last call

Well folks, only this next week and I`ll be on my way back to sweltering NOLA. Though the recent news doesn`t have me too hopeful--upcoming tropical storms/hurricanes, tons of airline security issues worldwide. I really hope I don`t have flight problems, hmm.

I`m going shopping a little bit today and more later this week, so if you want something, send me an email ASAP to place your order, and provide good details, please!

Speaking of gifts, I`ve decided to give the crossstitch that I`ve been working on the whole time here--lovely red thing with a chinese character on it for good fortune--to the hostel as a good-bye thing. :) I even got a frame and everything, it`s very nice. Once it`s dry and pressed, I`ll take a pic and put it up.

Work updates?

The machine we need still hasn`t arrived yet, so it doesn`t look like we`ll get to do some of those tests. Others can do it, so I`m not worried. I wrote up all the instructions and made new forms--all in spanish--so it`d be of more use to yachaywasi; the director loved it.

I`ve almost finished all the data entry--I only have maybe a half-day`s work left with it. Woo-hoo! But I still have to write up a final report for that. I also have to write a short evaluation of the program for the embassy. Geez, I`m writing papers before school has even started.

And I went to a conference yesterday and half of Thrusday--it was an archaeology symposium. Some of the papers were fabulous, some of them were terrible, bnut hey, that`s the norm for these sorts of things. I got introduced to a bunch of people, so definitely a good making-contacts event.

I have more pics that I`d love to put up, but computer slowness strikes again. Once I get home I give y´all a lovely photo recap, heh.

Lots of work, last week, so ciao for now.

play in the dirt

Wow, it`s been another busy week! We had another course for the adobe walls-- this one started on the 15th, and Monday is the last class--so I`ve been participating in that instead of doing that data entry.

The course is taught by Maribel Beas, a architecture professor at the Univesity of Pennsylvania. We went to Cajamarquilla and took groups of wall samples from all the complexes. We then took the samples back to the laboratory and performed tests for plasticity, granulometry, density, estimation of mineral composition, etc. I love science labs! but we did have several problems. We had a ton of errors--some groups couldn`t even do some of the calculations because the numbers were so wrong. Some people used an electronic balance for their measurements, but the machine was not working well so their amounts were all wrong; I used the hand/mechanical balance for mine, so luckily mine were accurate. We also totally did not have enough materials to do anything; it tooks forever to do our tests because we had to wait in line for the equipment. Well, that`s what it`s like sometimes with science and classes.

The awesome thing is that I thought we were just going to learn conservation-y type stuff, but the tests we ran are totally applicable for archaeologists! For example, we took samples from earlier, later, and inca sections of adobe; with this change in time, we also see a change in construction methods (earlier uses adobe bricks, the later uses tapial aka poured/rammed earth that was made with wooden molds, inca uses bigger blocks and tapial also). The nifty thing is, you can see a change as well in the composition of the walls! The earlier samples have significantly more clay, as do the inca--this makes sense because it`d need to be clayey enough to form the bricks. The later sections are incredibly sandy and totally can`t form bricks, but are perfect for tapial; we even have a sample of where we think the source for the tapial material was, and it turns out that the compostitions match. I know, it sounds dorky, but I think it`s cool. :)

Okay, so to finish off, here`s some odd links, thanks to Tim. :) Check them out if you`re bored.

Is dead beast the marauding 'hybrid mutant'?Residents of Androscoggin County, Maine, are wondering if an animal found dead over the weekend may be the mysterious creature that has mauled dogs, frightened residents and been the subject of local legend for half a generation.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14383883/from/ET/

International Film Festival in Rome, Georgia (where Tim`s new job is, so ifyou want to visit him and see some cool films! There`s even a Call of Cthullu movie)
www.riff.tv

UFOs at Lima`s Airport! Hehehe --
http://www.analuisacid.com/kui_sam.htm

tidbits and cool pics

So I went to La Centinela yesterday and met Kit in Huacho; I really appreciated that! We went to the site and walked around; fortunately, it hasn`t really changed much in the past year. I was glad to see that, I thought the surrounding fields might have spread over more of the site. Kit pointed out good places to excavate and profiles to clean, and she took the GPS points with me. From that, I have a better game plan on how to approach things. Yay!

