A Stop in England, and Nova Scotia Bound

London!


I must say I am proud at how comfortable I have become flying in comparison to before this trip, as I can actually say I enjoyed my flights home. I stopped in Heathrow, England and had a day and a half in the city to explore. I found my way from the hotel to the Tube which is the underground subway that leads in to the heart of London. I stopped off at Leicester Square which is where many of the shops and restaurants are in the city, although I wanted to go to an English pub.. the lack of spicy food in Armenia had me craving something with a lot of flavour.. or any flavour really that was not cilantro, so when I came across an Indian Restaurant I was sold.

I walked around London for a few hours taking in all the sights. I saw Big Ben tower, the parliamentary buildings, westminister abbey and cathedral, and the London Eye (which looks so fun! But I didn’t have the time to go on it). From there I took a taxi to Buckingham Palace and walked around. I didn’t have time to do all the things I someday want to do in London, but it was a great taste of the city and I loved just walking around and taking it all in and looking at the architecture which is unbelievable. It definitely has me wanting to go back very soon.
My final flight home was rushed, as I almost didn’t make my flight because I was at the wrong terminal for a long while. I hate how large Heathrow airport is. It was also stressful as when I landed in Halifax I was taken aside at customs for having honey in my suitcase. They searched my honey but in the end they gave it back to me. My only worry was that I had three times the aloud amount of alcohol in my bags, but they never took any of my wine from me.. which I am SO thankful for. Armenian wine is the best wine I have ever had and I am so glad I was able to fit so much in my luggage.

So this is my farewell blog post, I had an amazing experience away and enjoyed documenting it! Although many of these posts were written in a rush as internet access was limited for the majority of my trip and was too slow to upload pictures and videos until I returned to Canada! Thanks for reading, and enjoy the photos now that they are up!

The Last Day in Yerevan

Five am on the 25th, we woke up to say goodbye to the first batch of students leaving for America, Collette, Nathan and Buzz. After going back to sleep for a few hours the remaining students, myself, Taylor and Lauren woke up and planned our final day in Yerevan. We were sad to hear the Near Eastern Zoroastrian museum was closed on Sundays, so we decided that we would find the Modern Art Gallery instead. We had a very hard time explaining modern art gallery to the cab drivers, and finally we just ended up being dropped off at a Museum for an Armenian poet. We took this as a sign and went to this museum anyway. The poets name was Hovhannes Toumanian's and his life story was very impressive as he took care of genocide orphans, wrote amazing books, poems, children’s stories and plays that are still classics in Armenia.

After the museum we went back on the hunt for the Modern Art Gallery, but it was never found. However we enjoyed walking around the city while looking. Our last trip was to the Blue Mosque, which is the only Mosque in Armenia as this is a Christian country. This Mosque was absolutely stunning and had the most beautiful blue and yellow tile designs; It’s so vibrant and peaceful looking. I find Christian churches to often have intimidating art but Islamic Mosques always have such welcoming artwork.

The streets in Yerevan are extremely busy, and almost impossible to cross so there are often underground tunnels you can use to cross the street. One of them had street vendors inside selling kabobs and a donair-like contraption, which was delicious. The tunnel also had places to sit and booming techno music which made for quite an experience.

Our last trip of the day was to a movie theatre, which was built during the soviet empire. The soviet theatre was phenomenal both on the inside and the outside... however the movie choices were limited. I hang my head in shame as I tell you that we ended up watching Twilight dubbed in Russian, but it was worth the experience to be in the old theatre.

Other adventures on our last day included eating whipped egg and chocolate at a cafe, shopping and trying on some crazy Euro-trash fashions at boutiques, passing buy a bakery stand and buying the most amazing baklava of my life.


Blue Mosque (under construction)


Kabobs underground!
Twilight dubbed in Russian in a Soviet built theatre in Yerevan. It happened.

Farewells to Yeghenadzor and a Final Hello to Yerevan

The twenty third of July was a very sad day, as it was the last day in Yeghenadzor and in Areni. We started the day in the cave, finishing our work, and ended the day at lunchtime. After a goodbye photo shoot we went home to shower and pack our bags for Yerevan. I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Yeghenadzor and living at the dig house. The owners of the home who gave up their main floor to us were so kind and hospitable. Yereghnadzor was a fantastic place. I felt completely comfortable walking around the village. I will miss the little corner stores and the lounge with the Ferris wheel, however, the thing I will miss the most is the beautiful view of the mountains from our dinner table, and also the fresh fruits and mulberries we had every day.

