Tuesday, July 10, 2007

dust to dust


dust to dust
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.
I don't think I've ever met an archaeologist who wasn't happy.

Solid happy like out in the sun messing with the dirt, happy; happy like a gardener who's just hoed a row; happy like a kid playing hard in mud puddles, important work kind of playing with the sun on your back and dust in your mouth and dirt under your nails to let you know you're alive, kind of happy.

(I want that kind of happy.)

Spent the evening with two happy folk who dig around Oaxaca and work for Chicago's Field Museum hearing about their recent discoveries at El Palmillo. Excavated residences, mostly, and funerary urns; strange distributions of ancestral burials and legends of the powerful presence of mountains.

Good stuff.

Buffet rocked four stars out of five – there was a white fish in a chile sauce and a tasty mole-topped tostadas (Oaxacan-style) that especially stood out. Whole thing might have hit five stars if we hadn't arrived late to find the quesadillas congealed.



Posting by cameraphone on the way home from Chicago's Field Museum. T.Rex is from one of those funky little mold-your-plastic-while-you-wait machines. (If you close your eyes you can just. smell it.)

4 comments:

Mikkel said...

But you have to be able to bear the burden of working exclusively with closed sources. Never documents, always gravesites and guesswork. In history, at least the dead speak in a clearer voice.

suttonhoo said...

true -- but some graves speak outloud »

Mikkel said...

Ha, I only just now realized the meaning of your nick. It just dawned on me. You clever girl.

Anonymous said...

when i was a kid, archaeologist was on my short list of careers. so was botanist. somehow i ended up in a career that wasn't even invented when i graduated from college.

funny how that works out.

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