So I managed to get some more pictures on here. Here`s two pictures more of the Huacho museum. Boxes of ceramics! Tons of stuff there, I tell ya. Note the sign in the one; "Investigaciones Arqueologicas", hehe. And yes, that really is an arm/hand with flesh on it in that picture. This is why it needs to be catalogued and put in proper archival quality conditions. The windows here are open (just with bars), parts of the ceiling are coming down, and there`s no shelves or tables to store anything. Most of the boxes are crummy cardboard and are falling apart. Anyone know someone rich who`d like to sponsor a museum?? They could name a room after the donor!



And here`s pachamanca pics, finally! The first is me trying a sample to see if this was a good place. Nimrod, a cool guy from Israel, took them; the other girl in the group is his girlfriend (also Israeli, and I won`t butcher her name by trying to spell it). The blond guy is Mike from England, and the other guy is Ricardo from Brazil.

And there`s an example of how they do it today, mainly the same concept, thought they don`t put it down in a pit, they built it up for ease.

We all enjoyed the food very much. :)

Well, you do get one more story, associated with this picture of a super-cool modified landrover that this couple has. They`re from South Africa and retired now, so they spend their days driving this vehicle around the world. It`s the coolest thing. It`s very small inside (my trailer is a palace by comparison) but everything is arranged perfectly and the systems are all in order. It has 4 ways to have electricity (solar panels, car battery, plug into outlet, or small pump generator), runs on diesel, and propane tanks on the back for the stove and hot water. It keeps water in a separate tank, has a small handheld shower, has a filter for drinking, and a chemical toilet. It`s got heavy security and tons of bolts—the front windshield is several inches of bulletproof glass!

This couple has been travelling for 4 years!!!! They`ve gone all through Africa, Middle East, India, and now all of South America. Every so often they find a secure place to park it for a month or two and they go back home to visit family and friends. They did the math, and it costs them as much to travel around as it would to sit at home. The guy mainly built the thing from scratch, using different parts of stuff, so it`s completely custom-built and he knows how to fix anything on it. He`s not some rich person, just an average joe who loves to travel; he was originally trained as a metallurgist, and later had a small local company for horizontal drilling (to make holes for underground wire lines, oil pipes, etc). Awesome awesome awesome. I have met so many people who have travelled so many places, even staying for long periods of time, that my trips seem piddling in comparison. I am going to print a copy of this and put it on my wall for a retirement goal.


Ok, so that`s about it for me. Didn`t get to go to the conference today--I had to work. I think I`ll go to it tomorrow, though I might still change my mind. I`ve already missed the first day worth, I might miss part of Sunday when Kit and the group passes through (I want to hang out with folks), it`s 50 soles to go (almost $20), and it`s really only preceramic papers. I kind of just want to have a nice weekend without having to study (in spanish) all weekend. Hmm.

archaegeek talk

Okay, so this is a few days later than I said I`d post again, and I don`t have more pictures yet to show you. Heh, guess I`ve gotten used to "latin american time". Well, that and the hostel`s been quite full of people lately, so the computer`s been occupied most of the time.