After saying our goodbyes to those we wouldn’t see again we all piled into the van and headed to Yerevan. After settling into our apartment we all decided to out and experience Yerevan nightlife one more time. I love walking the city at night; it’s all lit up and gives off an entirely different vibe. We found a cafe and a Persian night club and decided to eat. I ended up having Buffalo chicken wings; something familiar was more than appreciated. The night club looked great, but the cover was extremely high (close to thirty dollars) so I left with some of the guys as cover charge was even higher for them.

The next day I decided to split from the group as I didn’t need to go back to the market or vernissage and I had wanted to go back to the National Museum as our first time there was extremely rushed. The shoe from our cave that had been making headlines before our arrival had also just been put on display and I had wanted to see it at least once before I left as it was such an important discovery made at the site which I had become so attached to. I really enjoyed walking the museum by myself at my own pace. From there I met up with the group for lunch at the Lahmajoon (spicy tomato and meat paste on lavash) place. I am going to miss lahmajoon a lot!

After I hopped in a cab and went to the indoor market, which is a cross between a spice bazaar and an organic fruit market. It is a huge market with many vendors and each one wants you to try their products. I was given so many free dried fruit and nut treats I could hardly stomach it all. I had to try to not make eye contact for most of the time because they vendors would constantly be giving you food, or making you spell bags of rose petals. Each vendor would insist they had the best products and would get offended when you did not want to buy their products. I ended up purchasing almost 100 dollars worth of saffron petals for about five dollars, paprika, and curry. One of the ladies I tried to purchase paprika from, as paprika is grown all over Armenia, put the curry I asked for in a plastic bag and told me “500 drams” which is like two dollars, but then she began asking me to smell other spices and before I knew it she was adding random spices to my bag, shook it, and then said “much better, now 2000 drams. Just how it works at these markets, they always get you to buy more than you asked... but now I have an amazing mix of Armenian spices, so I really can’t complain. I also purchased dried fruit and nut snacks and dried mint tea leaves.

My last stop for the day was back to the National Museum to look at the Art Gallery. I have never been to a proper art gallery before so I was excited to see some recognizable names like Donatello. However most of the museum consisted of Armenian artwork, which was also beautiful to see.

Spice Bazaar and Market


The last Lahmajoon feast!


Me in the Republic Square outside of the National Museum and Gallery


Picture of the National Museum poster for the Areni Shoe


Saying goodbye to our hosts Marieta and Anna and our cook Gohar!

The End of the Excavation

Skull fragments


painted ceramic shard


incised pattern.


Group shot


The final week of excavations were also the most exciting, as we began reaching levels without any traces of the medieval period and were finding artifacts in high quantity. The majority of our artifacts are ceramics, which is something I really enjoy personally as a amateur pottery thrower. I have been working primarily in square T35 which is along the wall of the cave in Trench 2a. In this square we have a niche in the wall where I was for days uncovering bagfuls of pottery shards. Most of the pottery is thick-walled gravel tempered ceramic without decoration. However, some are blackened and burnished.

The last week there were some great finds:
I found pieces of a painted pot which is very exciting as there is only one other painted pot in the cave that has been found and it’s the only one like it in Armenia, the only others like have been found in Iran.

I also found pieces of very thin walled ceramics with fine black fabric that had triangular cross-hatching incised on the body.

I also found three handles, all which are typical Kura-Axes in form according to Dina who is writing her PhD thesis on Ceramics.
The other very interesting finds made by my fellow field schoolers was a bone awl, which is an animal bone that has been worked into a sharpened needle used for piercing leather and other textiles. As well as more obsidian pieces, and finally human bone. We have also been actively collecting charcoal samples for dating purposes to get a better idea of the time periods of sediment we are dealing with and if it matches to the artifacts.

The main belief is that we are digging a trash site, but the idea that it could be a grave has been tossed around as well. Although the midden idea makes much more sense to me, there are some very flat and rectangular rocks which have been appearing in areas of the trench within the same sediment layer. This same layer has also produced some human remains making it possible that these were purposeful markers. We found one cervical vertebra, two tibias, and four cranial fragments that were all identifiably human. It was very hard to leave the trench after these discoveries, but those staying promised to keep us updated on the finds.

