Dr Tho does Thorikos

Against my hopes there is a pretty stable, insjallah, unsecured internet connection at our place in Lavriou so I can rant and banter about casual stuff that comes up during the expedition.

So Thorikos, hey?

Well, it's in Greece, in the east of Attica, about three quarters of an hour drive from Athens.
The last campaign we did here was a clean-up action and we basically weeded a big part of the industrial quarters. Whilst doing so we discovered some discrepancies in the ground plans and decided to aim the next campaign at researching and investigating the flaws in the plan.

So here we are, in Thorikos, on a nice mountain with plenty of ruins, a wonderful sunset and pretty nice crew.

But what do we do here?

Well, basically we take a map in hand, walk around, look at structures and discuss their function/dating or whatnot. To make it more difficult we do this with a silly French accent. Why?
Because we are multi-cultural, of course.

My partner in crime is Guy, one of the coolest and most sober people I've met in Archaeology. And since today he's also a retired soldier.

Retirement, hey?

Yes, retirement. Retirement equals champagne, so we had champagne, toast with sausages and cheese as we watched that beautiful sunset mentioned earlier.

I love being me, not only am I so smart, clever, funny and ruggedly handsome, I also have the best job in the world, or will have anyway when I grow up.

At the end of things.

I can hardly recall the last time I wrote here. The Wadi Ram seems ages ago, back when the Irish were still here and the French hadn't arrived.

That is far too long a time to write an interesting piece about, so I will briefly sum up what happened.

We went to Wadi Ram, awesome, played in the dunes, brilliant, rolled from the highest dune I've seen in my life, fantastic, so fantastic I'm still crapping red sand.

Then we got back to work, my trench soon turned muddy, not because I didn't like climbing up three metres every time I had to take a piss, but because of the altitude of the groundwater table.
We dug some more, said goodbye to Helen, Bart and Joris after some nice partying and welcomed the French and Walloon replacements.

It is uncanny how little faces there are in the world. Magalie, the French drawer(Person who draws, not part of a cupboard), was the almost exact double of my former sister-in-law. It goes without saying that she wasn't immediately high up on my list of people I like. Luckily, she turned to be nice enough, for a frenchy ;), so that was that.

The Walloon guy, Jacques, looked like the father/brother of the guy some of you know as Consul Colin. Apart from them both being awesome and their spitting resemblance they had very little in common. So that too was that.

The Bedouin.
I love these guys. They are one of the most hospitable people I have ever met. They have given us names, they have given us tea and they have slaughtered a goat for us. In the beginning they were workers, but now I call most of them friend, not because of the fact that their names are as similar as they are(yes, that is entirely untrue and very colonial of me, a flogging is necessary), but because they are friends. They are honest in their handling of matters and if they dislike you they will not hide it, plus they liked my knife. People who like my knife are my friends.

Salah, what's in a name, invited us to his 'house', beit bedouin, in Humayma and we camped under one the starriest skies I've seen in my life.

I will cease my writing for today, because I'm starting to bore myself. More of my exciting adventures tomorrow.

A Camel and his Pants

I finally managed to destroy my first real pair of cargo pants. I feel slightly odd without it, but I've never been a pants-loving kind of man, so I think I'll get over it rather swiftly.

En-Nur the Camel has been on a walk-a-about for the past few days and I sincerely hope that he will return soon, because the stale bread we brought for him has almost turned into granite and also because I'm a camel-loving kind of guy. Well, not in a physically intimate kind of way, of course...

Which brings me to the next subject.

BREASTS!


I've always been a breast-loving kind of guy, you can interpret that any way you like, and this absence of even a nicely outfitted scenery of cleavage to look at is driving my up the walls. As long as those walls aren't the ones of a goat shed I should be all right, for now...



And now for something completely different...

We went to Petra last week. That was fucking, no pun intended, awesome!
When our driver saw we could get in for free he went along, but I think the man seriously came to rue his decision to follow a bunch of crazy cliff-jumpers on his day off. We took him to and fro and up and under every hill, mountain, nook and cranny we came across and this on his day off from his two, yes two, regular jobs during the week.
Allah wasn't entirely satisfied either and He caused our car to break down before we even started to head back. Many hours and friendly Jordanians who had cousins with the same type of battery later we were able to head back to Aqaba.
We had to sing for the entire two hour trip to keep the driver awake and I'm not sure who was more damaged by the experience, the poor driver or my fellow van-mates...


Anyhow, next Friday we got to the Wadi Rum, insjallah!

(In a bar) Under the Sea

I went snorkelling for the first time ever today.
That was fucking awesome.

Also, Spring has set in in Aqaba!
Hooray!
More sun!
Party!
Arak!
Beer!

Then there was a Camel...

I looked up out if my trench and there was a camel (dromedary, I know...) looking back at me. Quite a familiar one, because it was the same that came grazing on our site yesterday. It belongs to gypsies, gypsies who actually sent the beast to scout our field.
A gypsy-boy came to pick it up after a while and had a good look at what was going on.
I liked it better when the gypsies were on our side, like in Bulgaria, but at least here we have fierce Bedouin warriors who make ewok-noises as they wobble around.

Nothing but the Rain...

Yesterday was a day of firsts,
the first day in the field, the first time I got sandsprayed(hurts like hell, especially in the eyes...), the first Jordanian shoarma and several other firsts I can't remember.

Today was even cooler.
I have my own trench just outside the Ayla walls and I dig there with my trusty Jordanian assistant Jumah Abu Saleh. Today we found a wonderful piece of steatite pottery, together with a lot of glazed ware and medieval glass as well as several structures and charcoal remains.

Anyway, I'm off again, We're making steak and fries tonight!

Nothing but the Rain...

Yesterday was a day of firsts,
the first day in the field, the first time I got sandsprayed(hurts like hell, especially in the eyes...), the first Jordanian shoarma and several other firsts I can't remember.

Today was even cooler.
I have my own trench just outside the Ayla walls and I dig there with my trusty Jordanian assistant Jumah Abu Saleh. Today we found a wonderful piece of steatite pottery, together with a lot of glazed ware and medieval glass as well as several structures and charcoal remains.

Anyway, I'm off again, We're making steak and fries tonight!

The First Day in the Desert

I love the desert.
I also know why...
It turns out I was Reynald le Chatillon in a past life.
I've always liked the Knights Templar and the Crusaders, but it wasn't until all these Arabs started staring at me with terrified eyes that realization dawned.

But anyway, real work doesn't start until tomorrow so it's some more Crusading till we start digging up Aila, the oldest Islamic settlement.

More tomorrow, insjallah.

Always good to know

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