Monday, the course group went to Garagay, a Formative period site (approx 1400-1000 BC). It`s very typical, with a big U-shaped arrangement of 3 mounds. The site`s very tightly surrounded by habitation, and it`s likely that the plaza area will be taken over in the next 10 years if there isn`t better security and a stronger delineation of site boundaries. Another thing to note is that in the plaza there are quite a few wall bases that have been uncovered through earlier excaavtions. The cool thing about this, for you non-archaegeeks, is what is found here is contrary to how plazas are normally portrayed: big empty spaces, maybe with some temporary roofs overhead. At this site, there`s even a smaller temple set at an angle in the center. I`m not sure if it may be earlier but even if it is, it`s not significantly so, maybe just from the first occupations. Plus, again, if it is earlier, usually people build the next one over/on top of it, not encircle it. The final nifty thing about the site is that it had several really cool painted plaster friezes--showing warriors, fish, spiders, etc--that were inside atriums on the tops of the mounds. I say had because the part that was uncovered 30 years ago (which we saw pictures of in the course) has since then completely deteriorated; you can`t see anything anymore, it`s all fallen off and crumbled. That`s what gravity naturally does to adobe, you don`t really need to have any other factors involved. Very very sad, but that is the importance of backfilling you work. Well, maybe after they conserve the site, they`ll get around to other excavations on the mound--it`s fairly certain that the friezes are inside the whole room. Very cool.

As for the rest of this week, it will be pretty bland. I`m doing the data entry for the work that we did. The guy who`s supposed to do it for some reason can`t come in all this week, which is bad considering it has to be ready in a week and a half. They`re lucky I already know how to use ArcGIS, or they`d be in trouble.

Thursday I`m running up to Huacho to meet Kit; she`s been good enough to agree to meet me there so we can go to La Centinela to take some GPS points and get some info. Very nice of her, I need that info. Then this weekend there`s an archaeology conference at Catolica University; most of the papers will be about preceramic stuff, but I really should go to meet people, especially since most of the PANC group will be there to help with introductions. Maybe it will inspire me to finally write that stupid rock article for the work I did 2 years ago, heh.

SO I encourage all of you to go play in the dirt this week, I am sure you all have good enough weather to do so (and if it`s too hot, do it in the morning or evening and quit griping). :)

Stacy

weekend fun

So I´ve had a very professionally succesful past couple of days, woo-hoo!

Friday: Went to Huacho and met with Mario (member of PANC) and the dirctor of the museum. I was only there a couple of hours, and only talked to the director for maybe 30 mins, but I think it was really important to do it. Face-to-face meetings are key here. They were very excited to hear what I had to say, about both the Embassy grant (current thing I´m sponsored on, can bring in students and money for a few materials) and the Getty grant (can pay anywhere between $25,000-$250,000 for shelving, archival quality materials, etc). That´s the type of money we´re talking about, and that they need, but just didn´t know the places to apply. I brought them the info and gave them some names of people they can email directly to start these application processes. I also gave them info so they can email the director of Yachaywasi to ask her how she applied for these grants, so they can get advice on the process for Peruvians. So hopefully, they´ll take this and run with it! I´m excited.


I don´t have the time right now to put up all the pics I took of their storage; I need to sort through them to pick out the good ones. Expect them later tonight. Mainly, because the pics say more than I could about how badly they need the help. Remember, this situation is because they only have enough money to stay open. And this is the dpeartment´s REGIONAL museum, the government hard supports anything. They lack space, resources, and manpower. The boxes are from former excavations, and there are other ones that were transferred over from another museum´s storage because it closed. A lot of this stuff is also from people just finding the stuff in their fields, etc and just turning it into the museum. It is a wealth of info! ´

First is the front of the museum, recent graffiti. Second is a general shot of part of the storage room.

Saturday and Sunday: Classes taught by Giacomo Chiari, Chief Scientist at the Getty. He´s been giving a lecture about the process and difficulties of preserving adobe structures around the world. Simply awesome, great info. And this past week, I´ve been getting along much better withmy coworkers, all the problems have smoothed out (probably because they weren´t happy with the work, and now the work is over). They came over after classes yesterday to the hostel with me and I taught them how to make psuedo rice krispy treats; they loved it. :) In retunr, they taught me how to cook little pigeon eggs (popular, sold in the supermarket--much less cholesterol than normal chicken eggs, high in omegas).

So here´s a mix of other pics of textile-related stuff, for the knitters out there. :)

This is a textile that Yachaywasi worked on cleaning and mounting. The darker cloth is new, a backing to support the textile and visually fill in the gaps with a similar color for display purposes.

