Gee, Archaeology Must Be Coooool

I was watching a show on the History Channel last night about how much of Indiana Jones is based in fact, and how much in fiction. The final conclusion is that  more of it than you might think is based in fact, and that Indiana Jones, as an archaeologist, is a pretty excellent guy. He favors acquisition of information over acquisition of treasure, believes that artifacts belong in museums rather than private collections, is hugely respectful of the cultures he studies, and a decent human being to boot.

As this show is going through the various cultures associated with the movies and interviewing experts at each of the sites, I caught myself thinking “gee, wouldn’t it be cool to be an archaeologist?”

And then: “Holy crap. I AM an archaeologist!!”

Okay, I’m not a very convincing archaeologist. I have a masters degree in archaeology, yes, but I haven’t done much with it. I excavated during two seasons in the Netherlands (about the highlight of my life), and also for three months with the State Archaeologist in South Dakota (not really a highlight at all). I know lots of stuff about old stuff (especially ancient Levantine goddesses) and I know how to dig a pretty excellent feature profile.

I gave it up in favor of being able to live with my husband and also being able to earn enough money to support myself, but I miss it. Even the less-than-thrilling South Dakotan bits. Archaeology IS exciting, whether you get chased through ancient temples by 5-ton boulders or not. It is about a hunt for information that has been lost for hundreds or thousands of years.

Someday, when I’m a millionaire (this is my catchphrase lately), I am going to be an archaeologist again. I’m going to move to Europe, find a job working on something cool, and live happily ever after.

Until then, I guess I’ll spend an unfair portion of my free time watching the History Channel.

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Diggin’ in the Dirt #2

Grettings from a land of rain and frogs!

Since reporting that the weather last week was glorious, it has
all gone downhill. The first part of the week was perfect for
working – overcast and cool – but now it’s just downright cold
and rainy. Feels like October. But it can’t last the rest of the
summer, right…?

It’s been an exciting week, here in the Netherlands! Working was
much as usual – fantastically dirty and rather exhausting
(hooray hooray for hot showers!) – but the things going on
around work were neat. The marching part of the Four Days March
began on Tuesday. One of our co-workers (Wilburt) was doing the
50km march, so we took a few minutes off to go watch as he
walked past our dig. He was a bit slower than anticipated, so I
didn’t end up seeing him, but watching all the other people
march by was great. People get a bit whacky for this event -
dressing up in funny costumes and hats. One man was even
carrying around a sign asking so-and-so to marry him.

The way I understand it, the Four Days March began in the late
1800s as a military exercise. Being that the Netherlands is so
tiny, there was no place for the military to march so they could
get into shape. Poor chubby military men. So they decided to
march around in circles – 40km carrying 10 kilo for four days in
a row. In 1916, the inhabitants of Nijmegen (where the march
began and ended every day) were getting jealous of all the fun
(and probably also chubby themselves), so they decided to throw
the march open to the public. It was theoretically an effort to
help people get exercise and get in shape, but of course, it
eventually just turned into a big-honkin’ party. For
non-military folks, the march is 50km each day, and the party
lasts all night every night for a week.

After going into town for the beginning of festivities last
week, Angela and I went back for the end of festivities on
Friday. It was pretty incredible. We went in around 2, meaning
to watch some of the marchers come home. Unfortunately, there
were wall to wall people through the whole length of town, and
without resorting to violence, we couldn’t get anywhere near
enough to see. The closest we got was the stands of people at
the very end which were topped by living statues of historical
people who would wave every now and then much to everyone’s
delight. (Apparently there is a famous mime school here? The
town was full of living statues, anyway. Some of them were
really impressive.)

We stayed in town until it got dark, which was a really long
time (8 hours? Nine?). We wandered around and around in circles
as the party wound up. There is live music at nearly every
corner and enough fried food to clog the arteries of the jolly
green giant. We sampled more than our fair share. We also did
some good beer sampling. Turns out I’m a weeny beer drinker -
interpret that as you will. I rather like the whitbeir, but my
favorite remains Kriek – the Belgian cherry beer.

Eventually we bumped into Wilbur, who was hobbling around
looking like he was in a great deal of pain. Regardless, he
tagged along with us for awhile, showing off his medal to prove
this is the eighth time he’s successfully marched. Eventually,
the crowds got too thick and our tolerance for beer and fried
things ran out, so we went home.

On the weekend, we took a field trip to Germany. One of the men
who works in the office – a man by the name of Jeroen who has
been stood up by his past two fiancees and now seems to be a bit
sweet on Angela – had offered to drive Angela to Xanten to see
the museum and digs down there. As a self-preservation maneuver,
Angela invited the rest of us (David, Marieka, and myself) to
come along as well. So it turned into a nice little daytrip.

