The Archaeogoddess takes no prisoners...

Oops, that's a typo... should read "the Archaeogoddess takes no pictures"!

This is a photo free blog until the end of March.

Why?

Because I am finally having a day off and I'll be damned if I'm going to spend it editing, resizing, and uploading images.  Add to that the time I put into making sure that any image I want to post is not going to upset the museums authority, various persons that appear in photos, or infringe on copyrights.  All in all, it is a VERY LONG TIME INDEED.

I'm only getting a chance to post this now because I'm in a hotel with sturdy internet.  Camp is not the place to try to post.  That last post took forever to load and if I hadn't typed it up first and then cut and pasted into Blogger, I would have lost it for sure.  Our internet connection does like to come and go like camels in the fog.  One minute it's free sailing and I'm reading an email, the next I've got my email server telling me that no, really, I can't see the next email as the connection is lost, please try again later.

So, instead of finding myself cringing whenever I go to read the comments and then neglecting to post things because "oh I don't have any pictures to post, my readers are going to be so mad at me"- I'm going to try to write more and not worry about photos.  At the end of the season, when I am back at home with FAST and RELIABLE internet, I will try to post photos.  Maybe I'll do a flickr page or something and link that in.  But for now I'm not going to stress about it.

So don't comment about it anymore or I'm going to send you an angry email and stop posting all together.

This week was a trying week.  We lost power in the bathroom which means no hot water, no washing machine and no lights to pee by.  If we are lucky we might get an electrician out some time this week.  The kitchen septic tank is full and overflowing and we've been told that we don't need to have it emptied, we should just dig a ditch through the middle of the camp out into the desert where it can drain.  We are also having a cash flow problem where we need to have more cash than the accounting office can keep up with.

Vacation time, once seeming so full of potential, is now proving to be more difficulty than it's worth.  Anyone going to the UK comes back with a cold that they then pass around camp.  Thanks guys, thanks a lot.  Meanwhile, three people in our group want to go to India... they've spent the last two weeks playing a run around game with the Indian Embassy.  Now they need an official letter saying that they will not be doing research while they are there for 5 days.  Eh???

Is it something about this place that means that nothing can actually ever happen or get done?  We haven't been able to even enjoy a day off at the camp because we keep getting overrun by tourists and so lounging around is right out.

This weekend our field director enforced a two day weekend.  He cancelled our workmen and told us to go away.  Myself and my co-registrar and another archaeologist (all of us are in the same tent) booked ourselves into the Ritz.  It was fabulous.  Being away from camp means no one can ask us about stuff or when we'll be done with the internet so they can have a go and you can have food not covered in flies and take long hot showers and wear tank-tops and skirts and not be stared at by passers-by.  Someone else can spend today throwing tourists out of our camp.  We have been the watch-dogs for long enough!

Thankfully, everyone is back from vacation and new people arrived so the camp is buzzing with activity again.  For a while it was just a few of us and then we couldn't go away because it needed to be defended.  Talk about cabin fever!  All day, every day, in the same 40 meter by 40 meter compound.  Stared at by visitors (who drive by slowly with the windows down and STARE at us).  Showering in the public toilet....

The three of us think we should Ritz it EVERY WEEKEND.  It's not like we really have the time to take all that vacation we've built up by working six day weeks.  But if one morning a week we could get out of bed and not shake out our shoes for small crawlies, we'd be happier people all around.

And if it means I can finally start writing emails to all the people who have emailed me, I know I'd stop feeling guilty every time I looked at a computer (I look at a computer all day... imagine the ulcer I must have)!

If it weren't for the fantastic weather we are having (did I mention the tank tops and skirts?) and the fact that I really like all the people I work with quite a lot (I'm going to adopt our computer specialist and I think the illustrator and I were separated at birth) I'd be completely miserable here.    If you've got to be stuck in an insane country, tilting windmills, make sure you can do it in light cotton clothing surrounded by good people.

