5/13/07

Happy Mother's Day to the wonderful women in my life: The Aunties and my Mommy.

I just got back from peeing. That is not the important aspect of my story- regardless I was in the bathroom, and i saw this pretty big spider on the ground. Now like I said...I've pretty much been trying to let go of these petty little hang ups, ie bugs since bugs are everywhere here, so I ignored precious little charlotte as she wandered about beneathe my feet...but then I flushed the toilet...and that fucker jumped...I kid you not, like 10 inches off the ground and I ran really fast out of the bathroom...some things you just cannot get used to, no matter how hard you try.

And actually, I was thinking about this the other day, bugs and spiders that is. As I was, again peeing, out in the desert, I watched these big ole wants scurry about. The ants here are kind of funny looking, their back ends aren't straight they stick up in the air, so they kind of look like spiders themselves. And then I just started wondering why we dislike spiders so much, ants are weird looking too, they bite, some of them are poisonous...sure they don't get that big, but if i saw a tarantual sized ant, I would probably think it was cute...who knows, I will work on not being so bugmental.



I definitely spoke too soon when I talked about how quickly I was getting through the material. This morning after getting a lesson in phase differentiation from the lithics guy, Tim, I sat down to start sorting more bone.

I struggle with fish a lot because of how many different bones there are. In the fish skull alone there are 130 bones. They are also variable between different species. Given that, I cannot learn fish the way I did mammals. With mammals, I learned what each bone was, and then learned species..with fish I need to learn bones and species at the same time....and they have a bunch of different parts that mammals don't have...it's all very confusing...I was very distraught.


Another thought that occured to me today, for those that have known me a while, remember how much I longed to be a marine biologist back in the day, and then i changed my mind once I found out that most marine biologists don't work with whales, they spend all of their time in the lab dissecting fish- well look at me now, spending all day in a lab sorting fish bones.

Okay, well that about does it for now...I really need to start doing more of the reading research aspect for my thesis. Everytime I try to now, I always fall asleep. I'm reading Barry Kemp's Ancient Egypt, Anatomy of Civilization.

I'm sorry I don't have any pictures today either, so instead here are some of just me being stupid, hiding in my closet and blowing you guys kisses!

5/12/07

As expected, things are winding down and I don't really have as much to write anymore. I didn't even take a single picture today. Today it was really sweet though...downstairs in the dining room there is a coffee/tea table for everyone. It has the essentials but as I mentioned yesterday, I had bought my own coffee mate at the market on Tuesday. I have two little containers, one I keep here and one I have at the lab for my coffee there. After seeing me abstain from the milk they leave on the table and pockting my own coffee mate, the egyptians went out and bought a large one and put it on the table.

Meals here can be really hit or miss...a lot of times the miss part comes from me not wanting to eat the fried stuff. There is usually always soup, marinated vegetables, rice, and some other form of hot stewed vegetable. whatever it is I just usually put on a lot of pepper and hot sauce and eat it. The lentil soup made here is amazing...but tonight they had carrot soup...carrot soup, not so much....for the most part there is usually always something I can eat...some of it I could rant and rave about, others i could really skip and just subsititute with a lot of granola bars back in my room. I seem to be a bigger fan of the food than most of the people still around though...a lot of the grad students have been subsisting on peanut butter and jelly for weeks. They don't have regular jelly here though...it's fig jam or ganna jam...and those just kind of make me feel weird...

Some exciting news though, I received this e-mail from National Geographic:

Dear Kelly,

I am happy to be able to inform you that your Young Explorers Grant application was approved at our May meeting earlier this week. You will be receiving full funding in this award. I am sure that you can use both these funds and any other funds you've received for the project. Yours was the highest ranked YE grant we considered in this batch, receiving 15 perfect scores from the members of the CRE. Congratulations!

NGS staff will be contacting you soon with details of your award (if they haven't already) but I wanted to make sure I congratulated you personally on your achievment.

I look forward to hearing about the results of your work.


This means I have more than enough funds for this trip. Unfortunately I cannot keep all of the funds National Geographic offered me since I received another national grant, I only get to keep about half of it. But that my proposal was so well received is great!

Well I need to either read some more on Egypt or beging generating my database for my work....(I will probably sleep though soon, I'm still recovering from the Fayum).

For those complaining about the length of my posts (sorry guys didn't realize egypt was so OLD NEWS) the entries will probably be a lot shorter since now I have database stuff to punch in when I get off of work.

Next Friday I wont be going on any wild excursions either..it was actually a fluke that I did all the traveling that I did this week, it was supposed to be more spread out but that's just how it happened. Next Friday I am going to the Cairo Museum though. But it's only Saturday....sigh my next day off is still so far away!

