Halfway (and a bit) Point Already!?

After the adventures of Napflio last week, it was always going to be hard to come back to the routine of dig life. This whole week has been quite the struggle for me personally. The mind is willing but the body seems to be in a state of revolt. I ahve been trying to go to bed early enough that I get decent amounts of sleep, but I am quickly discovering that getting anything more than 5 hours and less than 9 is a death sentence. When you wake up you feel like death. Every single muscle in your entire body screams at you and it feels like you are trying to pull yourself out of a bath of honey (not that I have ever had that experience......). It took what felt like an iron will and the strength of ten men to pull myself out of bed and into a breakfast chair in time for some tea and yoghurt.

As it turns out, it seems that the reason for this horrible siutuation was that I was sick. This came to full fruitation on Tuesday night when while lying in bed, I was shivering with cold. I looked around and noticed that everyone in the room had not even bothered to put on their sheets and were jsut sleeping in boxers because of the heat. I rolled over and muttered to myself 'this cant be good' and proceeded to pull on a blanket and a jumper. I woke up in the morning with a monumental effort and immediately rushed to the bathroom. I wont go into any details but suffice to say, bad diahroea is just not pleasant in any way. I was in no state to go to breakfast let alone to the site, as my brain was feeling like it was going to explode out of my head. I called the field school director and was told I could stay home for the day. I proceeded to get to the local pharmacy, got some meds and then collapsed and didnt move for most of the day. It proved an absolute blessing. The next day I was feeling a million times better, and was pushing very hard to go to the site. Nick relented but put me on flotation duty to make sure I was ok. I didnt mind as we had a good team there that day and got through a lot of work.

The reason for me wanting to get back to digging so soon was due to the amazing things we have managed to pull out of our trench this past week. Not only have we come up with gigantic remains of storage vessels and huge pieces of pottery, but we have also found a beautiful phi-figurine (the best found on site so far). Enough about ceramics though! Much to everyones excitement we have also managed to pull out a bronze dagger, almost fully intact with a point. It is very well preserved, as usually when these things come out of the ground they are badly damaged and shattered. It is probably about a foot long. The best find of the week, and indeed probably of the entire season so far, was a beautifully engraved seal stone. These stones acted as administrative seals or signatures left on clay seals on pottery vessels. More importantly, is that the one we found is in context which means it is infinitly more valuable than other seal stones found on the site so far (which are only 2 or 3 and all found through sieving). Needless to say, the moral in our trench is sky high and we can't wait to get back to digging deeper. The mantra of archaeology and indeed the answer to almost all our questions seems to be: 'dig deeper, we will see..'

The weekend trip this time was around Boetia, which is pretty much within a 50 km radius around home, so it was jsut a day trip. We started out visiting the Mycenaean fortress of Gla which was very impressive in both size, architecture and use. Around Gla is the famous Kopaic Basin, which was completely and ingeniously drained in Mycenaean times by diverting the flow of six whole rivers into surrounding fissures in the ground and forming a gigantic and extremely fertile plain. Gla was probably used to guard the surrounding countryside. We visited one of these huge fissures in the surrounding mountainside, and were suitably awed. We then made our way to the town of Orchomenos, which may very well be the controlling centre which had power over our own site of Mitrou in antiquity. There wasnt much to see there as the modern town is over much of the site itself, but a very large and well built beehive tholos tomb is still around, which I must say seemed to me to be of much better quality than even the ones at Mycenae. We then made our way to the site of the battle of Chaeronea. *insert MAJOR Ancient History Tingles*. Charonea is the place where Philip of Macedon and Alexander the Great (in his first battle) defeated the combined forces of Boetia and Athens and gained a measure of control over Greece. It was also here that the fanatical courage of the Sacred Band of Thebes was displayed as they stood firm against Alexanders charge and were killed to a man. I love it! :p

I then decided to stay on and join in some of the optional trips as we went to Thebes and Leuktra. Thebes had nothing to display as the entire city is lying directly over the citadel. It is a shame because what has been gathered by rescue excavations suiggests that it may have been Thebes and Not Mycenae who was in charge of the entire Mycenaean world. It would answer many huge questions if Thebes could be partially excavated. Leuktra was jsut as amazing as Chaeronea, if not more so. It was there in 371BC that the Thebans inflicted on the Spartan Army its first ever complete defeat and shattered the aura of invincibility that surrounded them up to that point. It also marked the end of Spartan domination, and the beginning of Theban leadership over Greece. I lvoed it, even though it was only an open plain and a small monument.

The trip was the longest we have been on so far, even if it was only locally, and we only got back around 8:30pm. I went out to the butcher shop for a well earned meal and then retired to bed for some more sleep.

PS> GO THE SPRINGBOKS! We shall not speak of the cricket.