Everything was a rush come Wednesday morning. The whole rusty machinery of the expedition was being forced into the field, squeaking all the way. After a hurried session with the breakfast bread basket, we scurried about picking up thing after thing after critical thing, until our backpacks bulged at the cheeks. By eight, we filed out swiftly to the site, casting worried glances at our watches. What happens if you are late to an archaeological dig?
We clambered across the mounds on a beaten grass trail. (Thank you, llamas). Our destination, shadowy in morning twilight, was the North Atrium (el Átrio Norte), the little armpit north of the Circular Plaza. Word on the scholarly street was that this little ledge, overlooking the heart of the Chavín machinery, is either the remains of ancient post-Chavin squatters... or the trash of an old expedition. Either way, it was a landfill John salivated over, and we were all too eager to dig in.
A roof, made from reed thatch that carefully conceals a tarp, stretches across the entire North Atrium. Its fifty (or so) meters shade the hillocks of dirt and stone from the strong eye of the sun. At its far end, where it opens to the llama path, we squatted on the remains of some antique stone wall, listening to Stephanie Bautista, the Bay Area Ph.D. student, pontificate.
She reminded us about what goes where when, who gets this there, and the other sundries that drive a world-class dig. I don't remember much of that, other than her giggly admission that we would, by the end of the day, be wearing what she called "dirt braces": a line of dirt on our pearlies that serves as dental proof of our hard work.
We continued to sit on our hands as the grown-ups tossed stakes and string to each other like exacting cats, pawing the twine into loops that came to form tidy squares. It was almost too good: everything was exactly as I imagined, down to the screens that lazed in the sun outside the roof. We were called, by pairs, over to units. I asked Beth if she would like to be my partner. She agreed. This would later turn out to be a very excellent decision. We were introduced to our units, their hopes, their dreams. Officially, Beth and I presided over Unit Q23-SE, but this did not last long; by the time our trowels broke ground, we called him Ralph.
Ralph was, if you'll excuse my jargon, a bitch to dig. The Andes have driven the local grasses to merciless perfection, with roots so intricate that llamas cannot root them out. Ralph was full with them -- he had a wild head of hair impossible to tame with a 4" trowel. Nevertheless, we tried. I filled out the form for Ralph's superficie (the form's Spanish word for "surface") and we sawed away at the top of Q23-SE for the better part of the morning. When a rock would crop up, we would toss it into a growing pile, and when we filled a bucket with the light-brown dirt, we would head to the screens.
Every five-year-old envies us. The giant screens we have (also, zarandas) make finding our oddities a thousand times easier, and would make any afternoon in a sandbox a long session of blissful reunions with lost binkies and band-aids. We dump a small bucket across the flag-sized screen, grab it at both ends, and rock it back and forth. Dirt cascades from the underside in a fine spray that settles on the neighboring tourists. Between the splintering boards, bits of treasure jump and roll like caught fish, flashing more often as the sea drains away.
Grinning like fools, we tag and bag dozens of pottery shards, lithic flakes, and things-that-don't-look-like-much-but-could-be-important-so-let's-play-it-safe-OK? John and Rosa cruise past with guarded eyes. We continued to clean, clean, clean the surface layer, until Ralph's naked skull is cooling in the shade -- a hardpacked layer of the same light-brown dirt now sandwiched between our lips. Rosa passes again, almost absurd in her safari-style hat, carrying something that glows in the sun. As she ducks under our roof, she unfurls it proudly: a front page article in the Peruvian El Corriente on John that refers to him as the gran arquelogico del Stanford -- the great Stanfordian archaeologist. We all nodded appreciatively -- it was, after all, quite the thing -- and readied ourselves to leave. As we gathered our things at 11:50, Rosa gave us hard stares, and reminded us that we leave at 11:55. We reminded her that John asked us to be back by noon, and lunch was across town. For our pains, we received more blank stares, punctuated with slow, even, blinks.
