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!