Tales of My Days of Archaeology, Part 1

by Amy E. Barr, The Lukeion Project (educator, Latinist, archaeologist, traveler, mom to 3 grown children, 6 goats, 13 chickens, 2 ducks, 6 cats, 2 dogs)

Choosing the most amusing tales from my excavation field days presents challenges. First, many of you will believe I’m just making this stuff up. Second, how do I pick my favorites stories? I have optimistically described this blog as “part 1” since, no doubt, my children will ask me why I didn’t include this story or that one. Nevertheless, names have been changed or avoided lest I succumb to the third challenge: avoiding vendetta from those involved. You'll notice that the best stories have to do with the archaeologists themselves.

As writer Agatha Christie, wife of well-known archaeologist Max Mallowan, might attest, nothing will make one contemplate murder more than an archaeological excavation. The group of people that assemble to excavate a site generally have several dangerous qualities in common. Any time you concentrate those qualities by aggregating archaeologists, shenanigans begin.

Archaeologists tend to be fearless, ambitious, comfortable with risk, and opinionated. Most of them are also introverts who “live in their heads.” Yank this type of person out of the library, irritate them with heat and privation, then force them to live in social groups…well, you’ll soon have the perfect habitat for mischief.  

I’ll start my list of short stories with Tales of Satan. Satan is the nickname some of us gave an elderly architect at a certain excavation in Jordan. While his many advanced years should have earned him a kinder title than “Satan,” his complete lack of judgment lost him all points on both the social and intellectual scoreboard.

 

I won’t even begin to mention the fact that Satan felt it was beneath his dignity to flush whenever he used the community in-ground “Turkish” toilets. Likewise, here, I will not at all remark on how this was discovered and announced--the evidence utterly unavoidable--during dinner when all 20+ of us were enjoying after-dinner watermelon. No, such a discussion would be indelicate. I’ll start, instead, with Satan and his toothbrush.

 

Excavating in Jordan is not a task for dainty people. There are bugs, grit, heat, bugs, sleeping on sketchy foam mattresses on the floor, and bugs. Showers are available because somebody hooked garden hoses over the tops of in-ground toilet stalls. Clothes are washed in buckets during rare intervals of boredom. Days begin at 4:30 am so we can crawl into our excavation trenches before the sun is up.

 

Dinners were important times to recover a sense of ease. After dinner, we’d sit at the table on the porch to tell stories as we sipped hot cups of mint tea or sweet black tea. Others—parched from the sun--would gulp glasses of cool refreshment from the enormous ceramic communal jug of boiled/purified water. This was the jug we would return to each morning to fill our canteens for a day in the field. A big aluminum mug was kept on top so we could respectfully dip out our share of water and pour it cleanly into our glasses or canteens whenever we liked.

 

Our evening meals on the porch were lovely. We sat next to well-loved rose bushes and carefully tended mint planted by our cook for evening tea time. Tales from the day’s excavation, however, would be typically interrupted by Satan. He preferred to go to bed at least an hour or two earlier than everyone else. We whippersnappers (anyone under the age of 60) were told to clear off and quiet down…by 7 pm. Our excavation house was in the middle of nowhere. The only other place to convene was on the roof exactly 20 feet above that same porch but with a good view of the courtyard and improved breezes.

  

One time after a bit of early-evening-fist-shaking from Satan, we relocated to the roof but decided to pay careful attention as Satan finished his evening ritual trudge to the outhouse and then a return to brush his teeth. 

Wait. Why is he brushing his teeth on the porch?  The only available running water supply at the camp could be found in the outhouse facilities which he had just left…or perhaps he is using his canteen water. A dozen or more of us, bored, lean over the edge of the roof, watching, nosy.

   

Satan is vigorously brushing his teeth with a toothbrush that dates to just before WWII. As he finishes the battle, we watch what comes next in horror. I still see it now—almost in slow motion. He dips the well-foamed ratty taupe-bristled brush INTO the communal water mug.  He swirls and swirls. He tosses his used frothy water into the rose bushes. Next, he leans—AND SPITS HIS TOOTHPASTE---into the mint garden, spewing foam like a shotgun blast. Finally, he dips the now ill-used communal cup back into the water jug a second time and takes a glurgy swig—SLURP—directly from the communal cup. He sloshes for eternity and—AGAIN—spits a broad blast into the mint patch: Our tea mint. 

