The little things amongst the large

I might be a little obsessed with the current rotating exhibit at the National Archaeological Museum.  I've gone twice in the last week.  I may well stop by again on Friday.  (In fairness, we've been in the museum for other things; it's just nice to stop in for a visit!)  The exhibit is about the Antikythera Shipwreck, which crashed off the shores of Greece around 60 BCE, probably on its way to Italy.  I love this exhibit because of a) the cool technology and modern exhibition strategies used in the show,

This is just a video, but there are holograms used to recreate the functionality of the Antikythera Mechanism!

 b) awesome late Hellenistic pottery and miscellaneous objects from daily life aboard the ship,

So many lagynoi! Aren't they great!?!

and c) pretty, pretty glass vessels!

But, my very favorite object in the entire exhibit is this little guy, who can't be more than a centimeter and a half tall, and most people probably never notice:

If you'll allow me to geek out for a few minutes:  he's a glass pendent of a type found all over the eastern Mediterranean in the second and first centuries BCE, including Cyprus, Egypt, Delos, Dura-Europas (Syria), southern Russia and...Tel Anafa!  See, there's one like him in the collection of glass beads and pendents which I studied way back in my Masters' degree days (one day, that publication will come out ::knocks on so much wood::).  This one was previously unpublished, but it fits beautifully into the series of known objects - of which there are a ton.  But why he's exciting is because, just like all the others, he is a unique snowflake.  Lots of people have suggested that pendants like this were made at one central workshop and then distributed through trade.  But I have a theory, based largely on the variation in the way they're made, that they are actually made all over the place, in small workshops catering to local consumers.  It's also interesting to think that this piece was almost certainly being worn when the ship crashed - by a sailor, by a passenger... who knows?  I need to look into this a bit, but I think that statistically, therefore, it is much more likely that a man was the wearer than a woman; considering this has been often considered a apotropaic/fertility symbol, and that jewelry and pendents are almost universally - and completely erroneously - associated with females in the archaeological record, the presence of this little guy on a ship, as opposed to a settlement or domestic context, might have some strong implications. 

On my second visit, I caved and bought the 46 euro exhibition catalog.  It has already given me immense joy, paging through the beautifully illustrated assemblage of objects narrowly dated to exactly the period in which I'm most interested.  I have a feeling this is a book to which I will return again and again.  Nothing makes academics happier than buying books, and I am a happy, happy academic right now.

Here he is!

A little gem

Sometimes, reading articles and researching is its own amusement. Exhibit A:
"They produced no objects of importance, but the graves did yield a certain number of glazed vases, beads and seals"
Edith Porada, in an article from 1960 called "Greek Coin Impressions from Ur"

In rather more recent news, there's a lot of mixed information floating around about the level of looting of museums and archaeological sites in Egypt right now. Zahi says everything is fine; others disagree. The most heartwarming news is the visual image of Egyptians linking arms to form a human chain to protect the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Time will tell.

"I am very pleased to tell you..."

It's been an exciting week so far in the life of this archaeologist. I gave my talk on "Beads and Beadmaking in the Ancient World" to the Upper Midwest Bead Society on Monday night, and it went fantastically. I was marginally nervous about it because their talks generally consist of how-to-make-jewelry sorts of things and mine was certainly much more "academic." Also, they paid me $50, so I felt some compunction to not completely suck. But they laughed at my jokes, asked lots of questions, and gave me some really great ideas about a couple pieces. One lady came up to me afterward and said "I'm an engineer, and it was so nice to actually have a talk with actual scientific sorts of information." They've already asked me if I can return next year, but....

I won't be here, because I found out today that I was admitted to the University of Michigan Interdepartmental Program in Classical Art and Archaeology! Michigan has been a beacon of archaeological achievement to me for years. It's been my dream program and my first choice. Two years ago, they rejected me. But today, today, they accepted me. The one downside is that this admittance comes with the slight caveat of no financial aid. They determine packages after an "informal" interview and visit process the first weekend of March. And, no money would mean no PhD for Kate. But I'm feeling really good about it, and the most difficult part has certainly been surmounted. (My chances now increase from the 1 in 16 they admitted to probably something like 5 in 8 who will recieve financial aid.) It also bodes really well for the University of Pennsylvannia, which does give aid to everyone admitted. Months ago, my advisor assured me that I'd get into Penn but she wasn't sure about Michigan. Yeah baby!