After lunch, we capitalized on a recent discovery. Two streets down from our hostel, a cheery-eyed lady in a blue-checked apron makes pastries at all hours. Lush, buttery, and wholly sinful, these cheap treats are often decadent constructions centered around a thick slice of manjar blanco. I do not know what this manjar blanco is, though I'm sure it can be Googled. Or Ebay-ed. It is a blush thinner than molasses, and tastes mostly like caramel, though perhaps a tad less sweet and a bit more milky. Whatever it is, it's delicious, and most native treats are flashy shells for its cavity-inducing delights. At a sol a pop, we buy several at a time, and stash them, squirrel-like, around our rooms [for winter]. I made away with one of her alfahores and one of her milhojas; respectively, a cookie sandwich of manjar blanco and a squarish croissant filled with manjar blanco. It made the walk back to the site a tad... sweeter?
In the afternoon, I come to my own hypothesis. It goes something like this: Archaeologists are stupid. Though the chain of reasoning that leads me here is too complicated to relate in this space (i.e. -- can't remember it), that is its irrevocable conclusion. I said this because the work does not seem to be methodologically complicated (it can, for instance, be taught to teenagers in a morning lecture). The conclusions are not particularly insightful -- often something along the lines of: "Pottery was found. They either traded for it or made it." I begin to worry that I have not uncovered a larger truth -- maybe all professionals are over-trained machines with fancy diplomas and good sound-bytes. Maybe this is what an academic does -- stand on a soapbox in an obscure corner of scholarship. Then, to my absurd delight, I find a piece of painted pottery, and reject my hypothesis out of hand.
Beth and I discover that we were each Girl Scouts / Boy Scouts. Immediately, we begin to pass the time in Ralph by singing Scout-ish songs, in hopes of finding a few shared ones. By late afternoon, we have a short list, though most are warped to our ears. Hers are cast in a strange dialect, and often omit mentions of God / War / Manliness. I can only assume my version is the proper one.
Scouts got another cameo that afternoon, when someone called me from the floor of the Circular Plaza. An elaborate trestle is taking shape over the entrance to Rocas Canal, in the hope of helping buckets on their way out of the dark pit. Cesar, the Han Solo of our expedition, calls me closer after I vault the wall. After he tries multiple strings of heavily accented Spanish, I finally understand what he wants. The rope that's dangling from the lashing holding the tripod together needs to have a sturdy loop. Apparently, word got around that Scouts are prone to knowing knots and things.
I made a decent attempt, I think. I tied a clove hitch around each pole to keep the knot tight, then a simple bowline loop to hold the pulley. It looked ramshackle, amateur. Still, though, I didn't know a perfect knot for the job... so that would have to do. As I climbed up to the Atrium again, I pondered the two things I had learned looking at the trellis. The first was that the Spanish word for knot is nuga, or something like that. The second was that Cesar had already tied a perfect Scout-style tripod lashing on the trestle. Seven to eight wraps, two fraps, two clove hitches -- regulation perfection. Cesar knew what he was doing better than me.
Later, when this picture (below) was taken, someone had attached cross-bars with perfect (again) diagonal lashings. Someone also re-did my poor attempt with a much tighter bowline directly from the tripod. I made my best attempt to pretend I did not notice. At least I was consulted.
As the day comes to a close, we are congratulated on our excellent work with Ralph -- he is as bald as possibly could be. As a prize, we are moved to another unit, one much farther up the hill. With grim faces, we say goodbye to Q23-SE, and troop the thirty meters to I-26 NW. Still smarting from our recent divorce from Ralph, Beth and I do not give I-26 a name.
We have a list of problems with I26-NW, should you care to know them. Firstly, I26 is a large mound of backfill dirt wedged against the roof, with scarcely enough room between to park a large-sized head. Second, we are informed I26 is not likely important -- it probably just fell off the neighboring mound in a landslide. Third, the only way we can weasel our trowels under the roof requires that we stand on a water pipe that was apparently made of water-bottle plastic and hope.
To solve the last problem, we lay a board over the flimsy pipe, and pretend we don't notice that the board flexes more often than it should. To solve the first, we take huge chunks from the surface, and increase the head-room in our new unit. We do not solve the second problem; instead, we scowl as we scrape away and resolve to take long showers, later. Full of importance.
When the time actually comes to slough off the first day's dirt, it feels heavenly. The showers are hot enough to scald, and we dance under the unexpected heat, spinning the "Cold" knobs furiously. A balance is reached; we scrub; all scowls are erased. We sleep, dreaming of shards, and knots, and Ralph.
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