It silently dawned on all of us at the same time. Ease suggested practice and constancy. Satan had been swirling his toothbrush in the community water supply and spitting on our tea mint since the start of the whole rainless summer.

  

Nothing will make one contemplate murder more than an archaeological excavation.

Travel Abroad Isn’t Just Nice, it is Necessary

by Amy E. Barr, The Lukeion Project (educator, Latinist, archaeologist, traveler, mom to 3 grown children, 6 goats, 13 chickens, 2 ducks, 6 cats, 2 dogs)

My first trip abroad was when I was 18. I had decided to study the ancient Near East and archaeology.  My major professor invited me to excavate in Jordan for the summer after my freshman year. Before you think, “sure, that’s nice for a kid with financial means," I'll stop you.  When I booked that flight to live abroad for two months, I was also putting myself through college. Not a dime came from home (though mom sent me a pair of shoes that first Christmas). I worked and saved since the minute I turned 16 during a summer in which my single-mom family was also homeless. I managed to save enough to pay for my first year of college (I wasn’t sure how to pay for the second year yet) and now I was going to add world travel to the budget? I am glad nobody talked me out of it. That first trip had me hooked.

I would find a way to pay for college and still make trips to excavate and travel abroad. A four-year degree followed by a master’s degree, then two different programs for a Ph.D. I traveled or lived in Jordan, Greece, Turkey, Italy, Israel, Syria, Egypt, and Sweden. My husband shared similar experiences and a passion for including our children in international travel as early as possible. We sacrificed but we were able to make our first trip to Italy when our youngest of three turned seven years old. We managed to haul them all several times to Italy, Greece, and Turkey as they grew up because travel isn’t just nice, it is necessary. Here’s why:

Travel Teaches Actual Tolerance (not the cheap imitation that people refer to today)

When you live and move in a culture that is not your own, you learn that different ideas, tastes, preferences, languages, and perspectives can and do co-exist nicely. Outside is a place where people don’t just encounter zillions of differences and tiny (or not so tiny) hardships, they improve and flourish from being around them. Travel helps you learn how little you need. Done well, travelers  discover “inconvenience” is just a magnificent adventure in disguise.

Travel Teaches Actual Patriotism

The old-fashioned virtue of patriotism is at risk. I blame in part a lack of travel. Travel abroad almost always makes one more patriotic. It is easy to believe the condemnations of your homeland if you lack the perspective and experience to inform you otherwise. The worst critics of America have never left her borders. It is a joy to experience the love others have for their own nations as they share their foods, music, monuments, lifestyles, and traditions with visitors. It is not evil to love one's own nation and enjoy that patriotism in others.

Travel Teaches Actual Gratitude

You may never be more thankful for the kindness of others until you are lost and need directions in a foreign city or at risk of disastrously boarding the wrong train. A thousand details abroad will differ from home. Many of them are beautiful! You’ll spend a lifetime trying to recreate them during your mundane days. Many of them are dreadful! You’ll spend a lifetime better appreciating places that are free of rubbish strewn hillsides, open sewers, deeply sketchy restaurants, or hundreds of other unpleasantries that are completely normal elsewhere but, hopefully, rare back home. 

Travel Teaches that Life isn’t Safe and That’s OK

This last one is the most important one. A life led exclusively in a safe, clean, tidy, guard-railed-and-padded bubble is no life at all. Real life isn’t safe. It never has been, it never will be. People who don't venture from their false bubble will be traumatized by even the smallest puncture. Life is jam-packed with small (and large) disasters. Travel abroad inoculates us from many of life’s traumas. The world has very few guard rails and rare are the warning signs. When you travel, you learn how to cope, manage, and navigate. Develop yourself! Be awake, be wary, but be bold as you travel this life.   

TLDR

Amy E. Barr, The Lukeion Project

Savvy text-fluent young people like myself know that TLDR means, “too long/didn’t read.” This is often shorthand for, “can you just summarize this article for me, so I don’t have to waste my time reading it?”  More times than not, TL/DR just suggests that no matter how important the contents of a personal missive/blog/article/assignment or (heaven forbid) book might be, ((shrug)) it was just much too long to read.

