Hello!
Made it safely to Cyprus!
I was briefly misplaced at the airport, but some calling around and web-digging by Dylan got me back on track and to a cot in the Nissou house by 3am.
I’m here with Emily and Andrew, to lovely people with a good bit of cynical humor and some quality archaeological puns, and we are enjoying the pre-season calm before the storm. We’ve been very productive. The main project has been working on a database of all our dig finds from years gone by. There has been a good deal of physical effort put into getting the house ready for the 16 archaeologists who are going to be descending upon it in the upcoming days.
Today I attacked the prickly caper bushes with a bolt-cutters, and we swept, raked, and hosed the shower area into submission. Then, we assembled the out-door showers! After that, more database work, a quick lunch, and jumping into unloading the army-tents and cots that we will all be sleeping in and on. We drove with Frank, our resident supplier of army-surplus turned archaeological equipment to his house in Pissouri. He had a pool, and brandy-sours, and two adorable dogs, so there is nothing more I could want except maybe to stay longer.
It sounds like this year we will not be renting the gymnasium where we usually stay. Though I will miss the space (and gloriously bountiful showers and toilets) we will get by here. We’ll be setting up some smaller tents, and everyone else will line up cots in the big army-tent. We’re going hard-core this year. Hopefully we can get some portapotties, because I don’t know how well we will all get along sharing one bathroom otherwise.
Here’s one angle of this little place, between editing research articles and databasing and drinking nescafe.
Think it looks cluttered now? There may be wars over surface space.
Tomorrow, we will get the yard cleared and the remaining curtain on the shower, or else Cyprus will get to know us a little too well too soon.
And more database. Always more database. Turns out, we’ve found a lot of things! For three days straight of working, we have almost completed a single square’s worth of finds from a single season. There’s a lot more where that came from!
Emily and I were tasked with pitting cherries, and in exchange, we got to eat one of the pies Dr. Gaber made. Pam bakes a mean cherry pie.
Our hands and table both resembled a murder scene. But the pie was delicious.
This year is certainly going to be an odd one. We’ll spend a good chunk of the season back-filling squares, getting the site ready for its close. It’s going to be a small team coming together for the end of the Idalion excavation. I expect a mix of celebration for the great adventures gone-by, continued shenanigans, and mourning the conclusion before us. I plan on going out with a big-pick held high, bucket-scars on my legs, and another year’s worth of stories.
checkoutmydigs 