Grave Situations

Going to work today,
this is what i find.

A piece that has been left soaking in water (not distilled water) so that the salts can break down and no longer be an issue.

Now, obviously, a huge dead fly is the issue.

It made me laugh.

















Having to basically catalogue anything that comes in from the archeological site, i had to figure out if this '3ayinnat ramul' (sand specimen) was from KH1 or SHB4.

Both papers were lodged in the little plastic thing you see.

It wasn't a big deal, of course, all i had to do was ask; but it's really indicative of how sometimes not everybody has the little catalogue labels that basically require you to fill in the necessary information.

And becuase of that, not only did i need to figure out the actual site, but had to figure out who took this, when, where, what murabba3, what daraja, whether it was from the survying or excavating.

Basically, ga3da ata7al6um.




Becuase i could not steal the "camera man's" camera (camera man, my ass! ma minna fayda. alla i3afi dar il athar who takes the official pictures becuase our 'camera man' is useless).

ANYWAYS!

so this is a burial mound (indicated by the rocks that build up).








In it, (and i'm sorry for the bad pic), is this corpse.

Notice the head, the long legs, and the pelvic bone.

I havn't met him yet, but there's supposedly this bone expert (we don't have one in Kuwait, and so he was brought in from England) that posited that Mr. Dead Dude might be 5,000 years old.






Becuase an archeologists' job is tedious, they have to draw (and good thing i saw an actual Kuwaiti do this, and not the free-lance Egyptian like last time).

They basically have to take a picture from above and draw out the layout of the rocks.

Pay close attention and you can see the outermost 'big rock' circular formation, the middle rock circle (to begin the burial formation), and the inner nucleus which is basically where the body was found.

Usually, from the body to the middle formation lies 'treasures', or whatever else is buried as tokens to the dead (think urns and the like).






In other non-archeological news, if you ever find a bar of soap in the women's bathroom that has been used (when the women's bathroom should be empty since there are no women in Jahra), then you have to consider wether it would be detrimental to your health to use a sud-filled bar of soap.
I actually opted not to use the soap (i had ink, glue, and sand and such on my hands).

Then i remembered the 'wash the soap under hot water for 20 seconds rule'.





It still made me really ask myself if i would've used the soap.





(don't think i'm being prissy, although i am, but my hands are the cleanest parts of my body at all times, and suddy, pre-used by who knows soap in a gross container would've made me grit my teeth even more than necessary. and my dentist already hates me for that.)

...................................................................................................................................................................


In competely seperate news:
All weekend long i've been moping about and complaining that come next Saturday i would have to start going to the Museum again (sign in before 8, leave at 1:45).

Today, though, thankfully, the chemistry guy called me and told me that Boss is trying to extend for another month becuase he wants to open up more graves.

THANK GOD!

INSHALLAHINSHALLAHINSHALLAH it'll go through! (the request)

Going back to my windowless, internetless, florescent light-edness 'office' would be suicide-enticing.

Until then.