I know I LOOK young and text-savvy, but I’ve been teaching now for 25+ years. I started well before human communication transformed into today’s lingo of trills, whistles, dank memes, and seemingly random letters indicating (for example) that recipients of even the dumbest jokes or cat videos have been writhing on the floor in mirth when we all know those liars never even giggled once or even moved their face.

I can also remember what it was like to distribute instructions to students and expect them to read those instructions all the way to the end, even if those instructions exceeded five highly abbreviated bullet points in a short email.

Ah! Those were the days! All I needed to do was indicate that a large percentage of grade points could be docked if a student failed to read and follow instructions! That was all the incentive students needed, poor old-fashioned things. Now If I can’t detail what’s expected in a 7-page writing project or a proctored exam or even a short quiz in under 9 words, most can’t even.

So, what gives? People are still able to read, and they usually still care about learning new things, and most are even vaguely interested in doing things properly while earning a decent grade. Nevertheless, TL/DR. Dozens of times each semester I will go back to read the instructions I prominently posted for an assignment to check if I am losing my mind! Did I tell them how to format the project and what type of sources to use? Yes! I did! There are my instructions right there! Yet some students just can’t bring themselves to read those instructions...at least not ALL of them.

Focus has gone AWOL.

Old people: remember the good old days when you might watch an entire one hour show without splitting the time evenly with whatever you were also doing on your phone? Back in my day (you whippersnappers), some people would even watch an entire show without picking up any additional electronic devices! My grandparents even tell me of a time when one would put on music or turn on a radio to listen to the music or news…a whole hour only listening! Noobs.

Today’s modern specimen prefers the rolling chaos of a streaming video binge plus a game plus 2 or 3 friends texting, snapping, tweeting, plus regular checks for “likes” or status updates or new posts all while chatting idly with a group online. School books are open, pens and notebooks are ready, but there’s such a craving for pandemonium that these things can’t be silenced!

Now, there’s a good word: pandemonium.  Look it up! We find it in print for the first time in 1667 in "Paradise Lost" as the name of the palace built in the middle of Hell, "the high capital of Satan and all his peers," coined by John Milton. It comes from Greek pan "all" + Late Latin daemonium "evil spirit." By 1779 it firmed up to mean a "place of uproar."

Most of us now live in a place of uproar. We have lost focus. We have no quiet place of concentration. There’s no pause in the storm to read anything from beginning to end, to hear anything, to focus on anything. Gone are the days of mono-tasking. The truth is that many consider everything too long to read, hear, feel, consider.

The next time you are tasked with reading something important. Try to focus. Turn off everything and monotask. I promise the discomfort of not knowing what else is going on will pass eventually. You can do it! Read the whole assignment! View the whole class recording. Enjoy the whole chapter. Get through the whole discussion board comment without breaking focus.  Make a scorecard for the week and give yourself a treat every time you KEEP your focus to finish a solitary task before switching your context to something newer, louder, funnier, shinier.

You can do it! I have faith in you. Are you still reading? Give yourself a treat!

The Thrill of Competence

by Amy E. Barr, co-founder & educator at The Lukeion Project

There’s a lot of hand-wringing over why our late teens and young adults now suffer from the highest levels of depression and feelings of crisis since anyone ever started recording such things. Hand-ringing indeed! Troubles are shared with parents, educators, friends, family, and siblings of the ever-growing group of younger people who constantly struggle with feeling way-less-than. 

Books, blogs, and articles grope in the dark for answers for the several generations that should be our primary young decision makers, new parents, and responsible adults. A growing number of them feel so ill-equipped for life’s challenges they decline opportunities to move forward into adulthood until years later than the generations before them. Have humans changed so much?  Why are tasks that were once common for 17 and 18-year-olds now too daunting for 28-year-olds today?

While the situation is extremely complex, I can offer at least one reason our 16 to 30-year-olds are in crisis lately. Unlike any other moment in history, our young people completely lack the thrill of competence. 

If you have ever started a new job in a fairly complex field, If you have ever been a new parent bringing your first tiny infant home for her first night, if you have ever started any major task that involves effort and expense (start a garden, paint a house, build a fence, plant a shrub), you probably lacked competence. Depending on your confidence, a lack of competence either hindered you from moving forward … or it did not.

Competence comes from the same root as “compete.” By the 1630s it was defined as "sufficiency of means for living at ease," from Latin competentia, "meeting together, agreement, symmetry." By 1790, competence meant "adequate range of capacity or ability, sufficiency to deal with what is at hand." Confidence, on the other hand, comes from the combination of the two Latin words cum+fido meaning “to have complete assurance, boldness.”

