Tbilisi 2016

Thought it was time for a new post, introducing my new Tbilisi apartment (hopefully I can do another one for Groningen soon!). I lived in this apartment last year, too--but this is the first time I have it to myself! Until April 16th, when one of my co-directors for the field school arrives.

Anyway, here is the street outside!

And the entrance (I love my old doorway, with spiral door handles, button code lock, and tile floors)! The staircase is wrought iron and wood. The ceilings in the building and all of these features guarantee that the building was built before the 30s. My friend told me that I live in an old German neighborhood (a lot of Tbilisi was built by Germans) and the building may well date to the late 19th century.

My bedroom last year (with the funny red light!) and this year! (Pay no attention to the unmade bed! Pay lots of attention to the beautiful wall color and high ceilings and parquet floor!)

A gift from a guest! Who couldn't have known how welcome a taste of Chicago was!

Some of my first shopping expedition. Mmm puri (bread). It's a shame it only lasts one day! It's impossible to eat on one's own (but very, very tempting).

The living room

The kitchen!

And, finally, the views! (Including my car and a friendly stray cat! Who I will not be letting in the door.)

Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?

So this is what I've spent most of my last three days thinking about...

 Fortunately that one actually looked like this:

One of my team members has put this on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkmnRR1y2Mk
(for your viewing pleasure)!

It turns out that the snakes are lower down in high grass fields. There's an interesting news article that talks about how there are snakes in the two areas that my team is surveying... That was fun to read. The title says: Snakes Found in Didi Dighomi and Lilo. The first line? "Snakes are in Tbilisi."

Some of you know how I feel about snakes. Well, it turns out that screaming is not helpful. Especially with aggressive, poisonous ones. Like these (both of which we've seen):

(courtesy of www.stlzoo.org)

(courtesy of www.bayramgocmen.com)

Anyhow... other than the life-threatening wildlife, it's been an amazing week. We've gotten a lot of ground covered on the survey, finding ceramic sherds in new places (none from the period I'm looking for YET, but I'm still hopeful). I have a team of variable size daily, but this actually works quite well as we are able to cover wide stretches of land when there are 7 of us and focus on smaller areas, confined by bushes (and snake fields), when we have only 4.

If anyone in the future reads this... it's best to do survey in March, April, and October around Tbilisi. Not just because of the snakes, but because the vegetation, which is low for most of the year, pops up suddenly in early to mid May, making visibility hard in areas that are less hilly. Fortunately, I'll still be around in October! I wasn't expecting to be ground-truthing my own survey, but I'm glad I'll be able to.

We've ended up doing 20 meter transects over the entire survey area (broken up by river gorges, roads, and villages), and collecting ceramics in a 20 m square area when we discover more than 2 sherds within 10 meters of each other. One challenge I'm having is that 20 meters as the crow flies is sometimes much larger than on-the-ground. It's important to observe that while our transects are straight, the space between them is quite variable. When we're on a hill, we are quite far apart; when we are on flat land, we sometimes end up quite close to each other.

In fun news, I had a real dinner at home last night, thanks to my first house guest. I'm looking forward to having a lot of visitors over the next few months and it's so much fun to be able to share my apartment with such lovely people!

Museums, Collections, and Catalogues

The last week has been quite slow on the survey side, largely because of the rain, but despite the vagaries of weather, there's been a lot going on!

I've continued to work on the database of finds at the Georgian National Museum, expanding my language skills by translating the information from Georgian to English. A combination of charades, mnemonic devices and sheer repetition has done wonders for my archaeological vocabulary! It's both exhilarating and exhausting. I'm so grateful to have a patient team, willing to sit by me as I make mistakes and cheer me on when I succeed.

