Last night I was awoken by the sound of a heavy rainfall. Convinced I was imagining things, I went back to sleep, only to be awoken another hour later by the sound of another heavy rainfall. The wind was also whistling through the room, and the open window was making a noise that sounded like an old dot matrix printer….printing a very, very long document. When I woke up this morning, there were puddles everywhere and perhaps most importantly, my rental car had been cleaned – at least on the outside. I spent the first half of the day in the Kourion Museum looking over some of the pottery that KUSP has collected over the last two years. It was interesting to see how one year’s artifacts were all 4th-6th century AD (CRS, ARS, PRS), while the following year shifted to 1st-3rd century AD (CS, ESA, early ARS). I even ran across a few strange looking pieces that I am not 100% familiar with – I have some ideas, but nothing definite. This was particularly frustrating since there were people there with me, and when they handed me the sherds, they were expecting an answer – probably something other than my response, “Weird, huh?”
Later that day we went back to where KUSP is processing their sherds. They have this
large rooming house to themselves and it has this really nice central courtyard with lots of flowers and shade. Very scenic. Much more scenic than PKAP’s processing center at Terra Ombra – note to self, we need to do something about that. After looking at some more pottery, Tom asked me to give a workshop on Roman ceramics to his team, which I did, a bit reluctantly. Ceramics can be boring to some people, surprisingly. I hate boring people, even though I can be quite good at it. Anyway, I took about half and hour and talked about the types of Roman ceramics I had seen in their collections and it did not go too badly.
After this, I took a ride around Episkopi trying to get the lay of the land. For some reason, I really like being able to find my way around places I am staying. Episkopi is a bit confusing since it is laid out like a typical Cypriot village with lots of narrow roads, and twists and turns. As it started getting dark, I headed back to my room. I also noticed that the darkness looks like another storm. Really unusual weather, at least compared to the other times I have been in Cyprus (17 field seasons – hard to believe, I must started when I was 20). Tomorrow morning I will get up and make a leisurely drive back to Larnaka so I can get ready for my flight back to the US on Wednesday morning.
RSM
Ancient History Ramblings 