Many, though not all, of our anxieties, stem from feelings that we lack the “adequate range of sufficiency to deal with what is at hand.” Some, though not all, will graduate from high school and then college (and maybe even graduate school) with the cast-iron certainty that they lack the “adequate range of sufficiency” to handle just plain old daily obligations like taxes and figuring out insurance papers, much less, emergency duties during a real crisis!

In 2013 my family reached our goal of buying a piece of property in the country so we could learn how to be more competent. We will be the first to tell you we were completely incompetent as we assessed our 23 wild acres covered in eye-height grass, scrub, poison ivy, and tangled trees. We set goals of figuring it all out while we scored minor victories (chicken coop and garden first, goats and barn next, etc.). As we checked something off the list, we felt a little more competent. We were hooked on the thrill. Competence, no matter how small, leads to confidence.

Back then we had already run a busy small business for 8 years. We had educated our kids at home since they were born. When we started all the hundreds of tasks associated with those two projects, we were deeply incompetent as well. We made a lot of mistakes. We had to GAIN competence through experience, hard knocks, dumb blunders, recovery from failure, reading, research, and more research. We weren’t experts at those things, but eventually, we had the “sufficiency to deal with what is at hand.” We knew we could keep adding to our experiences and expel the feelings of way-less-than by becoming just enough.

Our generations in crises feel way-less-than. Kindergarten through high school (even college) can be a fiasco of confidence-building (STAR pupil! Perfect attendance! Best athlete!) without a moment’s consideration for competence-building. Awards for attendance are ridiculous to somebody who can't cook a full meal, buy a car, follow instructions to build bookshelves, invest, or apply for a mortgage. A day job in a cubicle followed by a dinner of take-out is often overshadowed by the feeling that everyone else is doing life better (thanks, social media). It is impossible to build genuine CONFIDENCE in people who completely lack COMPETENCE.

How can we help our teens now to avoid this larger crisis later?

Have them do MORE of what’s real now

One day our family decided to build a barn for our spoiled goats. We did not hire craftsmen, nor did we buy a kit. We did the research, we measured twice/cut once, and then we did the work. We made some dumb mistakes and yet we built a barn. Our teen/college aged kids did it all with us. We did what was real. We made real mistakes. Came up with real answers. We have a real barn. 

Not everyone has the luxury of building a barn for a bunch of goats for the sake of competence-building. All of us can grow a little garden, cook a meal entirely from scratch, sew, build, weave, craft, construct. Learn how to do a thing and then do it, but expect mistakes. That’s normal. Each of those things builds competence.

Have them invest educational hours in real challenges

Education, at least the real kind, is on the endangered list. Many parents don’t want to jeopardize their child’s chances at a perfect transcript. They will either pressure educators to keep making things easier for their child or they will avoid anything that might mar that perfect college entry moment.

Fearless parents are the ones who know the thrill of competence is addictive. They will take a chance by putting their students through ever-increasing challenges. Some students with the best grades are far less competent than those who tackled tougher academic challenges head on. Many of our golden graded scholars will be haunted by feelings of less-than because they know better than anyone that they avoided the more difficult stuff to protect transcripts.

Start the pre-launch sequence much earlier than you think you should

The Romans launched their children into adulthood at age 15. They called a person around this age adulescens: one becoming an adult.  When I say this in my Latin class, I always get surprised comments from students of the same age. How? How are they ready? At age 14 or 15, kids should know all the competence basics and they should be ready for supervised solo-flights. Start those first jobs, expect them to volunteer at church, care for animals or loved ones, require them to pull their weight in chores, have them appreciate income, bill-paying, and the real cost of living. 

Set them up to fail and show them how to recover

I don’t mean that you assign a task so impossible that your teen will certainly crash and burn. Do set them up to potentially fail.  Put them in challenges that are slightly above their scale. One of two things will happen when you do: They will learn about recoverable failure (not fatal after all!).  Or they will succeed, and you can celebrate vigorously when they feel competent. Most will have at least a few set-backs. Recovering and learning from failure is the path to competence as well. A sufficiency to deal with what is at hand means failure is an old friend and success is just a matter of getting back up on the horse. Competence alone is the path to confidence.