Goodnight (good afternoon) to you all

5/11/07

Today was my trip to the Fayum. I may begin this entry tonight and finish tomorrow since I am currently very very tired from all of the traveling. Today was actually quite cool, I don't think the temperature exceeded 80 degrees. There was also some rain here and there today. It was actually quite perfect for such a long day devoted to travel. The mini bus we ride in does not have air conditioning so the 5 hours spent in the car would have been quite daunting if it were a 100 degree day. However, it was very windy. The wind was so strong it stripped your skin of water. I had to do some serious moisturizing tonight.

Before entering the Fayum area we had to stop at certain check points. We were hoping to make it through without any of the guards realilzing that the fan was packing Americans. Unfortunately we did not succeed. They could have made us turn around but instead they sent police security to follow us around everywhere we went. It is rather intimidating, because unlike the police back in the states, these guys carry machine guns. To my knowledge they don't actually have bullets, and in all reality, a lot of officialish people around Egypt are carrying machine guns for the "security" of others. (sorry marcia, don't freak out! It's safe i promise!)

The Fayum is basically a region in Egypt between the Nile and the desert. It really is a bizarre landscape...you go from endless sandy desert, to lush tropical palm trees, with watered fields sourced by Nile channels. I saw everything today from archaeological siles, to Fayum village life.

Our first stop was at Karanis or Kom Aushim. It had amazing preservation! I was absolutely blown away. It dates to the late Roman Period. Here I got to see residential areas, temples, baths, pottery, so so much. It is one of my favorites so far that I have seen.

Here is an aerial view of the North Temple at Karanis, that's my roommate in standing in it.



Here is a window of the structure that looks out onto the Fayum landscape, you can see green!



These next two are more from inside the temple, that's my professor standing in there (he didn't know I was taking the picture, he hates having his picture taken- which I think is actually an archaeologist thing because i really do too)





Here are some residential structure remains:



Again amazing preservation from a grecco roman site. Look at this bath, some of the fresco is still naturally preserved:





THIS WAS MY BIGGEST BREAKTHROUGH THOUGH:
Being the zooarchaeologist that I am, at this site I managed to find this:




It is a lizard skeleton. When I showed Richard this ensued:

Kelly: "Hey Look! A frog skeleton! Actually no- it's a lizard."
Richard: "Ah yes! A lizard...a modern one though."
Kelly: "Actually, it's GECKO-Roman"
Richard: "HEY GUYS KELLY MADE HER FIRST ARCHAEOLOGY JOKE!"

It was well received...I have crossed the threshold into professional archaeology woo!

Next we went to Hawara. Hawara had a Middle Kingdom Pyramid, tombs, and cemetary.









After Hawara we went for a long ride through the Fayum villages. This is actually some of the more eye opening events of the experience. I was dying to capture more photos of village life in the Fayum, but it is really hard to do this without appearing as though these people are supposed to be on display for me to see. My roommate, who has done a lot of field work in Syria and throughout the Middle East said that she was very uncomfortable with the way we took to get to the next site. The villages were crowded with people and the roads were narrow, if they decided to surround our vehicle or protest us being there in any way, we would have been left with few options in terms of assuring our safety. The police security followed behind us still, but her point was that, in places like Iraq, the security makes it a point to take travelers away from these villages, not through them. Here are some of the pictures, the first two are just along the way before entering the village







Next we went to Lahun. Again another Middle Kingdom Pyramid (at this point I have seen all of the middle kingdom pyramids) as well as a small pyramid (it is not well preserved) for a queen, and some mastabas:










Finally we went to Maydum, where one of the pyramid ruins is thought to have collapsed. The Pharoh for this pyramid is still under debate, but it sprang up sometime between the constructions of the bent pyramid and the Red Pyramid that were constructed at Dahshur. This is actually really awesome to see...it is one of the best preserved pyramids, except you can only see the standing core...the outside finished is no longer there...reasons why? Well, we just can't be sure...it may not have even collapsed, that could just be a good way to sell books. I went inside this pyramid, the journey a lot like tunneling through the red pyramid. After we went down and then up into the tomb shaft, the oxygen levels were much different and I found it very difficult to breathe. I tried to just stay calm throughout most of it...I could not tell if I was having some sort of panic attack, or getting really claustraphobic...finally someone else mentioned the difference in oxygen levels and I at least felt relieved that it wasn't just something in my mind...it was literally more difficult to breathe in there...either way I wanted to get out pretty quickly, we didn't stay in too long.