Archaeologists Love Amphoras

Yesterday evening, I emailed a final draft of the beads paper to my adviser. I'm sure she'll have some comments and suggestions, but I'm not anticipating any major revisions. I put a lot of time into that project, and am really satisfied with the result. It was a perfect project, in many ways: it was fairly small and narrowly defined in scope but completely challenging (since I'd never done anything of the sort before), it opened avenues of further research and papers, and it fulfilled two important goals (a thesis and a publication). I can pretty honestly say that it was the most enjoyable paper I've ever written. While I'm almost sad to see it completed, it's very rewarding to know what I was able to do with the material at hand. This is a bit of a weird analogy, but in Season 2 of Project Runway, the eventual winner talks about how happy she is with her final runway collection and says something to the effect of "this is my dream...I'm so happy with what came out of me." I feel like that about the beads paper.

I also noticed as I was consolidating all the little bits and pieces that in word length, this project is almost identical to my senior honors project. Those of you who were my faithful Livejournal readers back then will recall what a disaster that was from top to bottom. I hated that paper when I had finished it; it took months before I could even look at it. It still makes me cringe a bit. But had I not been through that experience, I know that my research, organization, and writing abilities would be much less developed, and this project would have been less successful and more challenging (in the not-good way).

So, I launched this blog a few weeks ago and promised you all deep and brilliant insights into archaeological news, law, and ethics but have not produced such a post in at least two weeks. Nor have I been nearly as diligent at generating daily posts as my friend Claire on her new blog. Sorry. I'll do much better in two weeks, when break is over and I have more time. (And although that sounds counter-intuitive, trust me, it's not.)

My roommate got her copy of the American Philological Association newsletter today, and I was mildly annoyed to see that it's named Amphora. Now, for those of you who don't know, an amphora is a type of large storage vessel, generally for things like grain, olive oil, and wine. Stamped amphora handles, if you're fortunate enough to find one, are one of the best tools for dating strata at sites since they often have identifiable names or dates and circulated for shorter periods of time than coins. Long story short, an amphora is material culture and related to archaeology. What it has to do with the American Philological Association, I have no idea. I could accept if they had selected a material culture item at least tangentially related to the study of language and ancient literature, like Scroll or Inscription. But no. It just goes to show that everyone secretly wishes they were in archaeology instead. You would never see an archaeology newsletter called The Aeneid or Plato.

A Very Indy Christmas

This post is only about a week overdue...

So what do budding archaeologists get for Christmas? Indiana Jones merchandise! My family only did "stocking presents" this year (meaning we opened presents for 3 hours Christmas morning, rather than the usual 5-6). Included in my stocking was: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, a new Lego set featuring Junior and Henry Jones Sr riding the motorcycle/sidecar, and a Lego Indy keychain.

The reason for only stocking presents is my family's upcoming epic 9 day adventure in Disney World in about a week. Will I go see the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular and covet many many things in the accompanying gift shop? Why yes, thank you for asking.

In other news, I'm making moderate progress on my thesis paper about glass beads. My adviser and I had a nice impromptu chat about it when I went into the office this week, but she politely asked if I could write up and include about 4 bone beads and a couple shell pieces in the final product as well. It's for the greater good - the final publication version of the paper will be a chapter titled "Beads" and include beads of all materials. Since, just like us, ancient peoples wore jewelry in multimedia, it makes much more sense to discuss all beads and pendants together, rather than isolated by material. It's just... the bone and shell pieces are so boring compared to the glass. But, that's archaeology. It ain't always golden idols and arks.

And finally, my last two PhD applications were officially due today. I, naturally, completed them weeks ago. Unfortunately, one of my recommenders has yet to do the same. For any of the programs to which I applied. Including the one due December 15th. Awesome.