Barcelona

I finally found some time to update this and add some pictures.  Barcelona was one of the coolest cities I have ever been to.  The architecture is very distinct and there is so much to see.  Given that I only had about a day and a half, I'm sure I missed some, but I crammed as much as I could into that short time.  I don't usually play favorites, but I do think that my favorite part of Barcelona was the Cathedral.  We went to mass there on Sunday and it was great.  The music was fantastic due to the acoustics.  Everything we did was great.  Here are some pictures:

On the roof of Casa Batllo (a house by Gaudi):

In the Park of Ciutadella:

Plaza Catalunya:

Long exposure of the massive column erected in memory of Christopher Columbus (the blue streak is a police car and the white are headlights from other cars):

Tonight is my last night in Paris.  I've really enjoyed it and seen a ton.  I will be sure to update soon with pictures.

Best,
Adam

Barcelona

N.B. I only have 5 more minutes of free internet and it is on a public computer so there is no way I can upload photos.

Anyway, Barcelona has been amazing.  The buildings are unbelievable.  I have walked all over the city since I only had about a day and a half, but I think I managed to see most of the major attractions.  I'm running out of time.  I promise I will put up pictures at some point, but I figured I would at least give you an update.  Off to Paris tomorrow morning.

Adam

Last days in Menorca

Today (Friday) was my last day on the wonderful island of Menorca.  I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed my time on the island and I wish that tomorrow I was waking up to excavate rather than to leave, but oh well.  I can't, however, complain about my upcoming days since I will be in Barcelona, Paris, and London.  I don't know what type of internet access I will have so it may be a few days before my next post.  Anyways, for as much I am disappointed about leaving, I am just as excited (if not more so) for the next part of my journey.

Yesterday a group of us decided to rent bikes and ride to some places we had not been to on the island.  They were really cheap (only 7 euros for the whole day) and rode about as cheap as they cost.  At one point someone had two flat tires and some of the other tires were headed that way.  After a call and some broken spanish over the phone, we were able to get someone to come out and fix them.  While at first it seemed like an inconvenience, it ended up working as a perfectly good lunch break.  It has hot and we were beyond sweaty when we finally reached the beach we were looking for.  It would have been breathtaking had we drove there, but given the mechanical problems and physical labor, nothing could have looked better.  Here are a few pictures:

Hope all is well,

Adam

Skulls

Today was rather bittersweet as it was our last day of excavation.  It concluded what has been a terrific and unimaginably informative couple of weeks.  As with all other excavation days, we started with lab work which consisted of cleaning bones.  There was only one other student besides myself that spent the whole time in the necropolis (the others split time between the city and the necropolis).  Since we have become much more proficient at cleaning and identifying bones, our supervisor trusted us to clean two skulls.  They were both of children and very fragile.  Children's bones never preserve as well as adult because they are not as big and strong.  It was very difficult and required a lot of patience, but in the end I made a lot of progress.  In the hours I spent on it, I clean off most of the soil, but some other ambitious student will have to finish the task later on.  It was a great culmination to a week full of learning and excitement.  Here are some pictures...

Before:

During:

After:

In the dirt that was caked on the skull there was a part of a mandible (lower jaw).  Here is a picture:

On the right are two baby teeth and on the left you can see a tooth that has not yet come in.  From this we were able to age it and it comes out to between 4 and 5 years old.  Cleaning the skull was difficult, but very rewarding.  It was definitely one of my favorite things that I did over the course of the excavation.

Best,

Adam

Patience

We finished the tomb I have been writing about the other day.  It is likely that there were two children in the tomb, but definitely no adults.  After finishing we moved back to a tomb we had worked on some last week.  It is the one that has tons and tons of bones.  It is rather difficult to excavate because they are all on top of each other and rather fragile.  It is a big test of patience to be able to slowly take them out.  It's possible to work on a single bone for about an hour and still not be able to get it out.  Tomorrow is our last day of excavating.  The following day we give presentations on a topic of our choosing (mine is Roman Burial Customs and how they change from the Republic to the Principate to Christianity).  After that we have two days to do whatever we choose, and then I am off to Barcelona.  I'm a bit sad that I only have one day of excavation left, but I have really enjoyed everything I've done and I have learned a ton.  Here are some pictures...

Childrens' tomb after excavation:

Lots of Bones:

Best,

Adam

Child's Tomb

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

New Tomb!

We were back to excavating again today.  The days off were very nice, but I was itching to get back at it.  We went looking for new tombs today and had unbelievable success.  The area in which we were searching was very difficult to dig.  There were rocks and vegetation everywhere.  Most of the plants were full of thorns so they were hard to handle.  We persevered and hacked away with a combination of axes, pickaxes, large trowels, and hoes.  Here are the before pictures:

And the after...

That took four people a couple of hours, but the time passed very quickly.  Onto the more exciting bit of the day - the new tomb.  We found and profiled a tomb in this area.  Profiling a tomb simply means that we define the edges around the outside in order to find the limits, but we leave the inside of the tomb filled.  While we were doing this, we realized that it was a very small tomb (only just over a meter in length).  This may mean that it is a child's tomb.  Another interesting aspect is that about 2/3 of the tomb is covered by a lid - something very rare in the necropolis we are excavating.  All of this information is making my mind wander a lot as to what might be underneath, but only time will tell.  Needless to say, I am very excited for the next days of excavation.

Here are a few pictures of the tomb:

This one includes a scale (the red and white stick on the right).  Each new color is 10 cm in length.  The arrow points north.

Here is one of just the tomb:

Well I hope that everyone else has had just as an exciting day as me.

Best,
Adam