Day 4

Today was a bit disappointing as far as our trench goes... It started storming last night - Macedonian style.  The storms in Macedonia are epic in nature - torrential downpour, lightening, and thunder that sounds as if the hills themselves are growling in fury.  We had hoped that the morning would clear, but the clouds still hung ominously in the darkened sky when we reached the bus at 4:30.  I climbed the hill (the short way) to the dig site and reached my destination soaked to the bone from the waist down due to the water that still clung to the tall grass.  As we prepared for the work day ahead, the clouds seemed to grow even more restless.  Even Bill looked nervous, taking a wide stance, arms akimbo, assessing the coming onslaught.  Mud clung to my shoes, making them heavy and slippery as I carried buckets of heavy earth to the waiting wheel barrows. 

We all worked nervously, constantly checking the darkening sky to the south.  Lightening burst in bright spurts down from the heavens to the neighboring hills coming closer and closer to where we worked ferociously; the thunder hailed its approaching assault.  Soon, icy raindrops began their decent, and we ran for shelter beneath the thin plastic shelters over the dig site.  Feeling increasingly nervous, we quickly returned our metal tools to the storage facility and packed up our bags in the waiting van.  As the storm announced its inevitable arrival, we broke shelter and began sprinting down the steep slope as if the hounds of hell themselves were after us. My raincoat wasn't even enough to stop the penetrating drops streaming down in a hammering deluge on our fleeing horde. The van soon caught up with us picking our way down the precarious slope.  As we parted to allow its passage, the wheels began to slide out of control on the muddy precipice.  We held our breaths as the van skated sideways, threatened to tip, and finally regained stability. 

We had no means of transportation from the site due to our early departure, so we gathered under the shelter over the sacred pool at the base of the hill as the stormed raged in fury over us.  The van ran back to town and finally returned to pick up its next passengers, myself included.  By the time we returned to our hotel, the storm had all but passed.  Work was cancelled for the day, and we all retired to our own devices until breakfast at 8.  I cleaned the mud off and warmed up in my room before heading downstairs for some espresso and required summer reading with my friends in the outside gazebo.  Looking out at the early sunny morning and rain clouds disappearing into the distance, it was hard to envision the dark storm I had just escaped.

The rest of the day was long and lazy.  We made a few trips into town and tried to progress in our studies, but the beautiful weather made it hard to concentrate.  Right now, I'm just hoping that our good fortune lasts until tomorrow so that we can get some more work done before the weekend.  We had our first pottery reading today, but nothing too exciting to report.  Bill and Eulah may use my drawing talents to create artistic renderings of the pottery we may find at the site, but nothing has been interesting enough to draw or photograph at this point. 

Tomorrow is apparently a holiday for most Macedonians - a sort of "Day of the Dead" - and many of our workers may not show up for work tomorrow.  As long as the weather holds out, it shouldn't cause too much of a problem.  I just hope everything dries up enough that we can make a final interpretation of our layer before breaking ground again....

Oncoming storm

Dark skies over Bylazora

Storm rolling in

Day 3

Cleaning up

Today was our first day of excavation, which was really exciting for me.  We started by cleaning up our part of the site and making it "pretty" so that it could be photographed and we could start ripping it up.

Final picture of our sector

We didn't really find anything big - just some broken pottery sherds and a few bones.  We also found a pebble floor, but, as I found out, that's just a nuisance to dig through.

Also, my pants ripped. Not just a little. There was a gigantic gaping hole near my crotch, and I was 4 km away from my bag. Not good. I probably looked like the most awkward  pick axer ever...

Propylon

When I got back to our room today, I found a cute little visitor outside our window! It's actually amazing how many hawks are around here and how friendly they are...

We have our first night of pottery cleaning tonight, and we're all getting ready for our trip into Skopje this weekend.  Should be fun!

Day 2

It was a rough day. I spent the entire day balking, which involves laying a line down with nails and then pick axing, shoveling, hand axing, and finally troweling the dirt down so that it makes a clean cut wall of dirt (look at that excellent, straight work below!).  This is in preparation for the trenches that will follow in this excavation process (so that the hills of dirt won't collapse into the trench). 

Balked dirt wall (left)

Corner of balked walls (including robber's trench)

The second picture contains part of the "robber's trench" (darker colored dirt) where "robbers" - probably the Romans - would cut down into the earth next to wall structures and quarry (rob) the nicely cut stones to reuse in their own projects. The trench the robbers cut eventually fills in with dirt from that different era, hence the different color in the strata.  This is also why the "walls" of Bylazora are so small and there aren't really any piles of fallen rocks laying around - all of the stones were previously robbed.

Smaller stone foundation walls

We also had a big discovery today! The bulldozer came out to move dirt on the northwest part of the site, and it uncovered a wall! It had been theorized that there was a second tower to the right of the propylon (walkway structure) in addition to a first tower to the left of the propylon that signified two phases of city fortifications.  The discovery of this extra city wall may indicate a third phase.

Propylon

It started raining near the end of our day, but nothing too concerning.  I took the "short way" up and back today.  The short way involves climbing a slope with about a 60 degree angle. Yes, it is shorter. It is also killer. The view, however, can't be beat. Plus, I had a little time to enjoy waiting for everyone else to arrive.

