A typical dig day goes a little something like this\u2014<\/p>\n
5:00 am\u2014Awaken to the first progressing chords of \u201cWhat the World Needs Now is Love Sweet Love\u201d<\/p>\n
5:01 am\u2014Fight my way into the bathroom, and see if we have been blessed with actually having toilet paper.<\/p>\n
5:06 am\u2014Get dressed (aka throw on some dirty shorts and an ugly hat) as I try to force my body to function at this ungodly hour.<\/p>\n
5:25 am\u2014Stumble down the uneven stairs and head out to the bus.<\/p>\n
5:30 am\u2014Get in the bus and pray I find a seat. Fall asleep immediately.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n 5:45 am\u2014Stop at the best gas station in the world. Acquire cookies and a lot of water.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n 6:00 am\u2014Arrive at the dig site. Run to get a seat, and then get some of the best tea in the world.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n 6:20 am\u2014Pee.<\/p>\n 6:30 am\u2014Stumble down a mountain and then up a mountain to get to the site.<\/p>\n 6:35 am\u2014Grab tools and apply at least half a bottle of sunscreen.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n 6:40-10:00 am\u2014Dig.<\/p>\n 10:00 am\u2014Stop for tea. Eat those cookies in an ancient bath. Remind yourself how lucky you are.<\/p>\n 10:30 am – 1:00 pm\u2014Dig<\/p>\n 1:00 pm\u2014Run down to try to make a bus back to the depot. Fail to catch said bus.<\/p>\n 1:05 pm\u2014EAT!!!<\/p>\n 2:00 pm\u2014Get back on the bus, and immediately pass out.<\/p>\n I should probably elaborate.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I know it seems strange to add more detail to a schedule that includes time to urinate, but I\u2019ve got to dig in ( get it? ) to those hours when I\u2019m digging. Some days it\u2019s just moving dirt for hours and hours on end. Some days we have music blasting, and others we each stare silently at the holes we\u2019re digging. Sometimes I forget why I\u2019m there, and I get stuck in the mundanity of moving tons of dirt every day. Then some days, I find ancient inscriptions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This past Tuesday was rough for me. It was one of those days where I felt like I was just digging a hole. It was one of those days where I stopped thinking about what the site once was and thought of it only as the ruins it is now. I was tired and hot and crouched in the dirt, and then I moved my hand up against a rock and saw letters. Ancient Greek letters. I unearthed an inscription dating back to late Imperial Roman times, and promptly lost my mind. I remembered why I was there in that moment\u2014I was touching history. I held an artifact that an ancient person conceptualized and created and handled, and that was really fricking cool! Furthermore, it was a really important reminder. A couple old letters on a dirty stone reminded me that the hours I spend digging aren\u2019t just manual labor. Those hours are the hours I spend searching for the puzzle pieces that fit together to create ancient narratives. When I dig I tell stories, and that\u2019s well worth getting up at 5 am for.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A typical dig day goes a little something like this\u2014 5:00 am\u2014Awaken to the first progressing chords of \u201cWhat the World Needs Now is Love Sweet Love\u201d 5:01 am\u2014Fight my way into the bathroom, and see if we have been blessed with actually having toilet paper. 5:06 am\u2014Get dressed (aka throw on some dirty shorts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2860,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Iz8A-xY","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2860"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2106"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2136,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2106\/revisions\/2136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}