Sunday 30th
June
Those of you who were not ‘with us’ on the blog last year may not
know that, whilst in Crete in 2012, we
spent a few days at INSTAP (the American school of archaeology) in Pachia Ammos
recording 100s of bones – toe bones (or phalanges to be precise). They are part
of 1000s of skeletal remains (representing over 400 people) found buried as a
secondary burial in a cave at Agios Charalambos around 3000 years ago in the
Minoan period. Dr Tina McGregor, for
whom we are recording the bones, took us and her other helper, Sophie, to
Agios Charalambos in the Lasithi Plateau to see where all the bones had had been found. It was a strange, but nice, feeling to see where the bones had come from and helped to make it even more personal that we are helping to give these people an identity again as it were. Secondary burial, if you don't know, is something the Minoans were particularly keen on and it involved them moving the bodies of their dead sometime after the initial burial had taken place. It is thought that the burial in the cave at Agios Charalambos took place over a relatively short period of time, possibly even on just one or two occasions (so they would have been big occasions then). Along with the human bones, a number of animal bones and other artifacts were found, such as drinking vessels, which suggests that this secondary burial was accompanied by feasting.
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| The large hole is the first part of the cave (rooms 1 & 2) that collapsed |
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| To the right of me is a green plastic bag – this is the ‘new’ entrance to the cave which is now blocked off ( fortunately this meant that we did not have to find excuses not to crawl in!) |
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| Tina returning from checking the ‘security’ of the blocked entrance |
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| The ‘helpers’ |
After the cave we went to see the Natural History Museum in
Lasithi. Apparently it has the only ‘stuffed’ Cretan wildcat in existence! The museum was definitely compact but still very interesting, giving an overview of the flora and fauna to be seen both now and in the past. There was a map showing the areas in Crete where remains of dwarf hippos have been found, which I found especially interesting. Crete, along with other Mediterranean islands, is one of the places where certain species of animals in the past became much smaller, hippos being one of them along with elephants and deer. The museum also gave us one of the funniest translation 'errors' we have seen in an while. The caption by the Cretan wildcat says...."It preys upon small mammals (mice, hairs) but occasionally on birds and reptiles as well" !! The Cretan wildcat was thought to be extinct until, in 1996, a living specimen was captured and studied at the Natural History Museum in Heraklion for a few days until being released back into the wild. To give you an idea of its size, a wildcat can reach a body length of 50cm to 60cm and a tail length of 30cm.
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| It’s not real – well it was once but not now! |
Monday 1st
July
Most this week saw us at Pachia Ammos recording bones again – but
we have moved up (literally!) from the toes of last year to fingers this year! Sophie had sorted a large number of them so our task is to take measurements and record any pathology that can be seen on them - and there is quite a lot of that!
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| ‘Dancing phalanges’ (well you would see what we mean if you could see Dud’s fingers wiggling)* |
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| Dr Dud looking like he knows what he’s doing (I say ‘looking’ …) – fortunately he only has to measure them! |
Tuesday 2nd
July
Off to Pachia Ammos again – can’t get enough of these bones! Left
the builders working on the driveway of the apartment and came back to a nice
new slope/ramp to the driveway. Before the slope we kept running the risk of
losing our exhaust when driving into the driveway.
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| New smooth entry slope/ramp to the driveway – luxury! |
Wednesday
3rd July
In the evening we went down to Bogazi’s to hear the music. One of
the musicians we knew from last year (Vangelis) was there again and remembered
us from last year. Great music as usual and much dancing took place, although not by us!
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| Dancing girls – I enjoyed the music; Dud enjoyed the dancing girls |
Thursday 4th July was a quiet day which was just as well as Friday 5th July started off
quiet but didn't end that way! Went down to Dimitri’s for supper. Loads of people suddenly turned up around 10pm
when we wanted to leave. Dimitri was too busy for us to pay the bill so he said
‘pay later’. We left and went for a raki or two in Kokylia where the Americans were belatedly celebrating 4th July. On our way home we saw Dimitri was less busy so went to pay bill and ended up in 'locals corner'
with more raki ! Home eventually......
Saturday 6th July was
another quiet day then Nick and Heather came round to us for supper and the day
– well, evening, livened up with a combination of home cooked lasagne washed down with beer or cider, wine and finally raki!
As for Sunday, 7th July, we
intended a quiet a day watching Murray lose again at Wimbledon. However, nothing went as
we thought as, at around 5.30 pm, Nick and Heather sent us a text to say
come over for a drink, and Murray.................well he won! We left N & H around 10.30 - the whole day was far from quiet!!
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| Toasting Murray's win at Nick and Heather’s BBQ area |
Tuesday and Thursday we went for a run – we have been rather
lapse with the running but now hope to be on a bit of a roll with it. Still recording bones at Pachia Ammos during the day times. Friday was our last day at Pachia Ammos for a bit though as we must get on with our own work, and also Warner and Barbara are coming over next week. Heather
went back to the UK on Thursday and on Friday we got a text from Nick to say he was on his own
in Kokylia’s and needed company!! In fact we were at an archaeological talk in Pachia Ammos but
joined him afterwards at around 8.30pm. We (that is, Dud and I) left at around
2.00am but Nick, although he got up to leave with us, didn't quite make it past
Yiorgo’s table (Yiorgo owns Kokylia) even though, apart for Yiorgo, there was
no one left in the taverna. It seems that Nick has introduced Yiorgo to cider drinking! We later heard from Yiorgo that they finished up around 3.30am. I’m
glad we didn't stay late!! Saturday was
a rather late start and a very quiet day!
Sunday 14th July
Went down to see Panagiotis at Mochlos Mare (where we used to stay) about 8pm and found that he had some visitors from
Zakros (about 1.5 hours drive away) - the 'girls' were out walking with Maria & Tommy the dog, whilst Nikos was drinking raki with Panagiotis. We had a couple of glasses of raki and some fresh produce from the garden to eat with it, then went down to
Kokylia for supper. Later (c.10pm)
Panagiotis et al. arrived at Kokylia for their supper too! As we were walking
home, Dimitri called out to us to have ‘one for the road' with him, so we had one
more glass of raki to round off the evening (listening to Pink Floyd!).
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| View from our top balcony of Mochlos island and village to the left |
* why 'dancing phalanges' ? - well for those of you who watch Bones on TV you might remember when Brennan (Bones) entertains a baby in an amusing way. You can see it here if you don't know what I'm talking about....... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt9KKxJ2ARA