Right before leaving Lauren fell through the floor of the trench and went up to her waist into a sink hole, the sink hole was filled with pottery shards. Boris believes that there could be many other sink holes in the cave and the next group will have to continue very carefully to avoid falling through.

Concert in Yerevan and Other Week Three Excursions

Our field school coordinator is so dedicated to making sure we have the best possible experience with Armenian culture and decided that a trip to Yerevan to see a benefit concert filled with traditional Armenian singers and musicians would help us open our eyes to another side of Armenian culture. The concert was a benefit for a young child in Yerevan with cancer whose family was trying to raise funds for his treatments. The ride into Yerevan was taxing, as the van we rode in was incredibly slow. When we arrived in Yerevan we headed to the Caucusus for dinner, where we were each aloud to order our own meal. This was a nice change as most times our food is ordered family style. I ordered bbq Lake Sevan Trout, which came out bones, head, fins, tail and all. However, after a boiled fish head stew seemed perfectly normal. It was absolutely delicious, but we had to rush dinner to make the concert in time.

The concert was inside a puppet hall, where there were displays of all kinds of puppets. There was about ten artists on the stage, all sitting with cups of wine and cognac and one by one each would stand up to sing a few songs. It was a great atmosphere as many of the singers sitting would join in. Despite not knowing the language it was easy to follow along with the emotions of the songs and also the onstage banter between the artists. One of my favourites was incredibly animated and his stage presence really helped to convey the story even without understanding Armenian. There was everything from folk, to acoustic pop, to opera. There was one female singer who was absolutely amazing, and when the concert was over she approached our director, Dr. Areshien, and gave him a big hug. She was then introduced to us as one of his former students and a fellow Bronze Age Archaeologist. On the way home from the concert we were pulled over by the police for speeding, which was a fun experience.

The day after the concert I became very sick and had to stay home from the excavation. The ladies of the house were very concerned even though I tried to explain to them it was not a big deal. They would come up to me and poke my stomach, and offer me tea, and wouldn’t let me sit on the floor or walk barefoot. If I wasn’t so sick I would have been amused. My friend Buzz had made Ice-tea, which sounded awesome since it was so hot that day and tea always settles my stomach, however, when I went to pour myself some all the ladies jumped up and grabbed it from me, which put an end to that.

Another evening we had guests from another archaeological project in Armenia come for dinner, fish and a meat dish called kufta was served. This dish is prepared by lashing meat until it becomes swollen and puffy and then is boiled. Not my personal cup of tea. The guests were very interesting, and one happens to be from Toronto and is a curator from the ROM and offered a free tour when I am in Toronto this summer. The singer from the concert was also at the dinner, and sang for us a few times over dinner. There were plenty of toasts (as always) to everyone. Although the toasts today left a bad taste in a few people’s mouths, as one toast mentioned “the fight for gender equality is not nessisary as women are already the centre of a man’s world”, and others toasted to specific peoples ethnicities such as the “Indo-Iranian race” leaving others backgrounds out. I personally was offended as there was a toast made to each person at the table, minus three people, which in my mind is rude. It made for a very tense night at the dig house and set the tone for the next few days.

Digging Week Three

Obsidian tool

Week two of excavation had left everyone slightly disappointed as we were finding medieval, bronze age, and chalcolithic materials side by side, making it clear we were not working with insitu materials. As week three commenced we began to reach richer cultural layers as we entered into unit seven (units are measured by each identifiable sediment layer) and we began to uncover more and more ceramic artifacts. We began excavating in five centimetre spits (meaning we take each square down five centimetres at a time, levelling off the trench floor) but by the end of the week moved the spits to ten centimetres to help progress the pace of the excavation. We also traced out lines for a step, making the trench even smaller but allowing for easier access into the trench and also showing the stratigraphy more visibly.

