one week in

I'm going to seriously try to keep a diary of this summer's excavation in Cambodia. For realz this time. Here are a couple of excerpts from last week that I've kinda patched together to sum up the week:

June 15, 2012
Dear  Archaeological Log,

I’m one week in. So far, the count is Charmaine: 36; Mosquitoes 58; Ants: 1. I am almost certain that they’re out to get me. It can’t be anything other than a conspiracy. I’m sure everyone else is just as tasty. Hopefully they get tired of Chinese-Malaysian take-out soon. I’m not sure I’ll have all that much left to give by the end of two months here. It’s just a little insane that I’m averaging about 5-10 bites a day. I’m here for two months. Do the math. It’s not pretty. I’m not sure what it is that I possess that makes me mosquito catnip but it’s probably the most useless gift that keeps on giving. Whatever it is, I need to bottle it up to spray on everyone else to spread the love around.This is redic.

It’s the end of the work week. Seriously, TGIF. To be honest, the work wasn’t really hard this week. In fact, we’ve had a pretty slow start. We started off with inventory-ing (is that even a word?) the ceramic assemblage from one of the excavation units that the previous phase had collected earlier in the year. It was kinda awesome in a confusing and fairly mind-numbing way. In order to do the inventory for the unit, we went through five boxes of ceramic sherds and learnt how to distinguish the different types; roughly sorting and weighing them. 

What’s really exciting about the Kok Phnov site is the fact that they’ve discovered a new type of ceramics they’ve decided to call Kok Phnov ware (nobody ever said archaeologists were creative in the naming of stuff). It’s great; from my understanding, it is like the slightly special lovechild of Khmer stoneware and earthenware and is affectionately nicknamed crap(py) ware. It tends to look and sound like stoneware but has a body/paste that looks and feels like earthenware. It also has a clear glaze that is often times pretty ugly due to the accidental inclusion of ash or whatnot or is self-slipped (self-glazed). As interesting as it was to be handling these unique pieces for hours on end, by the time we hit day three, we felt like we were done with the crap ware – we were rooting around in the dredges of the excavation unit booty and it was quite frustrating trying to figure out the difference between the earthenware and the high fired ware. Apparently the easiest way to tell the difference is to tap two sherds (or a fingernail against a sherd) together and listen to the difference in sound quality (stoneware tends to ring hollow and higher while earthenware is more of a dull thud) or factor in the weight (stoneware is heavier), quality, look, decoration, feel, etc of the sherd. Huh, easy peasy right? Uhhhh, no, not really. I felt like an undertrained monkey failing monkey school with all the tapping and manhandling each sherd went through before it got dropped into a pile. Even after determining which pile it belonged to following some serious scientific testing (see above for the rigorous scientific methods employed), I still felt confused about what was what. Like I said, frustrating.

I cannot tell you how happy I was to head out into the field for a walk-about to survey and familiarize ourselves with the area and figure out where to drop in a unit or two. Man, I wasn’t all that happy when we were out there. In fact, I think I melted a bit in the blazing hot Cambodian sun. So much respect for the Khmer farmers who do their back breaking labor under that crazy hot sun day in and day out. The good news: I didn’t get sunburned. The bad news: despite drinking about two and a half liters of water and a coconut, I was headachy and dehydrated by the time we got back to the research center. Bleargh. It got to the point where I had to come to terms with my hatred of Royal D (like powdered Gatorade) and consume it along with some meds before jumping in the shower to cool off with what was possibly the most lukewarm cold shower I have ever had the dubious pleasure to experience. Well, long story short, possible heat stroke crisis averted! Yay!

Today, we went out to the site to map in the grid and set the site up so that we can start Monday off with a ceremony (to appease the spirits) and begin surface artifact collection. It wasn’t a bad day per say but definitely not one of my best. Lol. I managed to slice my finger on a blade of grass which, in the tradition of all good papercut-like wounds everywhere, proceeded to bleed like nobody’s business. I also managed to prance right into a bush of thorns. Alright, I admit I shouldn’t have been prancing but when you’re in empty ricefields, what else are you going to do? And perhaps, I should follow that one proverb about looking before leaping (literally) but I totally forgot what interacting with real nature was like. Unfortunately for me, I’m beginning to remember…..and quite painfully at that. But other than a few nature related mishaps on my part, we triangulated like bosses…..not quite accurate bosses but bosses nonetheless. Whatever. Accuracy is overrated. Okay, not really but in the case of our surface collection method, we've got margins for triangulation and material errors.

 Our fearless leaders leading the way on the walk-about through the site.

 Nice and flat but nto much in the way of shade. My new hangout for the next few weeks.

 Walking though Ta Prohm to identify possible sites to drop test units, we snuck into the area the Indian team is using to work on the restoration of the Hall of Dancers.

 Headless Buddhas waiting to be put back into the reconstructed temple.

Fancy doodads for reconstruction work. I think it's for cutting stone.

 Performing our civic duty for the day - untangling a baby cow

(yes, I know they're called calves. I just like baby cow better).

 Putting those kindergarten life skills to use by coloring inside the lines :D

Yeah, this is what life is like for an archaeologist.

It's a full house at the research center and two of the guys were leaving so we had a pig feast. 

That's a 22kg pig! Needless to say, there was a lot of pork to go around!  

To make up for such a busy week, I bummed around for most of the weekend, only venturing into town on Saturday for lunch with the roomie and to show her around town (it took all of 10 minutes. lol) and to do a bit of shopping (I bought a krama!).

It's been pretty slow and easy this past week but I know for sure it's gonna pick up once we start work at the site.