigated. As it turns out, Altopascio was celebrating the birth(?) of the patron of Altopascio, Jacob somebody (sorry, the person that was telling us this story spoke very broken English) and so they were celebrating with fireworks...big fireworks. So there we stood, in our pajamas, on a street corner of Altopascio, watching fireworks. Only in Italy!
Italian phrase of the day: Ho grattato la superfiscie oggi. (I scraped the surface today).
By the way, Allen, one of the Italian archaeologists from Pisa has promised that if I help him with his English, he'll help me with my Italian. Italian group, watch out!
More tomorrow, at which point I hope I can tell you that we found some human remains!
I'm sitting here at midnight typing up this blog, when all of a sudden a loud banging noise starts. When you combine that with the church bell, it's quite a midnight cacophony. When we couldn't stand it any longer, we investigated. As it turns out, Altopascio was celebrating the birth(?) of the patron of Altopascio, Jacob somebody (sorry, the person that was telling us this story spoke very broken English) and so they were celebrating with fireworks...big fireworks. So there we stood, in our pajamas, on a street corner of Altopascio, watching fireworks. Only in Italy!
Italian phrase of the day: Ho grattato la superfiscie oggi. (I scraped the surface today).
By the way, Allen, one of the Italian archaeologists from Pisa has promised that if I help him with his English, he'll help me with my Italian. Italian group, watch out!
More tomorrow, at which point I hope I can tell you that we found some human remains!
Monday, July 25, 2011
DAY 1 - JULY 25, 2011
After more trouble than a person likes to have when trying to navigate airline check in and security, I finally boarded the plane and began to fly the friendly skies. As it turns out I was lucky, because I had a bulkhead, aisle seat, with no one sitting next to me. So, lots of room and no crying babies made it an almost perfect flight. Even the people from the field school that were supposed to pick me up at the airport in Florence were there waiting - it was a near perfect, but long, trip!
The question that was foremost on the minds of many people who were trying to understand why I would spend my time in Italy digging in the dirt was where would I be sleeping/ This mystery has been solved. There are 20 female students and three male, plus a staff of about 7 or so people. The gym is divided into two parts, with 5 girls sleeping in the smaller part and about 7 of us (note I said "us") sleeping in the larger part. The rest of the women are sleeping in a separate room. So, I'm not on the floor, but I am in a gym with many others, on a cot, with the school's steeple bell chiming every hour on the hour, the light in the hallway shining in my eyes (I'm right inside the door), and one of the men snoring so loudly that we can hear him all the way from upstairs! Needless to say, none of us got much sleep. Tonight we're so tired that I don't think anything can keep us awake!
Today was our first day on the site. The church is a beautiful medieval cathedral that is no longer in use except for special occasions. There was once a working cemetery around the cathedral, but in the 1800s a new cemetery was established in a lot next to the cathedral, and the old cathedral cemetery stopped being used. It's this old cemetery that is being excavated. Besides excavating these gravesites, it is believed that the front of the cathedral had extended past where it does today, so we're looking for evidence of that as well as for a medieval wall that might be evidence of another room attached to the cathedral at one time.
This morning was spent in orientation duties, followed by a sack lunch eaten under the tree. The weather was good today, not the brutal heat they had two weeks ago, thank goodness. After lunch we had a quiz on bones (thanks for your training Dr. B!) and then we began excavation. We've been divided into 4 groups. The group I'm working with began excavating a new site with potential graves. We spent the afternoon removing top soil and scraping the site. Tomorrow morning they'll take pictures (we'll have to rescrape the site first) and then we'll start the actual excavation.
Italian phrase of the day - Svuoto la carriola (I empty the wheelbarrow). Silvia will be proud!
'Til tomorrow,
Mary Beth
P.S. Please excuse any typos. I'm typing this in the dark on a keyboard on my lap while sitting on the front step of the school. This is definitely a different life style!
The question that was foremost on the minds of many people who were trying to understand why I would spend my time in Italy digging in the dirt was where would I be sleeping/ This mystery has been solved. There are 20 female students and three male, plus a staff of about 7 or so people. The gym is divided into two parts, with 5 girls sleeping in the smaller part and about 7 of us (note I said "us") sleeping in the larger part. The rest of the women are sleeping in a separate room. So, I'm not on the floor, but I am in a gym with many others, on a cot, with the school's steeple bell chiming every hour on the hour, the light in the hallway shining in my eyes (I'm right inside the door), and one of the men snoring so loudly that we can hear him all the way from upstairs! Needless to say, none of us got much sleep. Tonight we're so tired that I don't think anything can keep us awake!
Today was our first day on the site. The church is a beautiful medieval cathedral that is no longer in use except for special occasions. There was once a working cemetery around the cathedral, but in the 1800s a new cemetery was established in a lot next to the cathedral, and the old cathedral cemetery stopped being used. It's this old cemetery that is being excavated. Besides excavating these gravesites, it is believed that the front of the cathedral had extended past where it does today, so we're looking for evidence of that as well as for a medieval wall that might be evidence of another room attached to the cathedral at one time.
This morning was spent in orientation duties, followed by a sack lunch eaten under the tree. The weather was good today, not the brutal heat they had two weeks ago, thank goodness. After lunch we had a quiz on bones (thanks for your training Dr. B!) and then we began excavation. We've been divided into 4 groups. The group I'm working with began excavating a new site with potential graves. We spent the afternoon removing top soil and scraping the site. Tomorrow morning they'll take pictures (we'll have to rescrape the site first) and then we'll start the actual excavation.
Italian phrase of the day - Svuoto la carriola (I empty the wheelbarrow). Silvia will be proud!
'Til tomorrow,
Mary Beth
P.S. Please excuse any typos. I'm typing this in the dark on a keyboard on my lap while sitting on the front step of the school. This is definitely a different life style!
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