I’m delighted to say I’m in the lab for my first full day of bone analysis. I worried that retrieving my materials from the museum where they were stored would take weeks, but our exceptional representatives at the Soprintendenza processed our permit in record time, and I collected the bones on Thursday. I spent yesterday morning finishing the database and yesterday afternoon finalizing my methodology. Now it’s Saturday morning, and here I am.
The beginning of a study is always intimidating. Even though I’m the one who excavated these bones, even though I know this archaeology inside and out, I look at the two crates filled with upwards of 5000 fragments and I think: “how will I ever…”
I know what’s waiting for me. I know there will be fragments I don’t recognize. I know there will be times when I turn a fragment over and over under the light, trying to decide if a series of round-ish dents are evidence of trampling or the marks of a dog’s teeth. I know there will be bones I need to reconstruct, bones I need to photograph, bones I need to set aside for further study. I know it will be a challenge.
I could stand here for hours, eyeing the bags of bones like I would the surface of a cold lake, but the best way forward is just to jump in.
So I do. And I’m right: on this first day, everything is a struggle. I realize I left several important fields out of my database, so now I have to add them. Several other fields aren’t in the right format and I have to change them. Several of the fields are too small to display the relevant information, so I have to make them bigger. Then I accidentally link one of the new fields to one of the old fields and can’t figure out how to unlink them, so I have to erase them both and start again.
It’s slow going, and the light isn’t great. I need to get a desk lamp. I need to organize my reference materials. I need to make a key for the various codes I’m using and write it on an index card. I need to find my photo scales.
I’m not even going to tell you how long it took to identify my first bag of bones. It’s too disheartening. What I will tell you – and myself – is that it gets better. The first day is awful. The second day is hard. The third day, however, is when I start to find a rhythm. And on the fourth day, I pick up the pace. There are many long days ahead of me, but the worst one is now behind me. I plan to celebrate with pizza.
Errant 