Mr Melanie's Arabic kwayes!

Greetings from the sandy land, people! I'm sorry for the gap between updates recently, you'll be glad to know it's because I've actually been doing important archaeological stuff, or just going to bed at 8pm, both are key factors. I wanted to start off by saying that the recent unrest in Egypt has not extended to Amarna - the most unrest we experience is when a truck goes past with a musical horn, and the most scared I've felt is going to the toilet block and seeing one of the local wild dogs (apparently if you lift your arm like you're going to throw a rock at them they run off, but I was too scared to try so I just scuttled into the toilet and hid for a bit instead).

So I thought for this post I'd run through what a normalish day is like here, obviously including all of the searching for magical items, jumping out of planes in inflatable rafts, battling nazis and bedding exotic beauties. Just with more planning. And troweling. And measuring. And more troweling.

I wake up about 5.45am, which would normally make me cry and rock in a corner but for some reason in Egyptland, I don't mind. Again, I go to bed at a time even your grandmother would mock so I can't feel too smug about getting up easily so early. After breakfast the two trucks arrive with the workmen and we load up our equipment and head off to site, which is about 10 minutes down the road. The rest of the team ride in the back of the truck, which apparently is getting to be quite a cold trip now, but one of the other archaeologists and I ride in the front with the driver. Sometimes it's quite fun but sometimes he just lectures me about how terrible my Arabic is and why doesn't Mr Hannah speak Arabic more often. Yes, he has a point, but at 6.30 in the morning I don't take too kindly to being lectured. I have learnt the word for 'motorbike', 'teeth' and 'sun' from him though, based on what I assume are his scenic descriptions of the landscape. I'm planning on learning the words for 'dead donkey being eaten by dogs' next.

We're divided into three teams on site, based on which area we're working in and we each have a team of workmen as well. I like the workmen for our group very much, they teach me words (like 'relax/take it easy') and we mime out jokes and try to understand what the hell the other person is saying. Sometimes this is successful - today I overheard one of the workmen talking to another and he said (translated) "Basbousa tomorrow" and my ears immediately pricked up because Basbousa is yum and of course I'm going to learn the names of desserts first in any language! But one of the workmen was speaking to me the other day and kept saying the word for 'son' and pointing at the sky and I thought he meant his son had died so I kept saying how sorry I was and looking sad but it turns out he just lives in Cairo.

Anyway there's lots of work to do each day and it's varied enough to always be interesting. Sometimes I trowel with the workmen, cleaning off the different layers and keeping an eye out for burials. When a layer (unit) is finished then it has I be photographed, drawn and then you take levels, then the whole process begins again. Once enough burials have been found you choose one and begin; you have to work on it quite quickly as you don't want the bone to be exposed to the elements too long. Sometimes I look up the hill at our squares, all in a row and dotted by little white sheets, like these people are freshly dead from some epidemic instead of being well and truly dead from a long time ago. I've worked on a number of burials so far (maybe 8?) and the only similar factor is that none turned out the way that I thought they would, which is very much a characteristic of archaeology I think. I've dug a burial that I thought was a tiny baby until it kept growing and growing into a child instead, I've dug a wooden infant's coffin that ended up being empty except for some broken pottery and a bone smaller than my thumbnail (therefore it technically was an individual and I had to fill out oodles more paperwork!). I've dug torsos that were a mess but then the legs are perfectly in situ, I've dug what I thought was wool and instead turned out to be a plait of hair. My favourite so far has been a skeleton of a child, whose left hand was curled outward from the body. These delicate finger bones curled in that manner, it really drove home to me that this is the bit inside a person that remains behind, an imprint of how their body came to rest for the last time. It really is a privilege to uncover, but also is a task that must be treated with respect and dignity, if that makes sense?

So that's normally how the morning/early afternoon is divided up, of course when you're working on a skeleton you're also cleaning, drawing, photographing and leveling for each of the different phases of what's being uncovered. Plus second breakfast is snuck in there at 10.30 and it's depressing how quickly you get used to a second breakfast!

We leave site at 2 (there's never enough time either, you're always working until the last minute) and have lunch and then begin on the paperwork. For me this is a calm part of the day; I sit there with my coffee and sort through my papers, going over what I've worked on and deciding on how best to describe what I've seen and excavated. Then, depending on how much was done during the day, you finish up and have a shower (it's so glorious - there's always hot water and it's amazing to feel clean when you've been so very sandy and dirty) and then read/talk/sleep until dinner at 7. I'm very bad at down time here though, so I've been working after I finish my paperwork on a bit of a different project, but one that is equally exciting.

All of the object cards that outline every artefact that's been found across the site, since the earliest excavations over 100 years ago, are in the process of being catalogued into a computer, which I'm helping out with. Anyone who knows me would understand how this appeals to my sense of order, I really enjoy logging in the information and seeing the number of entries grow. The thing that really excites me about this though, is that not only does the catalogue list the details of the find, it will also include photos, drawings, maps, and importantly where the artefact is now. Even better, once this is all completed, it will be available for free online so anyone can use it for their research. That blows my mind. I know there's a lot of you out there who, like me, have spent hours trawling through old excavation reports, hoping the term you're looking for is listed in the index. With this database, I could search materials, or geographic location, or current museums, or object type, and have access to images and contextual information that is invaluable. I know I'm possibly too excited by this, but it represents what I think Egyptology should be about. Access to information, to help feed the research of others in an open-handed, free and easy to use way. I love it.

Anyway I've been going on forever I'm sorry, and there's still so much I want to say. Serves me right for leaving this go for so long. I just wanted to say that the other day I was brushing the sand off a skeleton, the sun was warm on my back and a light breeze was blowing. I though 'I'm actually excavating a cemetery, that contains subjects that I've studied for my own research, I'm working with an international team under inspiring and encouraging leadership and I'm in Egypt' and I felt so overwhelmed by gratitude, by joy and by this incredible sense of peace and rightness, that I wanted to cry. These moments don't come around that often in life, and so I'm thankful.

Lots of love to you all, I miss you guys and wish that you could experience this time with me. My words really don't do it justice! Take care all of you, and I'll chat sooner rather than later, I promise.

xxxxxx