Xanten is an Archeaologist’s wonderland. It is a Roman town that
was abandoned by medieval times and covered up with dirt and
rubble. Bit by bit, the property which contains the remains of
the site is being purchased (by the government? not sure…)
which means the archaeologists have all the time and leisure in
the world to do the excavations. Normally, excavations are
wildly rushed in order to make way for construction.

At Xanten, they only excavate when they have enough money to
preserve or reconstruct. This means that not a lot of it is
excavated, but what is excavated is really well done. There’s a
temple (to an unknown deity), an Inn (which serves “Roman”
cuisine to tourists now), the amphitheater (where they have live productions
throughout the summer), and the public bathhouses (not open to the public, thankfully). It was really
beautiful to see. My favorite bit was the bathhouses – even without patrons, they have
the bath water running! Fueled by wood-burning fires. Super
cool. I’ll be putting up pictures right soon.

On the way home, we toodled through Kleve and Kranenburg, where
we had big lovely steaks for dinner. Mmmm. I’ve been steak
deprived. All in all, it was a really nice trip.

So that’s about that. I continue to dig up really lovely
post-holes at work (I’ll put some pictures of those up too) and
that’s about that. So far, the frogs have resisted my attempts
at good portrait shots, but I’ll get some of those too
eventually.

In the meanwhile, much love to everyone!!

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Diggin’ in the Dirt #1

Hello again, all ye friends and family far and wide! This is the beginning of a new era in Epics, as you may have noticed from the title. I am now in the Netherlands and thus need a new theme. Diggin’ in the Dirt it is!

So! Last you heard from me I’d graduated from my program in Belgium and hit the trail for the Netherlands. I got here without any real hitches and started working almost without a chance to stop and catch my breath. Now it is a weekend, and I’m relaxing with great enthusiasm!

The house I am living in is different from the one I lived in last time I was here. It’s located along the river dike on the opposite side of the river from Nijmegen proper. The area is mostly rural – lots of sheep nearby – but is scheduled to be turned into a zillion new houses in the next few years, which is a pity.

The house is huge, and for an excavation house, it’s really first class. We are currently five occupants: Mareika, native Dutchwoman and permanent (for now) resident; Americans Angela and David (“Desert Storm”) who are both from Iowa; and Kinga, from Poland. Mareika is nice, but we don’t see much of her. Angela is a master’s student at the U of Iowa, and is VERY gung-ho about archaeology and all things ancient. David is the eternally returning volunteer, and he earned his nickname by wearing the same pair of camouflage pants to work every day. I don’t know much about Kinga yet, as she just moved in a couple days ago. She seems nice enough.

The other warm bodies worth mentioning around here include Henry, who lives in the little house that’s not quite attached to our house, the ducks, and the frogs. The ducks (plus two geese and one pheasant) show up twice a day in a great throng in order to be fed. They follow Henry around until he passes out the grain, then they do battle with each other to make sure no one gets an unfair share of the best grain bits.

Personally, I like the frogs better. There is a little garden to the side of the house where Henry, Mareika, and a few other people keep veggie patches. Also in this garden is a pool. It used to be a swimming pool, I understand, but it either proved too much work to maintain, or the frogs just took over and there was nothing to be done about it. In either case, the previous owners decided to just let the frogs have their victory. They turned the pool into a Frog Heaven, complete with lily pads, mossy patches, and a fountain. It’s really lovely. If you go out and sit nearby, the frogs eventually forget you’re there and creep up the sides to sit in the sun.

~

And the work! I went to work first thing on Wednesday morning. The site where we are excavating is directly in the center of the old part of Nijmegen, in what used to be a parking lot and will soon be new houses (sense a theme here?). It’s a big site, covering everything from 16th century to medieval to Roman, depending how deep you dig. It’s also an important site, since it apparently proves the ancient-ness of the city. Why is that important, you may ask? Because this year, Nijmegen is celebrating its 2000th Anniversary. It’s hard to say your city is 2000 years old without proof, and apparently, we’ve just started digging up the proof. That was an awfully fine coincidence, considering the fact that the party was already planned before the dig had even begun!

As for what I’m doing there? So far, I’ve dug up a lot of post holes, done a few layer drawings, and managed not to get sunburned, which is really my biggest accomplishment. It’s been quite warm (high 20s/mid 80s) but the temperature doesn’t matter much when there isn’t a shadow in sight. I’ll let you know if things get more interesting.

And the final bit of news is the impending party. The Four Days March (and accompanying Four Days Festival which actually lasts a whole week) began yesterday. The March itself begins on Tuesday, but of course, it’s no good to do all that marching without a little good partying first. Last night, David, Angela, Kinga and I went into town to observe the first evening of festivities. All things said and done, it was still pretty calm, although things should pick up through the week. We had a couple beers, rode the ferris wheel, and checked out all the bandstands. I’m sure I’ll go back later in the week, and will thus be able to report on the increasing frenzy. It’s certainly a spectacle, if nothing else.

