Today dawned not so fine (refer to GMI and Fayum blogs for the in joke here) for Slaggy... Slaggy made the fatal error of not consuming alcahol with every meal, and subsequently the bugs residing in said delicious food were free to procreate and make her very, very, very sick. The rest of us alcaholics were fine n' dandy. The overarchign morale of the story here is that alcahol is good.
Drink it. lots of it.
So, regretably we had to leave habibi-slag behind to be sick, and the rest of us headed to the field without her.
Several hours later we were feeling like swapping places with Slaggy. Todays work began with a 5 hour field walk looking for hearths and grinding stones. This seems like fun I guess until you factor in the 35 degree heat. the beating sun and the lack of any kind of breeze. 500 meter transect walks felt like 500000000000m and slowly our legs began to feel like lead.
Midday. Mid-hell. We stop for water break, I have never, ever, ever been so glad to skull back 2 litres in one go. It was seriously like a water-gasm.
My god.
So.
Good.
Back to the field.
Feeling like feet dragging abit. lead legs.
All of a sudden this changed.
5 shots ring out across the field.
All of us spring to attention looking for the shooter. Hoping like all fuck they wernt firing towards our location.
At this point it is probably worthwhile to note that gun shots are not a foreign thing in arabic countries. Its like they wake up and think HEY IM A BIT BORED TODAY, TIME TO GO FIRE MY GUN... or...
HEY ITS 223 DAYS TILL MY BIRTHDAY TIME TO GO FIRE A GUN... OH LOOK ITS SUNNY BETTER GO FIRE MY GUN... LOOK FIELD OF WHITE PEOPLE... BETTER GO FIRE MY GUN...
Fatefully Dr. Simon decides to take this moment to say, hey, this field is kind of like the valley of death, and instead of the 500, we are the 9... shotguns to the left of us, AK's to the right...
>.< yes. into the valley of death rode the 9 archaeologists...
Soon enough a battered range rover pulled up next to our field area, shotguns out all 4 windows, 4 jovial arabic men jump out and greet us warmly, gesture around abit, jump back into their vehicle and zoom off into the distance, shots are fired again as they get over the sand-dune.
keep calm and carry on.
just keep walking.
and walking.
and walking.
and walking.
Download went significantly smoother this eve (thank jesus) and all our data is starting to look pretty snappy :3
We are all settling into field life really well... sickness, gunfire and blistering heat being little to worry about in comparison to the amazing finds, experiences and friendships that are being
formed.
I am loving the interactions with some of the biggest names in egyptian archaeology, sitting around a table eating dinner, talking to people that I have idolised in my academic career. The hard work and exhaustion is a pay-off id do any day to experience the beauty of this place, and the incredible nature of what we are finding.
tl;dr: be fucking jelous.
Fashion in the field.
Sunrises here are purty :3
No comments:
Post a Comment