On Tuesday, one of my survey team members defended his PhD dissertation, which was so exciting! (Congratulations, Nika!) It was really interesting to see how a doctoral defense works in Georgia and a lot of fun to celebrate this huge accomplishment with a new friend! There were a lot more speeches and a bit less conversation than typical for the US, but the most interesting thing was how the defense was an opportunity for the archaeological community of Tbilisi to come together. There were History and Archaeology faculty and students from multiple universities, the Georgian National Museum, and the Center of Archaeology. It was wonderful to see a lot of old friends and such an amazing opportunity to meet new colleagues. (It was also my first feast this summer, which naturally made me happy!)

Yesterday, I went to see the opening of a new archaeological exhibit at the Gori Historical-Ethnographical Museum. It's an excellent collection, running from the Kura-Araxes culture of the Early Bronze Age through the Iron Age. Though the museum is small (only four rooms, one per period), I think it's exactly right for an introduction to the characteristic styles of each era. I also thought that the layout was excellent--putting objects with different purposes and of different materials close to each other, in context, as they ought to be.

Then several friends and I had cutlets at Sport Cafe in Gori, which is supposed to be famous for them. (I thought they were quite tasty, but my friends tell me they were much better two or three years ago.) In case anyone is seeking the best meat patty in the region.

Today, I went to a dig house in Mtskheta, where there is a renovation project which requires the archaeological materials and library housed there to be moved out. I was there to determine whether any of the collection was relevant to my research. I spent the entire day pouring over journals in Georgian and Russian, looking for Early and Middle Bronze Age skeletal materials. As it turns out, it's quite challenging to switch back and forth quickly between three alphabets. However, it was also something of a reaffirming experience. I did manage to work through more than a dozen volumes, and found several sites of which I hadn't been previously aware. And not only are there new sites, but there are actual osteological (bone) samples! That I will hopefully be able to use for analysis!

Every time I write a post, it seems like there's another group of wonderful people that are helping my experience in Georgia, both professionally and personally. It's an ever-expanding list. At this rate, the acknowledgment section of my dissertation is going to be a chapter of its own!

Good Stuff/Bad Stuff

So, as some of my friends on Facebook might be aware, I have had an infuriating experience with my internet provider in Tbilisi over the past week. Fortunately, it is now partially resolved, so 1) hurray! and 2) I feel like now would be a good time to mention some of the wonderful things I love about this city!

First--on the bus:
I love that when people on the bus need to pay for the ride, they will just hand their wallets to (apparent?) strangers, to tap on the pay box. Even to raggedy young people. (It's the cutest thing!) Also, I've seen young men, women, and children, give up their seats to older ladies and men--especially when laden with heavy bags. It doesn't ever seem to be done grudgingly, even when the bus is quite full, and the seat is accepted with gratitude. Beautiful!

In the shop:
I have three shops near my house. One of them is kind of crap and they charged outrageous prices for my groceries (including for the pre-spoiled milk I mistakenly purchased), but the other two are so wonderful. In the first shop, they gave me the best smiles when I tried to speak Georgian and they help me make sure I'm not missing the spices and have the right amount of cheese, when I ask for "half." In the second shop, they insist on speaking Russian with me--which I thought was funny, since it only slightly helps, but they told me to wait and think and look around to make sure I didn't miss something I wanted.

My friends:
I've been catching up with friends in Tbilisi a couple at a time and it's so nice to feel like they are as excited as I am, that I'm back! I think I should have a party soon to get them all together in one place.

My team:
I have the loveliest survey team! We had a couple of great days in the field and then, yesterday, Nino and Rezo and I did hours of data entry in the museum and they both were so patient with me as I struggled with reading Georgian handwriting and keyboard. I'm really happy that we seem on the same page!

They collected some excellent sherds on Monday:

[For those of you who are interested, normally survey works like this: An area is defined for survey, over which the team will walk in very straight lines, spaced a certain distance apart (15 meters for us), looking at the ground to try to find any kind of cultural material (ceramic pottery pieces, stone tools, or metal objects). When we find something, we record it with a GPS device (to get latitude, longitude, and elevation) and if we find more than one something, we walk shoulder to shoulder over a smaller area (30 square meters for us), to give us an idea of the density of the finds (which we then call a scatter). This week, however, we are mainly recording known sites and collecting materials from these areas, which is a lot less systematic. Making a digital record of finds from the museum is part of the same process--to be sure that when we finish our systematic survey, we have all possible existing information in one place. Next week, we will begin the systematic survey process. The fact that the beginning of May is basically snake reproduction season may or may not be partially responsible for this schedule. (I saw way too many snakes when I visited Bolnisi to observe another survey last weekend!)]