Things I didn’t know I needed to know for archaeology

When you first start off  trying to become an archaeologist, you worry a lot about what classes you should take.  Geology?  Anthropology?  Aramaic?  You end up taking classes like “Stone Age Archaeology as Seen Through Fiction” (true story, and it was a great class, oodles of fun) and “Anthropological Theory” (aka One Dead White European Male a Day).  You may even take “Archaeological Field Methods” or some other method and theory class that tells you how older stuff is under newer stuff, but leaves out the bits about double bagging and double tagging, which as a registrar I consider to be Quite Important, Thank You Very Much.

But I find that out in the field you draw on knowledge of all sorts.  Some of which you didn’t know you knew and some things that you knew you knowed (new word, watch for it in Webster’s) but never thought you’d use.

Like changing tires.  Everyone should know how to do this.  Why?  Because if you are digging there are bound to be rocks and where there are rocks there are tire punctures.  Or rakes used to rid your area of rocks are left in roadways turned the wrong way up and there are not only tire punctures but also the sudden loss of rakes.

I am a champion tire changer.  NASCAR could use a person of my skills.  Only NASCAR has nice areas where you park your vehicle and I doubt any pit crew has ever had to move finds bags out of the way to get to the jack.

Fire starting is also a handy skill.  Whether you are trying to clear a site of flesh rending thistles or find yourself in the desert in the winter where it is colder than you recall deserts being, being able to light a successful fire is a welcome skill.  

Being surrounded by other archaeologists that have spent seasons digging in all sorts of places is a learning experience.  Just about everyone has a skill learned on a site that comes in handy.  The amount of baking that has taken place on an open fire… yes, baking.  Apple crumble was successfully made using a large pot, some tuna cans, a baklava tin, and an iron wok.

Soda cans have been sculpted into fantastic light fixtures, furniture has been built, and we may have to write a book for 1001 things you can do with string.

But now you’ll have to excuse me, my fire has been left to smolder and it’s gone all smoky on me.  I wonder if there are any marshmallows left….

My tour of Qatar hotels continues.

The Ramada wins top marks due to it's internet connection.  Very fast and reliable.  I can finally post some pictures.

Here are some camels.  We see a lot of camels wandering around.  You can also see the mobile phone tower - the generator for this runs constantly.

However, without it, we'd have no cell phones.

But the constant humming may drive us insane.

Is connectivity all that important? Really?

This is my tent.  Well, the left hand third is mine.  I enter through the left-most door.

See how the upper edge of this photo is purple?  My camera is dying.  It just keeps getting worse and worse and now most of my photos are just purple blurs.

This is the inside of my tent.  (Actually, the layout has changed since I developed a leak in the corner right above the pillow.  But now my camera is refusing to talk to me.)

It *IS* usually cleaner, but I was packing for the Eid trip when I remembered I needed to take photos.  That's my clothing on the bed.  It then took me how many weeks to figure out how to shrink my photos down to the size where they might be able to be posted on-line?  Hush, I don't want to talk about it.

Our toilet block.  We share it with all the visitors to the fort.

What fort? you ask.

This is the fort - if you haven't seen it yet.

It looks all big and impressive, but that canon sitting out in front is a regular sized canon sitting right in front of it.  The door is rather small, most tourists duck when they go through it.  It is NOT a big fort.



WARNING: POSSIBLY DISTASTEFUL PHOTO AHEAD
The inside of that toilet block pictured above.  You put your used toilet paper in the trash can.  Not down the toilet.  This is the old toilet - there was no u-bend so the water would rush back into the pipes after we flushed and the smell was profound.  We now have a new toilet.  Which looks exactly the same.  But doesn't smell!  Yay!  You can't see in this photo, but there is a pipe sticking out of the wall that is our shower.  Yes, we shower in the loo.

You have no idea how nice it is to have the toilet fixed so it doesn't smell.








Then we go and stay somewhere like the Sharq....

The bedroom and the bathtub in the bathroom were very nice.








But I'm typing this up from the best internet connection I've had so far - in the Ramada Hotel.  The Ramada also has the REAL swim up bar (which my roommate and I discovered almost immediately after jumping into the water an hour after we arrived).  And although the rooms are rather 80's styled, we've decided this is the best hotel we've stayed in.  The water in the pool is 31 C/ 87 F!  Of course, it's only 24 C/ 75 F outside, so you really do need the heated water...





My 80's room.