After the trip we ate at this restaurant which was AMAZING...the best hummus I have had, ever, with homemade pita. MMMMmmmmm

Some people have been asking me about mailing addresses: don't bother sending stuff. I appreciate the thought, especially because I really miss my orange trident gum, but it would be weeks before packages actually ever got to me because they open and inspect them, and then turn around and charge me a fee for having to inspect them. The other day Richard and I went to the market- by far one of the more comforting places I've been here- and I got some Coffee Mate Creamer and granola bars, and alternative chewing gum, and I was quite giddy for those 3 things. I have been commended on how low maitenence I am- ha if you guys can believe that! Even that whole peeing in the desert thing: get this...so it just so happens that I only needed to pee in the desert my first day here. There is a "bathroom" next to the lab, but when I was there it was full and so a big vaccum truck had to come clean it out. One of the project leaders, Maryann, said she never really used it and just always picked a spot outside and that it was fine since the toilet hole room was a new addition to the project. I never actually knew when or if it got cleaned out so I just get going to my mastaba spot. The other night i was talking to my roommate and i asked her about what to do during menstruation (The last thing I need is to see one of those pyramid dogs running around with my tampon in its mouth- how mortifying would that be). She explained that she either dropped it down the hole or just wrapped it and threw it in the waste basket. I told her that I hadn't even gone in there yet and that I had just been going outside. Surprised, she said that I was very brave and back before the makeshift bathroom they used to go in teams. I finally did try that bathroom and its gross...none of that!


Okay it's time for bed now: per usual i love/miss/hope everyone is doing well plus ignore my typos~!

I almost forgot!

I did want to mention quickly the issue with how I currently SOUND when I talk. I, of all people, I fear, am losing my midwestern accent! I've already heard boths cheers and boo's regarding what would happen if I pick up a British accent, but it's not a British one i'm picking up...somehow I am talking most like my roommate who is from Arkansas...it is a really really bizarre way to speak, especially picking up from her because she actually has a mix of Arkansas, Chicago, British, and the accent she has from her fluency in arabic...I am very uncomfortable when I start speaking because I begin to think "holy effing crap this is not what I sound like at all." I have been reassured this will be temporary...but i'm afraid me saying things like "Oh BUGGER!" when i do something wrong might be here to stay...just because I think it's silly :)

5/10/07

Good Day Everybody! Thursday is beginning for you and ending for me. Last night was the first night I was up really late here in Cairo. It was "bloody" hot and I couldn't sleep a wink. I think I eventually passed out after midnight, but waking up still wasn't too bad. Still a hefty 6 hours of sleep.

Last night I had a good talk with my roommate about how she got into archaeology and went about pursuing graduate school. She's in her 7th year at the university of Chicago. She has been extremely kind and helpful while I've been here. It really helps to make things a lot easier.

Everyone keeps asking me how I am adjusting to such a different world. I'm sure the experience is different for everyone, but for me, since I know that I am going to be here a while, I went with the dive in and get soaked approach. I don't really take the time to think about how to adjust to something, or whether or not I approve or disapprove, whether I can or can't...when you're here, you just do it...when you walk into a bathroom, and the bathroom is a hole on the ground, you don't hold it, especially when you've drank 4 bottles of water to combat the heat and potential dehydration. When your only way into town is through the thrill ride they call a taxi cab, you don't think about how nervous you get in cars, you just get in there and go. When you're burning more calories than you could ever possibly keep up with and you just saw about 3 different bugs land on your dinner, you pay no mind, you finish the meal. When the air is so dirty and polluted that when you blow your nose the tissue is black, you don't think about whether that's the last straw and that maybe it's time for home, you take another deep breath, and you throw the tissue away- and that is if you were smart enough to pick up your own tissues. Lesson number one in egypt: where ever you go, carry toilet paper, because you will not find it anywhere else. When you come in after a long day and think, oh I got a little color on my face, only to realize it was nothing but oil and dirt, a fine veil of bus exhaust..you just make sure you use some extra soap.

