Now that we’ve all left Larnaca and are strangely nostalgic about the past four weeks, we thought we’d reminisce about living in Larnaca. This will be our last post for this summer, but we’ll add occasional posts about the project during the year, so check back for updates. Information about next year’s fieldschool will be posted here in the winter. If you’re interested in participating or have any questions about the project, you can always contact Professor Tom Landvatter.
Continue reading “Living in Larnaca”Month: June 2019
Wrapping up
The end of an archaeological field season is a hectic time. In addition to trying to either finish trench excavation or leave the trench in a safe state for additional excavation next season, there is pottery to wash, finds to process, photos to take, and archaeological drawings to do.
Pottery and Paphos
Thursday and Monday were shooting days, so we spent Thursday exploring the many archaeological sites in the region of Paphos and Monday washing pottery.
Deciphering our μοῖραι
Yesim and Hayley
Many things are available along Larnaca’s turquoise seafront: martinis, phallic slingshots, and sketchy tattoos out the back of large white vans. But most notable, perhaps, is the small green corner shop offering udon noodles, ponzu sauce, and Greek fortune cookies. The best part of a meal from Wok in the Box, besides price, is always the small slips of paper that crumble from the insides of the cookies — equipped with glib sayings nearly as illegible in English as in Greek. Since we’re still waiting with bated breath to discover any inscriptions in the field pottery, we’re keeping our skills sharp by valiantly attempting translations. A Herculean task, since Ancient Greek never had much to say about computer science. Homeric couplets about toilet paper may not be very impressive, but we hope Ellen will be proud of us for practicing (with flash cards!) nonetheless… at least enough to avoid proskynesis.
[our commentary will be in brackets]
Continue reading “Deciphering our μοῖραι”Everyone gets a wall
It’s only Wednesday, but it’s been an eventful week. We’ve opened a small new trench adjacent to the south trench, and we’re nearly ready to close that unit, the south trench, and the north trench. In the middle trench, we’re tantalizingly close to reaching the ancient floor level in what we think is a room.
Continue reading “Everyone gets a wall”It’s getting hot in here
It’s hot this week. And archaeology is hot work. We’re halfway through the field season, and we’ve made some significant progress in all three of our trenches. Each trench highlights a different type of archaeological problem which we are addressing, and consequently requires different excavation strategies.
