elanya

So they found this late 15th/early 16th shipwreck off the coast of Namibia....

Debeers found it. It has all kinds of shiny treasure. I have no idea how it is going to be handled, but it is an exciting *find*, to be sure. Apparently all the treasure will go to the state. But what will they do with it? Of course, the press release doesn't say anything about whether or not there is any *ship* left, but that would be really significant to study. Gold is nice but really, what more can we learn about it? ;p

Thanks to fortysevenbteg for the news. I don't think the Namibians are going to uphold his claim for dibs though.

I have booked my flights, and (if all goes well) my hotels for my Bahamas trip this summer.

It's a bit nerve wracking. Okay, a lot. I need stuff to work out for me here, or I'm essentially going to have to pick a new thesis. I have a back up plan, but so far it exists only in my head. I also applied for a travel grant to help foot the bill, but I'm not holding my breath.

I really wish i wasn't going alone. It is tiring to be a girl alone there. It isn't intimidating, it just wears on me after a while. I like to be left alone, or at least have good company. Ahh well. If this *does* work out, I'll definitely have company when I come back :x

....Anyone wanna come along to the Bahamas in June, 8-18th?

In the immediate future, I need dinner. I should go get groceries, but I can't be arsed. And the pizza place that is 2 min away from here left a flyer with some sweet deals... I don't even know what I want, unless it is Dairy Queen for dinner. Well, hey, though, why not? They have real food there too...

WIN!!!

Dear Internets,

Anyone out there wanna photoshop me up an image of crossed trowels? And maybe stick a skull in there for good measure? Anyone? It would be awesome..... :)

Thanks!

-Lannie

It isn't really an i at the end but I don't know the key code for odd Turkisk letters. Nevertheless, here is a temporary link to this months Arcaheology magazine's article on the excavation of the Byzantine harbour in Istanbul! Veyr cool shit there, I say.

Ooh, bonus points for appropriate tunes! Azim Ali wants you to read @_@

I have put together lemons and sugar to mascerate and tomorrow there will be delicious pie!

I just skimmed through the latest edition of Historical Archaeology and was all excited because half the issue is devoted to questions about interdisciplinary questions with some interesting perspectives, some more articles on, basically, the relevance of archaeology (touching on many of the same points). The last 60 pages are a dictionary of blacksmithing terms - equally exciting for its theoretical future usefulness. The last part is probably what makes me the biggest dork...

However some of the articles deal with reasons(maybe methods - I just skimmed) for changing the way hat CRM technical reports are written, and it made me think it might be something good for oscuridad to read, since I know she is struggling with that atm.

Material Culture and Maritime Identity: Identifying Maritime Subcultures through Artifacts.

Piracy was a significant facet of late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century maritime culture, yet archaeological contributions to our knowledge of piracy are few. They are fewer still in reference to pirate interaction ashore. Material from a handful of land sites with known piratical association, contrasted with artifacts from contemporaneous non-maritime sites, provides a starting point for investigating whether or not material culture assemblages can provide any insight into differences between pirates (and other maritime cultures) and those of the general land-based society. Where these differences do exist, they may provide insight into issues of identity within these groups.

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I plan to go through my ECU thesis stuff, push it as a starting point, and then maybe talk about how it can be further tested in the Bahamas :V

I now that thanksgiving here in the US is approaching soon, but I don't mean that kind of turkey. I mean the country, and my potential opportunities to go and work there this summer! I have to fill out my application pretty much immediately, but that doesn't commit me immediately. I still get to think about it, I just have to have my name on the permit just in case.

So, what would I be doing? Probably working on cataloging crap at the Bodrun museum (crusader castle!), possibly helping measure a 16th C ottoman galley, and if I am extra lucky, helping excavate a 7th century Byzantine ship from the old harbour in Constantinople. Land excavation - no diving required, but it would be hella messy. Whatever! A lot of others in my class are also hoping to go - there really isn't much going on at INA/in the NAP right now. Red River is pretty much over, people who are working with Debbie Carlson are already picked, and I'm not sure what she is working on anyway. So as far as fieldwork goes this year, Turkey is where it is at! There is always stuff going on in Turkey though. But by next year I'm hoping to have my own stuff to work on... i should probably talk to people about that, eh?

Okay, what next... I am close to being done my ship. Pretty much everything else that i need to add at this point is just details - plank the deck, put in my capstan spindle, put coaming around my hatches, put in a scuttle somewhere in the bow, maybe, and move my frames up to my naked deck view! oh and border my gun ports. I might also have to put in some extra futtocks, but I'm not sure - i'll need to consult some other sources for that. But I know that it isn't going to take me another 5 days to do that *and* finish the paper, so I'm feeling pretty confident at this point!

Life is going pretty okay, but I'll still only have a week to write my 615 paper... D:

And now I need to finish getting dressed and go to school! Phnee has inspired me to wear my rainbow socks today, though, even if they don't quite match my outfit ;)

The rest of Canada knows and cares who Jacques Cartier is, I'm sure! As interesting as I find this news, I found about it through a historical archaeology listserv. The guy who posted it gave two links. One was to the subscribers only Montreal gazette, and the other was to the French CBC site.

The gist of things is that while looking for evidence of a Champlain occupation of Quebec city, they found some Italian glass that dates back to the Cartier expeditions, from the 1540's. They believe it marks the presence of a fort (plausible). The 400th's anniversary of the founding of Quebec is coming up in 2008, and so the provincial government is pouring huge piles of cash into the site in order to develop it as a heritage site and be open by that date. Must be a good time to be an archaeologist in Quebec :o They actually found this all last fall, but this is the first I've heard about it.... If my French is not completely shit, they were sitting on the news until they could confirm the dates via radio carbon dating.

This find excites me, but the fact that the news has yet to trickle out to English Canada is kind of disappointing. Google gives me nothin' :/