I could go on, but you get the point. Somehow I have really managed to just cut myself off from anything that I may have judged as gross, or unbearable. It's not even a matter of "managing" without, or making the best of a situation, it's just being or doing: in other words, sure things are different, but here, they make sense. Egypt is poor, it is covered in trash, the air is dirty, the bugs are constantly crawling on your skin and crossing the street makes Indiana Jones seem like a square dancer. I don't love it here. But I don't hate it. I have only been here a week, and while the culture shock has been tremendous, I can already tell that I will miss it here when I leave. Visiting the sites is wonderful, but the experience is a true gift. Even if it does involve the insanity that is transportation. I really wish i could record what a car ride is like. My professor described it as being in a video game. Crossing the street is extreme Frogger, and driving is any racing game you can imagine. Like I was saying before, my first time in the car, driving home from the airport, I let out one gasp at a near collision before my professor told me to relax and accept that this was what traffic was like. After that I was almost able to enjoy it. The thing is, they are really aggressive drivers and it's almost fun to watch them zig zag in and out...you would never have guessed how close you can actually drive next to cars and peoples without hitting them until you experienced it here. But they are really good drivers. it's not like they are all trying to be idiots, this is just how things are here, and they are very good at maneuvering. My roommate further added that their cars are like their livestock. It is probably more expensive than their house. They take excellent care of their cars and are totally dependent on them to get to their places of work. In other words, if they smashed up their cars they would be losing nearly everything. So they are actually very careful, just in a MUCH different way...

My cousins both recommended I bring with me Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. The book has really been tremendously valuable in coping with some of the issues I face here:



In case you missed it, here's a close up:



This morning when I went downstairs I found out I had been given a new nickname: The Spider on account of me hopping on furniture and climbing the walls last night to try and kill all of the mosquito's in my room: weapon of choice: Ayn Rand!

I've been falling asleep during the same paragraph of this book for the last week now...but to be fair that is universally true of reading material as of late.



When I went to Sakkara and Dahshur a few days ago, I was actually tagging along with a group of people that Richard was showing around. They are from the states, some from Michigan, and work with/or or know Richard's wife. They were really Nice and really enthusiastic about archaeology. They came into the lab today to see what some of the stuff was like and it was really cool to have peopple so interested in the things that we do.

I don't really know how I feel about the fact that a week has gone by. On the one hand it seems like it has been so much longer...it really blows my mind that I have only been here a week. But then I think about how quickly one week will turn into two, and two into six and that by the time I get home there's still an entire half of summer. My perceptions of time are just all wacky right now. i think it might be because of all the sleep i've been getting. I probably haven't slept this much since I was a child, which is a very good thing. Though you would not believe this mattress...if I can even call it that...I'm pretty sure it's filled with straw and mud...maybe some bricks too seeing as though I cannot make it move at all. The mattress is at an angle, its like theres a big ole body on the left hand side stuffed in there and the other half is flat. It is quite an awkward sleeping platform: but I still fall asleep quite easily...so there you have it, if you want a better night's rest, don't bother with spending lavishly on linens, comforters, and top quality mattresses, just get yourself some good ole jet lag and work 10 hours in the desert, you'll sleep like you did when you were a baby!

Here are some pictures of me that Richard took while we walked around the site and one is after going through the Red Pyramid.

Sorry this was a long winded entry. Tomorrow/Saturday's will be filled with pictures from the Fayum.
Hope everyone is doing well!

Pictures from Sakkara and Dahshur

This will be an entry devoted to the photo's taken at Sakkara and Dashshur.

These first photos, from Sakkara are from the Mastaba and tomb of Ti. Ti was not a royal, but this was one of the first non-royal mastaba constructions and dates to about the 5th dynasty. The first photo is of the Mastaba entrance way. Following that are some pictures of some hieroglyphs, which feature Ti where the figure is depicted as large, and the workers bringing forth offerings depicted in the smaller reliefs. His body would have been down into the tomb shaft. His body of course has been looted now, but we were not allowed down there nonethe less
When you move into another room of the mastaba there are 3 slots to look through and upon viewing the first, your gaze is matched with none other than Ti himself. His statue is staring right back at you.







Next we went to the pyramid complex of Teti, where I didn't take any pictures because we weren't allowed to. Actually we weren't allowed to take pictures most places since the flashes from cameras can damage the reliefs and paintings, but I snuck them in when I could- an act punishable by death here in Egypt. No, I'm just kidding, though I'm sure it could perpetuate certrain prevalent attitudes they have towards Americans who think rules don't apply to them. But seeing as though tourism is their main source of capital, I'm not really going to feel bad about it. They need picture takers there.

After Teti, we went to the actual entrance of Sakkara: this is what the entrance gate looks like, look at the people for scale:


Inside of the entrance wall/gate area, were some of the first collumns ever constructed, way way before Greece or Rome. After walking through the entrance you get to Djoser's Step Pyramid, the first Egyptian pyramid constructed. It was engineered by Imotep, he was a pretty sweet architect in his day: or as the brits say "brilliant!" The step pyramid originated as a Mastaba. The way tomb and offering constructions worked for the Phaorohs was that, as soon as they came into power, individuals would spend the Pharoh's reign constructing his pyramid. As soon as he died they usually stopped and stuffed him ( or her there was one female pharoh ). This is why a lot of Pyramids (like Menkaure's) are not actually completed. For Djoser though, Impotep build him a mastaba, and then since he was still alive, decided it was not good enough for his king, so he kept adding more mastaba's atop. Mastaba is basically arabic for bench.