More yummy yarn pics, with the guy tinting it, too! I´m going to get the recipies for this.

Ciao for now!

spooks and rainbows

Carrie sent me a link to a news story about a British ghost in India that demands cake and tea from the locals, who kindly oblige. It´s quite cute.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/5186722.stm

And the funny thing is that I have a Peruvian version to tell, though it´s a bit more gruesome and not so sweet. In one area near where PANC works, there are stories about a tall thin white man ghost who kills people by sucking the fat out of them; you can stay safe by being agreesive towards the ghost. Well, one of the guys in the PANC group is exceptionally tall and scrawny. He wanted to go do some survey work in that area, so they had to have a couple of extra workers accompany him because they were afraid the locals would attack him or something, thinking he was the ghost. Luckily nothing happened, but weird, huh?

So I´m heading up to Huacho (a bigger town just south of Barranca and PANC) to meet up with 2 PANC members who are working Fridays at the museum there. They´re going to reintroduce me to the director, and I´ll take some pictures of the place. Hopefully we´ll get some things in the works for starting the grant process. Very cool. I´m coming back to Lima in the evening, though, because it turns out the course for Yachaywasi and the adobe stuff is actually Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. So I´ll miss out on the PANC pachamanca and the partying. And I´ll have to wait until the next weekend to go up and take the GPS points--it´s the last weekend Kit will be there, so I have to do it then since I need her help.

And as promised, here´s asome other pictures of the pretty yarn that Yachaywasi dyed a few weeks ago.

por fin

Finally, we´ve finished the register of walls! Today was our last day and we managed to get it all done. The people from the Getty have arrived as well and they´re going to give lectures for the course. The only problem is, that I´m going to miss most of the course! It´s Saturday through Monday, but I have to go up to Barranca this weekend instead. They´re having their own pachamanca (with 11 different types of meat, no less!) so that´s a big incentive, but I really need to go to take some GPS points at La Centinela so I have the data to use when writing my prospectus. Oh well, I´ll have fun up there, and I think I´ve had more than enough of thinking about adobe walls for now that I don´t really need the course.

I haven´t found out yet what the next project they´ll have me work on--I plan on asking tomorrow. Unfortunately, there´s a rumor that we might have to do another complex at the site. I´m really hoping that´s not true.

I also was busy in the evenings the past couple of days because an undergrad student from Tulane that was in Peru working with PANC and my advisor passed through Lima and so stayed with me for a night. This was her first time in Peru and she had to leave a week or so earlier than the rest of the group, so I helped her out with navigating the bus terminals and the airport. It was nice to have some company. Plus, I earned some brownie points with Kit (my advisor) for helping her.

Well, I don´t have many interesting stories for today. The main thing I encountered that I thought was funny was a street vendor. So there´s a lot of people who sell all sorts of things on the street, right? Most of the time it´s stuff you´d actually want, like snack-type items, cigarrettes, newspapers, etc. But then you get these guys who have just the most random items. Like toothbrushes, or bandaids. There was a guy at the corner who was walking around selling individual bandaids--he had a whole handful. And he was incredibly emphatic about it, as if these were the best bandaids to have and everyone who passed by absolutely needed them. Like I´m going to be walking down the street and suddenly realize, "Geez, what I could really use is a bandaid." I don´t know, it just cracked me up.

Hmm, I guess to make up for nothing much to say, I´ll give you a couple of pictures then.

This one is of one of those walls with a bunch of deterorations. Exciting, no? Yeah, no. But it was at least a rare sunny day that day.
This one is of some hand-spun wool that was naturally dyed. there was actually a ton more colors than this, and some really brillant ones. If I can get the picture of those, I´ll put that up later. The institute had some people spin a bunch of wool so they could dye it in a class they had. Then they gave all the yarn to some artesanas that live near the site who weave it into textiles for the institute. No, unfortunately this stuff wasn´t for sale. And even though it´s not alpaca, it feels lovely.