Mega Update Time!

Sorry there hasn’t been an update in a few days! Yesterday was busy busy from start to finish, and I had nothing new to report on Friday, so today’s blog post is going to be extra long to try to make up for it!

Friday in the lab I basically spent the day cleaning, identifying, bagging and tagging Individual A, Individual B, and the Unassigned material. Basically how we decided to handle having two individuals was by grouping bone from the same regions of the burial together, so I excavated Individual B while Mel and Natasha excavated A. All of the bones that were not located in a clear group or that were removed before we realized we had two babies were grouped together in the Unassigned category. Sorting out dentition took forever as we had two sets of teeth that were found in the same area of the burial. Dr. Hillson came in and helped me sort them out (which was exciting because he agreed with a lot of the groupings I had made AND I correctly identified the majority of them). He then sorted the remaining teeth into two categories based on size and morphology, and the two sets were assigned to the Individual A and B as one of the babies was larger than the other.

Saturday we completed all of the photography of the skeletal elements (which took forever as all three groups were photographed separately) and then took all the measurements for all of the long bones, teeth, and other key bones. Next, we completed all of the paperwork for all three groups of bones. Then, right before breakfast, we placed the babies into their storage tub, all cleaned, organized, and most importantly – together (they were buried together for a reason). I then walked them over to the storage room, and was thrilled because I was happy with the quality of the work I did on a very difficult job.

I spent the rest of the day running Mel’s burial dirt through the sieves (with safety glasses, of course) and finished with about 30 minutes left in the day. Then I cleaned the lab and prepped my station for Monday – I will be working on all the burials alone from now on (not everyone in the school has permission or has chosen to work alone). The boss of the entire project is flying in from Rhodes on Monday so I am excited to be working alone and completely in charge of my station. Then I was assigned my next burial, and took the first sets of photos. I think this is going to be another great burial – it may even be a soil ball excavation (instead of a sieve job or sieve job with small soil balls which is what I just worked on). Most interestingly, the burial is packaged in a tequila bottle box, so I have good vibes for this burial.

After school Em, Gen, and I walked down to the port for a bailey’s frappe to catch up and fill each other in on our days as I don’t see them often in the lab. After enjoying our delicious beverages we walked back to Levadi to change for dinner. We all decided to dress up for our weekly Saturday evening dinner up at Virginia’s restaurant.

Moi!

Part of the crew before dinner

The food was delicious – as usual – and the company was excellent. Everyone was in high spirits. Dr. Hillson made a lovely speech commending our first full week’s work (has it only been a week and half of school?). After dinner, which was greek salad, octopus balls (but awesome ones this week), lamb balls, zucchini fries, potato fries, giant beans and zucchini balls, we headed down to the yacht club with the supervisors for some after dinner drinks. We watched the sun set behind Chora, and I was able to take some lovely photos – hence the new banner at the bottom of the blog!

Chora at Night

After a few beers, we headed back to Levadi and spent the rest of the evening teaching everyone how to play flip cup. After that, it was bed time!

This morning Gen made me eggs, bacon, toast and coffee using the little electric plate in our kitchenette – it was FABULOUS! I have missed cooked breakfasts immensely, and so Gen’s “Epic Mealtime” (in greek: epicos yevmas) was wonderful. We have spent the rest of our days off snoozing, bumming around, doing laundry, and just relaxing to prepare for tomorrow. Tonight the plan is to walk into Chora for dinner and gelato, and then come back to watch the movie The Emperor’s New Groove before bedtime (next Sunday’s movie will be Tangled).

Epic Meal Time!