Over the past two days we have been excavating the newly discovered tomb that I talked about in my last post. Yesterday (Friday) we didn't find a single bone. It was a little discouraging, but it looked as though maybe the tomb had not been used. Today it was similar news for the first 2/3 of excavating, but finally we started to find bones. It was very exciting. All of them were from a child of about 5 or 6. There weren't very many, but enough to definitively say a child had been buried there. There were some teeth, skull fragments, a rib, and other long bone fragments. As of right now it seems that only one person was buried in this tomb. Although that may seem normal to us, every other tomb discovered in this necropolis (remember this is just one of the seven found around the ancient city of Sanisera) have had at least two burials in them with one containing as many as 16. We are not quite finished with it so we will have to wait until tomorrow to see if more bones are found and we won't know for sure until the bones are analyzed in the lab. The other very precarious thing about this tomb is its location. While it is counted in the necropolis we are excavating, it is about 25 yards away from the other tombs closest to it. It is definitely separated from the others and its orientation is not east-west like the rest, but rather northeast-southwest. It is all rather strange, but the more we excavate the more we will understand. It brings me back to the same conclusion I have had so often - that we will never definitively know everything. The more we uncover, the more questions are raised. There aren't manuals for figuring these things out. There are guides, but these are all based on previous knowledge. The more we obtain the more we must tweak. Its fascinating to just be apart of uncovering history. I have no idea why this child was buried apart from the rest of the necropolis, in a tomb of his or her own facing a different direction than all the rest. And to be honest, I'm not sure anyone will ever know. While this may seem daunting or discouraging, I like to look at it from another point of view. Its very enlightening to me. I can let my mind wander about all the possible reasons. I am able to guess at what is more plausible than the rest, but I find it enlightening that I will never know. It reminds me that history is not just a bunch of dates in time, but real people who must make decisions based on the circumstances and beliefs of their time. They were alive and had feeling just like all of us. Thats something that a history book will never be able to teach me and that is why I enjoy the fact that most of what I discover will never be 100% known to me.
Anyways, sorry for the long-windedness, but I figured I would let you in on but a snippet of my thoughts today. I don't have pictures of the tomb today, but I promise I will have them tomorrow. I do, however have pictures from a second trip to the lighthouse nearby. A group of us went, so there are a few group shots as well.
Goofy one:
Best,
Adam
Adam, I am really enjoying your commentary and the pictures. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and feelings about your discoveries.
ReplyDeleteAdam, I am in awe of all that you are doing and the things you think about. I would have to pinch myself each and every day to realize what I was seeing and doing. Looks like a pretty cool group and the clay bath....well the girls were probably all into that. It is supposed to do wonders for the skin and prevent wrinkles. We pay top dollar for just a facial of clay. Grandpa & I are doing a little excavating of our own. For the second time in 3 weeks the sump pump malfunctioned and we are digging out again and it is amazing what grandpa has hidden under the guise of important papers. Of course I will be the first to say that for at least 4 yrs. I have been asking him to go through the "STUFF" and there is always a reason not to. Well, God moves in mysterious ways so all the work and daily calendars from the year 2000 that were tucked away in the only waterproof container of all the other junk can get thrown away. Grandpa’s reasoning was that he might like to look back and see what he did all those times :')) Anyway we are making progress and all the while we are doing that the huge trees are coming down along the back yard and I do think it will look beautiful. Who knows what we might discover back there. This whole sub division was very old farm land. Bring your team here.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, Adam, we are so proud of all that you do and don't ever want you to change. One thing that you said was something I thought of many times. All the different races, and religions I am around all the time make me look at each person and understand that all the things they were born into and raised believing are just as vital to them as my upbringing is to me from the U.P. to all of the Jewish, American Indian Italian, Finnish we hung with. And then each place we moved to we found out that each city was home to someone else and you learn something new every day. I had an old friend come by the other day and she is from Ireland, but she has kind of stopped learning the things you can each day. I was a little sad about that but I dragged out some albums of things we did in the neighborhood and the spark just came right back. It was a good day. I am getting my job back with the same teachers in a different school and I am very excited about that. I really feel that we do make some difference in our type of student and an article in the newspaper last week about one of ours from a couple of years ago just kept plugging away and in high school someone tapped into his mathematical mind and got him involved in all kinds of math games going on all over the state. He just graduated and is going to Western majoring in Math. Hooray for him to leave all the negatives behind and go for a life beyond Jackson. Well, I have been wordy enough. WE really LYTMNR Grandma
Adam, I am in awe of all that you are doing and the things you think about. I would have to pinch myself each and every day to realize what I was seeing and doing. Looks like a pretty cool group and the clay bath....well the girls were probably all into that. It is supposed to do wonders for the skin and prevent wrinkles. We pay top dollar for just a facial of clay. Grandpa & I are doing a little excavating of our own. For the second time in 3 weeks the sump pump malfunctioned and we are digging out again and it is amazing what grandpa has hidden under the guise of important papers. Of course I will be the first to say that for at least 4 yrs. I have been asking him to go through the "STUFF" and there is always a reason not to. Well, God moves in mysterious ways so all the work and daily calendars from the year 2000 that were tucked away in the only waterproof container of all the other junk can get thrown away. Grandpa’s reasoning was that he might like to look back and see what he did all those times :')) Anyway we are making progress and all the while we are doing that the huge trees are coming down along the back yard and I do think it will look beautiful. Who knows what we might discover back there. This whole sub division was very old farm land. Bring your team here.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, Adam, we are so proud of all that you do and don't ever want you to change. One thing that you said was something I thought of many times. All the different races, and religions I am around all the time make me look at each person and understand that all the things they were born into and raised believing are just as vital to them as my upbringing is to me from the U.P. to all of the Jewish, American Indian Italian, Finnish we hung with. And then each place we moved to we found out that each city was home to someone else and you learn something new every day. I had an old friend come by the other day and she is from Ireland, but she has kind of stopped learning the things you can each day. I was a little sad about that but I dragged out some albums of things we did in the neighborhood and the spark just came right back. It was a good day. I am getting my job back with the same teachers in a different school and I am very excited about that. I really feel that we do make some difference in our type of student and an article in the newspaper last week about one of ours from a couple of years ago just kept plugging away and in high school someone tapped into his mathematical mind and got him involved in all kinds of math games going on all over the state. He just graduated and is going to Western majoring in Math. Hooray for him to leave all the negatives behind and go for a life beyond Jackson. Well, I have been wordy enough. WE really LYTMNR Grandma