My second survey day was cut short today. We were given a short lecture on pottery in the morning and then we were transported back to the same area where we were surveying yesterday. By 11 o’clock we actually had found a site (neolithic, impasto) and were about to go back to the car when our survey leader got a phone call. When he was done he said: ‘we’re going back’ and there was nothing that made us think at the time that he was serious when he said it. Why would we be going back? We had two hours more surveying to do!
Bureaucracy can be a shitty thing, and especially in Italy. Apparently the superintendent of archaeology in the region would like very much to close down this project, and has now succeeded (at least temporarily) to shut down our surveying.
I forgot to mention it before, but the mayor and a group of Italians came to visit the site on friday. They were shown around site in a couple of hours, and as I looked over I thought I saw them looking pleased and as if they were enjoying the tour. This coming friday they have arranged a dinner between the mayor, a couple of local politicians and our supervisors. There is also a rumour flying around that they want to create a photo series to document ‘life on site’.
Why the political situation should be so delicate would seem like a mystery then, but apparently the mayor here has no power over such things (sigh). In any case this project’s fight for survival has been upped a notch. This is my first year here, but I know that there has been a struggle with the authorities to keep the project running for years. Why in the world the superintendent would be coming after us with a hatcher though, I have no idea.
When we were done surveying for the day, we spent the rest of the (work)day helping out in the Apotheke. They had quite a lot of things to wash as there can often be several kilograms of each bone and pottery from a single trench every day (not our trench though). As I was sitting down to help I picked a random bone bag. Washing bone with a toothbrush can be strangely relaxing (it’s true!), and I was hardly noticing what I was doing when somebody suddenly asked me if it was human. Bloody damn if it was. I felt awed, yet got very quickly used to the thought. That’s just the way it is.
Dighouse 