Between charcoal layers we found organic materials such as grape seeds and barley, and we stopped finding traces of medieval cultures, which is why we think we may have reach a level of primary context. Along the walls of the cave is where the majority of the ceramic is found, but the site is rich in pottery shards throughout. Strangely, despite being abundant in pottery shards there have not been any unbroken or even partially whole pots or vessels. The majority of the ceramics found have been undecorated or have only small incised geometric patterns, although many have been rubbed or burnished smooth and black. We are continuing to find faunal (animal) bone, primarily what we believe to be sheep or goat. We also have been finding a notable number of smoothed river rocks and pebbles not geologically natural to the karstic cave. Another strange observation to mention is that we are finding many holes in the ground which we cannot figure out how they were made, they are all the perfect size that we have been using them as trowel and brush holders.

The most exciting discoveries of the week however have been a rock which was burnished smooth and black and had been pierced at the top, which could have been worn as an amulet. The other exciting discoveries have been the obsidian objects found. Flakes of obsidian, raw obsidian, and most exciting: clearly worked obsidian blades. Obsidian, a glasslike volcanic rock is abundant in Armenia but there are no sources directly near the cave. Our lithics expert expects more obsidian tools to be found in our trench, as the current belief is that we are working on a midden site, or a garbage disposal area. This would account for the broken vessel fragments, the flaked and broken obsidian pieces, and the large number of faunal bones.

I also had the opportunity to work with Dina, one of the Armenian PhD students in trench three which is just outside of the cave. The ground here is so dusty that we just used brushes. I found an abundance of walnuts, and grape seeds as well as pottery and a piece of medieval glass.

Tatev Adventure

One sight I was dying to see in Armenia was Tatev, which is described as the most beautiful monastery in the country architecturally as well as ecologically, it is also one of the most important sites historically and although it is remotely located it draws in high numbers of tourists. My roommates Lauren and Taylor were equally excited to see this site. It is about three hours from Areni where we work and we were warned that it is a treacherous drive and a gruesome hike, as it is located at the top of a mountain. These warnings scared off the rest of the crew who were originally going to come. We ended up convincing Nathan to join at the last minute, and our neighbour Lillit accompanied us to make sure we didn’t get too lost. The cab arrived, and we fit four people in the back seat... four people in a backseat in forty degrees and no air conditioning on a three hour drive up a mountain is something I hope to not have to experience again.

I had to mentally prepare myself for the drive up the mountain, as I knew it was supposed to be quite bad, however, I never truly realised how completely dangerous a public road to a countries leading tourist destination could actually be. The road was barely wide enough for the cab, and directly on the other side was the edge of the cliff with no railings. I began to freak out as we spiralled up the cliff and begged to get out and hike. The road was not properly paved and the cab driver thought it would be a good idea to swerve to avoid them on this crazy road, so we would be at times facing the edge of the cliff. Then he got out his cell phone and began to drive with one hand... I lost it. I don’t think I have ever been so scared for my life.

When we finally arrived to Tatev my legs felt like jelly, but it truly was one of the most phenomenal places I have seen. The Monastery is larger than any of the others we have visited, and the entire complex is still standing – including the barracks, kitchens, bishops quarters, churches, classrooms, among many other rooms. It’s amazing to walk around and imagine life in the 900s as a priest. Tatev was the art university for priests learning calligraphy, painting, bookbinding and other arts. Many of the amazing Illuminated Manuscripts in the Matanadaran were created at Tatev or by those who studied at Tatev. The dorms were dark and cold, and the kitchen had only two lavash oven pits left inside. You could also walk on the roof of the monastery and look down at the highlands at the most amazing view I have ever seen. It was really breathtaking. My favourite part of the complex was a large carved column standing in the middle of the complex which was built in the 900s on a hinge that allows it to sway back and forth during earthquakes and storms. Some say it was used to detect such earthquakes before they occurred. It was called the demon tower by the enemy’s of Tatev, as when they saw it swaying they would run away in fear it was possessed.

After our visit to Tatev was finished we hiked up to a restaurant which overlooks Tatev for a small lunch. We had a yougurt, green onion, dill and cucumber soup with lavash, and then a ground beef kabob and potatoes. The ride downhill was much easier on my sanity, and I was entertained by Nathans ridiculously long jokes. On the way home we stopped at a roadside stand that was selling fresh teas in bouquets and also had natural gum in a jar. We bought some tea and stopped to talk to some locals as the car was getting gas (the gas tank is located in the trunk of a lot of cars here, which I found quite strange). One of the Armenian women we talked to had recently moved to Toronto and was visiting with her husband, always nice to see a fellow Canadian!