Because my professor is the man, we were actually able to go inside the step pyramid, which is normally closed to the public. The entry ways were quite small, you had to crouch. Everyone made fun of me saying that these pyramid tunnels were ideal for me since I am so short. I can't really describe what it was like to go inside Djoser's step pyramid, but it seriously looked like a scene from a movie:



The best part by far was when we were allowed to go into a tomb and see a mummy. Unfortunately I really was not allowed to take pictures. But while we were letting it air out (it had been a long time since it had been opened and the smell was quite overwhelming) i took a quick picture of the hieroglyphs on the wall.



In order to see the mummy, you had to climb down this latter into the burial room, and only one person could go at a time. It was a little eerie, but totally awesome.

After Sakkara we went to Dahshur, land of the Bent Pyramid and the Red Pyramid. After the step pyramid, the acient egyptians tried building the traditional pyramids with the angled edges. However, their first 2 attempts failed. The first one completely collapsed and the second, they realized half way through that it would collapse again and so they had to change the angle half way through:



Finally, after two failed attempts, those wicked egyptians (yes I hang out with a lot of brits now, the transformation of my accent will be featured in a different entry) finally got it right and built the first true pyramid not too far from the bent pyramid. It's called the red pyramid because the stone looks, well...red. I didn't take a picture of it, because I'm sick of pyramid pictures, DAMNIT! Seriously, i could take pictures for you guys all day long, but it is all stuff you really have to just experience your own. However, going inside the Red Pyramid, was pretty kickass. You had to climb up this looooong set of stairs to get to the entrance. I took a picture once I got to the top, it doesn't do the workout justice, but I moreso have it included to scare the piss out of Megan. Look how tiny the cars are.



Going inside the Red pyramid was awesome, but again, quite the work out, I am very sore today. I almost thought I wouldn't be able to finish it because what it is is a very narrow ramp that tunnels downward into the pyramid. It is very damp and very humid in there, it's actually quite difficult to breathe. Claustraphobic people could never complete this course in a million years. They aren't actual stairs, like I said, it's a ramp that just has little bar notches to step in. So the entire time you have to crouch very carefully, and you are super tense because you are maintaining your balance. Once we got down into the pyramid, I was dripping with sweat. It smelled of ammonia, quite strongly in fact, because of all the bats. After that, we climbed another high set of stairs to see the tomb shaft. And then we went back out. Climbing up the ramp was not nearly as hard as going down it though. I took pictures inside with my disposable so you will have to wait to see those ones.

This website has it documented pretty well if you are that interested. Keep in mind though, the ramp in the picture on this website is lighted (i'm going to leave that as lighted- just because I think it's funny for you to see how stupid I can be, but now I did say: kelly you idiot, that's lit) the ramp in actuality is completely dark.

http://www.richard-seaman.com/Travel/Egypt/Dahshur/AllPyramids/

That is the picture explanation of my trip and is going to bring me to the conclusion of this entry. I may choose to make things more anecdotal after dinner, but I'm pretty tired. There was sooo much more to the day than just traveling around though, so hopefully I do get an opportunity to share that with you, in addition to all the really awesome stuff I accomplished at the lab today.

Thanks for reading!

Friday is my next day off but I will be traveling once again! An all day excursin down to the Fayum.

Apologies for typos, and kelly nonsense, but i'm too tired to proof read.

Love you all!

Sorry i didn't post yesterday, I did make it back safely from Sakkara and Dahshur. I have pictures to post later. We got to go into a lot of the areas not open to the public, including Nefaru's tomb where we actually climbed down and saw the mummy. That's right, i did see a real mummy. The tombs are damp and humid inside and so the body did smell. I also tunneled through the red pyramid at Dahshur, it was quite the workout. Again, inside the pyramids it is very damp and humid, so in there you actually sweat. Outside, it is so hot and dry that any perspiration evaporates immediately. Me, being someone who does not normally need to wear sunscreen, and therefore is not the pro at application, managed to miss my ears yesterday while putting it on. They aren't burnt or anything, but they did get a little more sun than the rest of my face. It was 100 degrees yesterday so it was a pretty intense day trip, among other factors.

That abstract will have to suffice for now because I do have to go to work. But I will probably post after work, including details of my first cab ride, and how I learned arabic numbers. Thank you for all the comments and care, I miss everyone at home bunches!