| Entry: | I am very tired.
Today I dug down 10cms on U14213 to the south of where Katie, Ben and Ray were digging. I spent the morning digging down and cleaning back, and eventually a grave cut came clear, which lies alongside the grave Alex and a girl from the Selcuk team are digging. Eva was terribly happy with my cleaning work, and I was pretty proud too. Then Peter banished me to dig a mole hole. It's OK, I understand. Graves are the unique privilege of the Selcuk team. I shouldn't be jealous, but I am. I think this is probably a politically sensitive point between the teams, but if I may throw a sledge-hammer at the issue: wouldn't it be a lovely world if we all just worked together rather than dividing up into Byzantine team and Chalcolithic/Neolithic team. I'm presuming this dream of inter-stratified harmony is far out of reach, but we can but hope that even if our generation don't enjoy this, our descendants might.
Photos today:
F2416 - Grave that Alex has been digging
U14259 - Fill of grave robbery
U14260 - Original fill of grave
F2419 - Grave intersected by pit that Zafer has been digging
U14254 - Grave fill
U14256 - Mud bricks
U14258 - Pit fill
U14257 - Pit cut
U14255 - Grave cut
OK, just to go on further, and sorry for my candidness, but: on arrival I was really delighted by how everyone chats to each other in Catal and how there aren't the great divides that I've seen between university teams in the past. I think the project as a whole has a lot of structural things put in place to bring teams closer, like how all the finds are centrally processed, and how we all eat in the same canteen, so you will end up sat next to new people making light conversation and the rest. I'm feeling a bit disappointed with how things are going on site since the Selcuk team joined. There's little communication between the Selcuk team and our team, I don't even know the names of the other excavators, and now whenever anything goes missing there's this pregnant silence that accompanies an accusing glare in their direction. The problem is language, but I don't think that means it is insurmountable. We do have two potential interpreters on our side, and I think they have two on theirs too. From experience you just have to take extra time and particularly effort to get communication going between groups. There are bound to be tensions between the groups - so on one level perhaps we just have to live with that, but I think that to help ease relations we could take 20 minutes out of the day to make sure that everyone from each team has met everyone from the other team and that an effort has been made to get to know everyone's names at least. Also, it's getting ridiculous with the accusations of equipment stealing. I know I came across as both stupid and dishonest when I first moved to Berlin and couldn't even say
"Kannst du bitte mir dein Spitzkeller leihen?" so tended to just quietly get on with my day regardless of what toes I was stepping on. I guess I feel quite sensitive about all this, because I've experienced prejudice on the basis of inability to communicate, and also differing cultural backgrounds. I know time is pushed on site, and that five minutes interpreting language can cost us five minutes interpreting archaeology, but I think it will save time and create better archaeology if we can spend a little more time on communication during the day. OK, I know this is a sensitive issue, and I really hope that my voice can go towards smoothing relations rather than enflaming the arguments simmering beneath the surface.Entered By: N. Christie |