So far done a lousy job getting to the local Kingdom Hall. I made a very noble effort today, only to discover that the train schedule is apparently arranged specifically with the intention of preventing me from getting where I’m going. It may be easier on Wednesday, since the trains run more frequently than they do on Sunday. The tough part will be getting home from work, getting clean, and getting where I’m going on time. Maybe by then I’ll have a bike so it will take less than an hour to come and go from work.

Okay, well, this email is approaching long-enough, so I’ll try to wrap up for now. A few of you are new to my list – welcome, oh Belgian Buddies! If my epics are more than you think you can handle (I send them about once a week) just let me know and I’ll take you off the list. Otherwise, no obligations to reply – I just like to continually let people know that I’m still alive.

So for now, many hugs and much love from the Netherlands!

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Epic Belgian Email #27

Hullo from the Land of Waffles!

Apologies for being lax in Epicness last week. Although I
imagine the Mega Epic the week before might be enough Epic for a
whole lifetime… :

It’s been a very normal (read, unexiting) couple of weeks. I’ve
taken up residence in the Central Library. Most days, I attempt
to be there by 9 (my average actual time of arrival usually
being about 9:30) and stay until 4 or 5 with a nice long lunch
break. It’s productive time (well, about 3/4ths of it is…)
which means I can relax in the evenings without feeling too
guilty.

I had thought my thesis was proceeding more or less apace. On
Friday, we had our “colloquium,” which is just a fancy way of
saying all your professors and fellow students listen to you
talk about your thesis then they pick on you. I was unreasonably
nervous going into this. My presentation was well prepared and
so was I. But after they finished picking on me, I realized why
I was nervous. The final verdict? My thesis is “unoriginal and
unfocused.”

*sigh* Would have been nice to know that a couple months ago…

Okay, to be fair, I’ve given up on my promoter at least as much
as he’s given up on me. He was so fantastically unhelpful in the
beginning, I just stopped asking advice. He wants me to be
independent? Fine! He’d just better be prepared to defend my
unguided, unoriginal thesis…

Urgh. And I must admit, I rather agree with them. It seemed like
a very good idea starting out, but the topic is too big to do
what I want to do WELL in only ~50 pages. (Which is, briefly, to
show how women – as the heads of the household – were able to
change the course of relgion in the Iron Age.)

So I spent Friday evening coming up with some plans to “fix” it.
I have a meeting with my promoter on Monday morning. Hopefully
if I go in with three distinct options, I can get him to give me
some idea which one has the most potential. I won’t be holding
my breath.

Add to that the fact that he leaves the country on Wednesday,
not to return until after my thesis is due, and you have the sum
of the situation.

*takes a moment to mourn the absence of liberal arts and
professors who are actually helpful and encouraging*

Other than THAT, it’s been a lovely couple of weeks! The weather
is perking up (which is to say it rains less than 50% of the day
and the sun usually makes an appearance every couple of days).
The cafes all have tables out on the terraces, and there aren’t
many joys nicer than sitting outside and watching people while
you unwind.

Last week, I went to a Bach concert. It was supposedly “free,”
so I went with Marianne and Piraye. By “free,” what they really
meant was no fee at the door. You do, however, have to sit and
listen to Old Belgian Guys yammer on and on and on and on about
the new pipe organ they want to buy. Fifty minutes of yammering!
In a very very cold church. Then about 40 minutes of music. Oh
well. The music (when it finally came) was very nice.

There’s my Culture Quotient for the month, then.

Other than that, not much is news. The chickens are getting
feistier. They lay more eggs now that the weather is nice.
Sadly, they’re not afraid of me anymore. I won’t be snatching
their eggs wearing shorts any time soon, that’s for sure.
Germaine doesn’t mind pecking at my legs while I collect.
Distracting them with food isn’t useful either. Who says
chickens aren’t smart? (Now if we could just convince them that
those eggs aren’t gonna hatch anyway…)

My roommates aren’t nearly so irritable, thankfully.

And speaking of chickens (hehe)- news on Turkey: I will NOT be
going to Turkey this summer. I can claim this was my decision,
since I made other plans before they told me they didn’t want
me. Instead, I will be going back to Nijmegen, in the
Netherlands, to work with the archaeologists up there before I
come home in September.

That means that if anyone wants to come visit, I’m available as
a tour guide! Mes parents get first dibs, but otherwise, if
you can manage not to get robbed by the airlines, I’d be
delighted to have any or all visitors! Original vacation plans
guaranteed!

Until then, however, I have a thesis that needs its butt kicked.
I’ll go work on that, you all have a wonderful week, and I’ll
write more later! Love and great big hugs to all!

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