I could spend all day excavating (if it weren’t so hot in the afternoon anyways). I’m having a great time supervising my own area. I have one worker as my assistant. Ahmed speaks a little English, and is very helpful. And he is a VERY fast excavator. Today, we were excavating a few pits (roughly 70 cm in diameter), and before I even had the paperwork done for one pit, he was on to the next! He’s an excavating machine. Nadine also showed him how to use the total station, so he helps me with mapping and taking heights.
Archaeology isn't all fun and games though. There's A LOT of paperwork involved. I have to record a bunch of information about each layer I see, and how it relates to every other layer (called a Harris Matrix). I also have to keep track of what Ahmed is doing, record the finds, organize the pottery to send to Tasha Town (where it sits to await our overworked ceramicist), and understand all the archaeology to be able to explain it to Nadine and/or Greg. When we get home I have to work on the Edfu blog, and then draw top plans and profiles in Illustrator. Archaeology takes a lot more work than I think anyone realizes! We’re not all running around dodging boulders and booby traps while searching for treasure!
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