So we spent Christmas lounging by the pool, drinking beer and opening presents.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a late check out so that I can get a few more hours in by the pool...

"Qatar is a country of extremes..."

said one of the archaeologists here.  And boy was she spot on.

For Eid we were given two nights in a very swanky resort.  Very swanky.  My roommate, the girl who intoned the quote above in reverent tones as we pondered our existence on the balcony, was later rather ill from overeating lobster for lunch.  This after we'd stuffed ourselves on fois gras (spelling anyone?) the lunch before.  We seriously over ate.  And did not drink a single drop of alcohol, even though there was a happy hour every night.  Too busy trying to digest while lying on feather beds trying to gear up to take ANOTHER BATH.

I managed to bathe three times in one day, one of those I did in milk and honey.  In the biggest bath tub EVER!  I was able to float on my back in it.  FLOAT.  On my BACK.  In MILK and HONEY and BUBBLES and ROSE PETALS.

It's a lot easier to float, by the way, if you've eaten ridiculous amounts of fattening goose liver.

The week after this luxurious weekend found us frantically digging a trench in the pouring rain trying to divert water from the parking lot, which was channelling directly into the tents, back out into the desert.  We were wet for days.  I had a leak in the corner of my tent and had to rearrange the room so that nothing was getting dripped on.  I've now added the extra blankets to my bed, the nights are rather cold.

This does not mean we haven't had a camel spider sighting in a while.  Oh no, one of the guys had one crawling up his leg while he was in BED.  But, as the guys in the tent point out, they've had Qataris, Japanese, scorpions and cats wander into their tent, why not camel spiders?

Fridays are great for tourists to come out and photograph themselves by our tents.  "And this is me standing by the Pakistani army tent in the desert in Qatar, because I've stupidly come to the conclusion that tents = bedouin and I'm not going to ask permission of the white people sitting over there staring at me because they are obviously only tourists too even if they come over and yell at me for going in and having a look around."

I don't know how many times I'm going to have to march up to someone and say "excuse me but this is my HOME and you can't go into it!"

I WAS going to upload some images, but the internet is too slow.  Our hotel you'll have to look up online: Sharq Hotel Doha and I'll have to find some other solution for the images I've taken of the camp.

Till then!

The romance of archaeology...

You sit around a campfire at night, every now and then checking the ground because there may be a scorpion or a camel spider.

Both have been seen and killed at our camp.

Do not give me your bleeding heart "oh but that poor creature has the right to live - you could have just moved it - it was probably more scared of you than you of it" because you don't have to get up at 2 in the morning to pee and need to keep your flashlight close at hand so that you can check the floor for poisonous things and then you get your shoes which you shake vigorously to again check for the creepy crawlies before going out with your flashlight, again watching for things that RUN at you from the dark!

It is said that the camel spider only runs at you when it feels threatened... apparently people playing poker in the courtyard is threatening.  And while not venomous, they do leave a VERY NASTY BITE, so we'll be killing them dead, thank you very much.

Quick blurb...

Sitting in the Museum Authorities, getting some Internet done.  

So I have some time to give you some more info - particularly about the finds Jennie asked about (since I did just pick up last years finds for cataloguing, this is a relevant question).

The site we're digging was abandoned within living memory.  By abandoned, I mean, most people moved away or at least out of the houses.  There are several people living in tents and campers on the beach, but they are mostly weekenders or squatters or we-don't-ask kinds of people who are not living IN the city.  Over time the city has filled with sand and wind-blown deposits, but walls remain up to a good height.  Most of the finds we've collected so far date to the 19th or early 20th century.  How long the site was settled is not known exactly and is one of the reasons we're digging.  Since it was one of the most important cities in Qatar when the economy was still based on pearls and not oil, it *should* date back quite a ways.  I put "should" in stars because, in archaeology, whenever something *should* be something, it generally isn't.  It's sort of the Murphy's Law of archaeology.  Right up there with, "if you are looking for something big and important that will take at least three days to excavate, you will only find it on the last day of excavation."  And my own personal law, "if the Archaeogoddess finds a wall in her square, it will go into the baulk (the soil left standing between two squares) and will NOT come out the other side."  I think I mentioned that law earlier this year.