View leaving Bylazora - SW corner

View looking up to Bylazora - "short way" is up the left slope

Day 1

View from the plane - Alexander the Great Airport

I flew into Skopje from Budapest, Hungary, last night and took a cab from Skopje to Sveti Nikole with another student on the dig, Michael.  Flying in, I was taken aback by the mountainous terrain rolling thousands of miles below my plane with large rivers cutting a winding path through the unyielding landscape.

Vineyards near Skopje

Field near Skopje

 The cab ride was even better.  The roads twisted through the large hills overlooking deep valleys and eventually led to rolling fields and vineyards guarded by the mountains in the distance.









I was actually surprised by how much the landscape was dominated by agriculture (the picture of hay bales reminds me of Iowa).

Once in Sveti Nikole, we went straight to the hotel with our luggage. I found my room and met my roommate, Lizzy, who is absolutely fantastic! She participated in the dig last year and told me that someone else from NYU was here who she knew from the dig last year.  I doubted I knew him...then she said he was a Classics major.  There aren't many of those at NYU. We went to his room (which coincidentally was the same room as Michael, who I had shared a taxi with) and to my surprise, the NYU student was someone with whom I had just taken a class with! Small world...


We had dinner at the hotel and headed back to our rooms for an early bed time - which was a good idea since the bus leaves for the dig site at 4:45 am.

Today, Lizzy and I got up around 4:15 and dressed for the day.  I had packed about 3 liters of water for the day, but as I found out, that wasn't enough.  My boda (Spanish wine skin) had a faulty lid and leaked all over my bag (and me throughout the day), which was really disappointing.  Even so, it was a surprisingly useful item this morning.

View from Bylazora site -- 5 am

We boarded the bus and headed for the dig site.  After a short ride, the bus dropped us off at the base of a large hill.  Once I realized that our dig site was on TOP of that hill, it became an ENORMOUS hill.  Thankfully, I survived the rather vigorous walk up to the site and was rewarded with one of the most beautiful views I have seen in all my life.  Dr. Bill Neidinger showed us around the site and gave us a brief history lesson/orientation before the real work began.  Due to a hard winter with heavy snowfall, the site was a wreck.  The workers had covered the unearthed walls and stones with thick plastic tarps for the winter months, but even so, one of the shelters that had been built had collapsed and the hills were heavily eroded away.  The rest of the site had become a jungle of thorny bushes and leafy green vegetation that all had to be cleared away.  We spent the entire morning digging, pick axing, pulling weeds, hoeing, and shoveling dirt that needed to be carted away to the hillside by wheelbarrow.  Let's just say I'm not that great with the wheelbarrow.

We breaked for breakfast around 8 am and were served what looked like a large half loaf of bagette with a thick slab of ham and cheese inside.  It was surprisingly delicious.  The bread here, as I have found out, is absolutely fantastic! Very soft and light with a good flavor.  After breakfast, it was more digging and moving rocks and wheeling away mounds of dirt.

We stopped early for the day around 12 pm and walked back down the hill and stopped by the Sacred Pool structure that had been previously discovered.  Finally, the bus driver picked us up and took us back to our hotel.

Sacred Pool

I took a much needed shower before heading down to lunch - tomato and cucumber salad, soup, fried potatoes and roast beef, and baklava for dessert!! It was delicious.  Feeling full and sleepy, I was ready for a nap.  Unfortunately, I needed to run into town for supplies...I'm really hoping this is conditioner and shower gel. I guess I'll find out later

 It must have been a hard day...Lizzy and I slept through dinner.

Phase 1: Macedonia

The field school I am participating in this summer is uncovering the "lost" city of Bylazora.  The dig is through the Texas Foundation for Archaeological and Historical Research (TFAHR) and takes place near Sveti Nikole (though the site is closer to the town of Knezje), about 25 miles outside of Skopje, the capital of Macedonia (See Map).

Bylazora was the fabled capital city of the Paeonians, and there is good evidence that this current site does indeed hold the remains of Bylazora, according to descriptions found in ancient Greek texts and other records.  For more information, visit TFAHR's website where they have posted pictures as well as articles about their finds and our ongoing research TFAHR website.

Thanks to the generous support of TFAHR, it is free for all of the participants including myself to participate in the field school as well as stay in Sveti Nikole and be fed during the week.  Since the weekends are at the expense of the students, I am planning on travelling during these times to see more of this gorgeous country!

The Adventure Begins...

My summer is anything but normal.  And it all started because of a class. After transferring to NYU this past year, I realized that I was going to have to take an extra class to make up for the lack of credits that transferred from my previous school, so what was I to do?

Option A) take an overload my senior year in addition to doing research, completing my scholar's thesis, taking grad classes, and trying to graduate on time. Not going to happen. 
Option B) take a class at NYU over the summer to make up the missing credits. It would work, but it's pretty expensive. 
Option C) study abroad in Paris over the summer, noting that including air fare, Paris would be cheaper than New York. Done.

Of course, I can't just go to Paris.

This summer I will be starting in Macedonia and doing an archaeological dig for a month before traveling to Paris.  After another 6 weeks in Paris, I leave for the Netherlands to visit some friends, then to London, and finally four days in Iceland. Let the adventures commence...