Another bad news/good news pairing:
Bad news: I've been feeling so badly about my Georgian language abilities. I learned a lot over the past year about the structure and grammar of Georgian, but I'm feeling worse at daily conversation that I was last summer...
In the great news, I have funding for more Georgian language study from Cornell, so I will be able to fix the bad news soon!

Arrival!

It's been a whirlwind--I arrived Wednesday morning (at 3 am), saw apartments all afternoon (8 of them, starting at 3 pm!), went to dinner and decided on this one after much back and forth (location vs. comfort vs. price). Then yesterday, I went to the gym at the hotel, had breakfast, and then moved in! As it happens, settling in took nearly the entire day, between being shown how all of the heating, air conditioning (!!!), TV/cable, hot water (gas in kitchen, electric in bathroom), and clocks worked.

Everything was great, so I went shopping for essential groceries, returned and discovered that the internet wasn't working! I spoke to the landlady and they were going to get a new wifi router today. As it turns out, this morning I found a router in a closet, found cords in a shoebox, reset the router and - voila! - internet!

Apparently on Tuesdays and Saturdays a man comes around the building with farm-fresh milk and sour cream, so it's ok that the milk I bought yesterday was sour when I opened it (I've added "check expiration date" next to "Milk" on my shopping list!). I can hear chickens and roosters outside, so I suspect there are fresh eggs to be had as well, but it might take extra time to discover!

I'll try to stay on top of updates -- feel free to bug me about it, if I let it slide!

Here is the view from the apartment:

And here you can see the inside:

The results of my first shopping trip!

And my first breakfast (I had already eaten an egg/potato/onion scramble). Yummy pastry is thanks to my lovely landlady, Nana!

I am a bad blogger...

So, after months of silence, two posts in one day! The pictures say a lot, so I'll try not to repeat too much, but just put them in context.

Russia is amazing. I have met so many wonderful and generous people here. We're staying at the guest apartments of a man named Misha. We also eat at his cafe, drive his car, and bathe in his баня (banya). His son Misha (Mikhail Mikhailovich) helped us this summer with survey and excavation. Yet another summer where (for the most part) I lived in the lap of luxury. We have hot water, a shower, a washing machine (!), clotheslines, and brand new beds and sheets.

Since this is very irregular (from what I've been told by other archaeologists), and I wanted to be able to say I had lived like a "real" archaeologist, I moved to the camp where the Russian archaeologists and students were staying (not far from the archaeological site of Stepnoye). I had SO much fun! We bathed in the Ui River, stayed up late around the campfire, singing Russian songs (I now know the chorus to 3!), and waited rain out in the storage yurt. Catherine and Jim promised that I would get over my romantic ideas about camp life... but so far, I just loved it! Dima and Lena Zdanovich lead the Russian expedition--a beautiful team! Natasha Batanina was my life-saver in the camp--as the best English-language speaker, she was always willing to translate for me or the Russians--even when I'm sure she got really sick of it. She and her sister, Masha, provided most of the campfire songs. Masha let me stay in her tent (with her adorable dog, Alyssa), when I discovered that my tent, in a strong rainstorm, does indeed leak. I can't describe everyone, or I will run out of time (and space!) in the blog, but I was so glad to meet everyone I did at the camp--and I miss them already!