Anyway, we have a curious collection of ceramics, some locally made, some imports from nearby, all pretty grungy, and then some really fantastic Chinese imported ware.

We also have a lot of boat nails because we are digging a harbor town whose economy was based on pearl diving, NOT finding boat nails would be weird.

There are a good enough number of coins and beads, and enough fish, goat, and camel bones to keep me busy.

But everything is salt encrusted and corroding.  Even the tool handles get a nice salty sheen to them.  Many of the metal finds are probably not that old, but in this environment, they don't last all that long.

So now I have lots to do, but a sever lack of storage space is going to make things rather messy about my office.  Not to mention the rust, dust, sand, and salt that already lends my office a shabby chic that you just can't buy anywhere.

Anyone know an office supply store in Doha?  One that sells cheap or used office furniture?  

*Grin*

Won't be able to sleep for all the caffeine!

So here I am again, this time writing a post in a cafe.  Too much late night coffee!  Oh the horrors of trying to sleep tonight.

Anyway, some updates:

I wouldn’t say I’ve mastered MS Access, but it is no longer mastering me!  And I have things to register, always good.  We’ve finally commenced digging - the backfill from the previous season is mostly removed and some squares have started work.  Speaking of work, the workmen arrived so things are moving along at a much faster clip. 

The wind is up.  Everything I own is covered in a light layer of very fine dust.  Not much we can do about that.  I’m more worried that the tent is going to blow down on me.  This isn’t even the worst we’ll get, either.  The sand storms that we’ll be getting in a few months are supposed to make this weather look like a light spring breeze.

We’ve also had some rain!  Not much, but just enough to send our poker game scrambling for shelter.  The rain was less wet than one night when the water was just condensing out of the air onto everything.  It was running off the roof and the sky was clear.  WEIRD!

Today we had 6 buses of visitors show up for the fort-museum we're camped next to.  The tourists (probably workers for a company, maybe an oil refinery, getting a "cultural trip") rode 1.5 hrs in a bus for a half hour stop and then 1.5 hrs "home."  Mostly they just used our bathroom.  The director sat and watched to make sure they stayed out of the ladies room.  Then they came and wandered into our housing complex.  Peering into our tents.  One of our archaeologists tried being nice and explaining what we were doing etc etc but when it kept happening I finally just told them "this is our home, please leave."  I'd be more polite and visitor friendly if they didn't just wander into the middle of our courtyard where we are sitting and walk straight up to the tent doors and look in.  HELLO!?  We're sitting right here, how about you ask us what's up or say hi or something, don't just try to go into our tents!

GAH!

Oh, and before I forget.  Replies to comments:

@ Corrine: I always end up getting up to pee in the middle of the night.  I am NOT looking forward to my first sand storm-bathroom trip.  But it is inevitable.

@ Jennie: Right now I'm cataloging iron nails.  But there will be other stuff, like beads, rings, spindle whorls, weights, and coins.  And before you ask, no, I can't take pictures.  :-(

@ Jacki: If I feel like shaving, which I might once a week until it gets too cold to wear capris (which will probably be next week), I use shaving cream and a bit of water.  I can shave with less than a cup of water.  But mostly I'm not worried about shaving.  Who am I trying to impress?  Not even my dear Dane minds if I don't shave for months at a time, so I normally don't shave in the winter anyway.

Was that Too Much Information?  Just keepin' it real folks!

Speaking of shaving, the men have discovered the local barber.  Once a week or so the guys come back with amazingly smooth faces.  Softer than my skin, for sure!

BTW, can anyone tell me WHY I need to wait 6 hours to download 700 MB of data?  Don't tell me about bandwidth, processing speed, and metasourcing (I just made that one up, but doesn't it sound clever?), it's because the internet hates me, right?  This means I might, just might, some day soon, spend the night in a hotel so that I can have LONG TERM access to internet.

YES DAVID TENNANT IS THAT IMPORTANT.

Ahem.

Also I'd like some privacy, since I'd like to skype my husband and I don't need all of Doha looking over my shoulder.  Yes, buddy, I saw you looking....

That's about all from here.  Think of me the next time you vacuum.

Hugs all!