To begin a hard day’s work of digging and various other work we start by waking up extremely early. Like at 5 AM with about five other alarms blasting in the small space that is our room. Because it is extremely hard to get up at 5 in the morning we end up having to turn on the light to wake us up. After sluggishly changing into clothes that have been turned brown from dirt we all climb into a bus that holds about half of the people who live in the dig house, meaning people have to stand. To start an exciting day of moving rocks and fighting poky bushes we first eat breakfast which is not that exciting until a large amount of bees show up and try to steal all the sugar. In the end one of the students kills them by smashing then with a fork.
We then walk up to the acropolis by falling up a very rocky hill that has a path that is small enough we have to walk up one at a time. I have fallen down that hill before, it was a very unfortunate event and we go to our isolated dig site far from all the other groups. Then after lathering a large amount of sunscreen we begin to dig by first taking elevations and hoping that they are correct and we haven’t added dirt rather than removing. After working for a while the clock will strike 10 and we will have to take the long walk down the hill to the large baths to have tea time. After tea time we must again walk up the hill and begin to dig for another 2 hours. After digging at 1 is the most exciting time, lunch, which is usually beans and rice with bread. Then we all get squished onto the bus again and travel back to the dig house where we stand in line for the shower. Then at 4 30 we have to either draw pottery or clean pottery which we have not yet decided what one is the worse activity. Then dinner at 7 which also includes some rice, some type of pasta and my favorite food, bread. After this we try to write our notebooks but some people forget the elevations and we have to do it the next day. Then it is bedtime which the Turkish students claim we go to bed too early, maybe that is true but I get more sleep then them.
Some reflections of AC 7 A, the official name for our dig site. Your probably expecting me to tell you what exactly we are excavating is, but we have no idea. We have two different buildings, building A which has an inscription from Hadrian’s wife Sabina. We also found a scorpion nest and many bushes that have crazy need to survive because have had to fight to get rid of them. Building B is as confusing as building A, there is an entrance in building A into B and two large pieces of bedrock which are sticking out very far from the floor. It is very confusing and makes no sense. Once we figure out what is happening we will be very happy.
This is a very typical day in the life of Clara the Ripper Gambill, future archeologist and the female reincarnation of Indiana Jones (queue Indiana Jones theme song).
Clara Gambill