Unfortunately... I had to leave the camp. A week before it was going to leave anyway (and 3 weeks before the end of the project!), I spilled boiling hot coffee on my legs. So, for the last week and a half, I've been confined largely to the house, doing lab work. I don't need painkillers anymore, and it's starting to be itchy (meaning it's healing), so that's good--but I still walk strangely! The doctor at the hospital in Plast said that I couldn't get the injured area wet for 3 months, so at this point I'm feeling worst for my roommates who have to live with me being stinky! :-) Though I think I've mastered the art of upside-down showering... At least my hair gets clean.

This may have been the most unlucky summer of my life, since earlier this season, I sprained my ankle. That's mostly feeling better, though I've still got a lump on my foot... I'm looking forward to my first stop at Cornell being to the medical center for a full exam! :-) At least I was able to tough it out through the survey--I only needed a couple of days off before I was walking on it again (and the burn happened 3 days before the survey was done). The other Catherine here (there's always another Kathryn!) also sprained her ankle--the day after I did!--and she had to stop survey altogether after it re-sprained.

Many people have asked about the weather. It does, in fact, swing between high 30s/low 40s and 90s (Fahrenheit), though the majority of days have been in the 70s/80s and nights in the 50s. In May it was colder and much windier, but we never spent the night outside in May. July has had some pretty warm days, though from what I've read on Facebook, I'll take warm in the steppe over warm in Chicago! We also had a lot more rainy days in July than we had before.

As for work, we've found a lot of cool stuff--including a least a couple very large scatters of ceramic sherds, which is great news. We also had luck in some of the test pits we've done already. The survey wrapped up last week, and the team is working only on test pits now. I'm recording photos and artifacts in my last week.

I've only got 4 more days living in Stepnoye, then off to Chelyabinsk for one night, before returning home!

Photos from Russia

Stepnoye

Here are some photos with captions from the first two months in the field!

On my way home...

The trip to Araceibo was a success! I haven't had great access to Internet since we left the hotel, so I haven't had the chance to upload pictures, but I'll do that when I get home.

Right now, I'm at the airport, waiting for my flight to Chicago, via Ft. Lauderdale. Wish I had time to stop and see Debi!

So, I haven't written much recently; we had been busy back-filling, which is really physically exhausting. Also, I've decided to stay in Puerto Rico for an extra week.

Right now, I'm staying in Rio Piedras, a suburb of San Juan where the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) is located. I'm crashing with one of the other students I was digging with. Yesterday I got the chance to explore more of San Juan than I did on Saturday. I saw the other major fort--Castillo San Cristobal and the pier made famous in the movie "Captain Ron."

This afternoon I'm going to pick up a rental car so that we can drive to the Araceibo Observatory for another try tomorrow. Then, on Thursday, to El Yunque, the rainforest near San Juan. I'm going to try to do some horseback riding then, too!

I'll try to get some pics up of these trips and write some more about the excavations, but it's been hard to get wifi access since we left the hotel.

Much love to my readers! I miss you all and will see each of you soon--even if I have to fly to LA or London to do it! :)

Weekend Travels continued

Today we went to another ceremonial center, called Caguana. It has much larger petroglyphs (rock carvings) and more batey (ball courts), as well as what may be a larger plaza (though I'm not convinced).

Then we went to these amazing caverns at Rio Camuy. Instead of describing both of these places in words, I'm just showing the pictures--they're more effective and I'm exhausted! Plus, I need to get up in 8 hours to dig for 8 more hours tomorrow!


This is Iriri, who created women out of androgynous beings:



And here is some of our group, from left:
Angel (checking pictures), Proxy (texting his friends), Hector (who has requested to be called Lisa in this blog, for the sake of confusion), Daniel (I think... hiding behind Hector), Miguel (who never lets us take his picture), Antonio (hidden behind Miguel, Lisa (who we call Lisa Lisa, to distinguish her from the other two Lisas--The Lisa and Lisa the 3rd, and Lisa Hector), and Mayra (who you've seen before).

Here are Lisa Lisa and Carmen, in front of this beautiful seba tree. In Mayan lore, an enormous Seba tree holds up the entire world. I have a picture with it too, but it's on someone else's camera... I'll post it later.








And the caverns...