Marrakesh, with a little help from google

So while I might have lost my camera in an alfalfa field in Ostia, I figured that I could use the almighty powers of Google to track down images that might substitute for whatever photos I might have taken, so here it goes.

I began my day with a run out to the south amongst the olive groves that are situated down there. Dusty, yes. Camels, yes. But it was pretty deserted and not at all an unpleasant run.

When I got back to my hostel, I chose to spend the next several hours reclining by the pool. Yes, the pool. Quite idyllic, if you ask me.

Properly relaxed, I headed out to do some touristing and shopping in the souks. As for the touristing, I headed through the Jemaa el Fna, which, as always, was filled with spectacles such as snake charmers and various singers, henna-workers, and orange juice stands.

From there, I headed over to the Koutoubia Mosque, which is dominated by its rather impressive minaret that can be seen across the city.

And then it was off to shop in the souks! Colors and smells abounded. If you so much as display the smallest bit of interest in what a shopkeeper might be selling, you then have to tell the shopkeeper "no, I'm not interested" a dozen times. They're friendly, but insistent.

At the end of my day, I ended up in a rug store. Now I've been on the lookout for a rug for the new house, so I decided to look into a rather reputable looking place. The owner was quite hospitable (as are most merchants in Marrakesh). He started having numerous rugs of all different sorts brought out for me to inspect. I was not so much a fan of the ones from the Middle and High Atlas (too rich for my tastes), but when I indicated that I did like the relative simplicity of the Berber style, the merchant called for mint tea to begin what he called "negotiations" (not bartering...that was something for the market). He started with a price of 4000 dirhams, which was far more than I was willing to pay. I countered with 800. "Ah, but that is far to low," he said, "how about 3000?"
Seeing that he was willing to knock the price down so far on the first round, I raised my price to 1000. "Ah but observe the dyes and the hand-stitching of the rug" he protested, as he poured more mint tea.
"I'm sorry, but I am merely a graduate student with not much money."
"In that case, I will lower my price to 2400, which is a great deal."
"Well, I suppose I could go to 1200, but not any higher."
"This is ruinous, but I will sell this to you for 2000, which is what I ask for one of these poor-quality rugs," he countered, gesturing at a rug that was clearly a cut or two below the one that was being negotiated for.
"Well, you drive a hard bargain, sir. I will go up to 1500 dirhams, but not any higher."
"That offer is quite low, are you sure you do not value the quality of the craftsmanship higher?"
"It is finely made, but it is not a large rug (it was approximately 1x2.5 meters). 1500 is the absolutel highest I can allow myself to bid."
"That is a low price but you seem to be a nice person. 1500 dirhams it will be."
And so, I got a rug.

As I ate my dinner on the rooftop of my hostel, I reflected that it had been a good day. I spent more money so far than I had wanted, but it was quite a pleasant day nevertheless.

Marrakesh

So I'm out of Rome for the weekend visiting Marrakesh. First impressions?

1) It has a peculiar odor. In the souks, the air is scented with spices and fresh leather but in the main square (Djemaa el Fna) stinks of piss and horse dung.

2) The environment is unlike any I've ever been in. Definitely the most exotic place I've ever visited with its snake charmers and architecture. I was eating dinner on the roof of my hostel and was listening to the call to evening prayer from the (many) mosques in the city. Definitely not in Western Europe anymore.

3) Speaking of my hostel, it's possibly the best hostel I've stayed at. A former luxury riad, it is appropriately opulent and luxurious without feeling too over-stuffed (I'm a fan of the pool!). Oh and there are two or three cats that live here full time and have the run of the place. Definitely a plus.

4) The souks are ridiculously confusing. A rabbit warren of streets that all look the same, I definitely got lost on the way back from my run. Like, really lost. Running up and down street after street (I definitely blundered in not bringing a paper with the NAME of my hostel or street), it took until I encountered a salesman (who started talking to me because he is also a runner) who first sold me a nice camel-leather bookbag and then took me back to my hostel so that I could pay him. I might have caved too quickly in the bargaining (I got him down from 800 riyhad to 500) but to get back was nice and the bag is a quality piece. After walking about tonight, I definitely now know how to find my way home (which will avoid any costly blunders in the future!)

5) And while discussing running, I'll note that this city, on the edge of the Sahara, was much easier to run in during the early afternoon than Austin is at this time of year. Draw your own conclusions there.

The end of the dig and...disaster!

So the dig is over. Finito. The last several days in my trench were spent drawing the walls and the top plan, which were surprisingly fun activities, though after thinking back to my high school curriculum that consisted of a lot of mechanical drawing classes, I shouldn't have been TOO surprised at enjoying this process. Because of an arrangement with the British School (who provided our dig equipment), we had to be done with the tools by 3:00 on Friday. By the time we got to the backfilling process in my trench, it was 1:15. It was a sprint to move all that dirt back to where it came from, but we were able to successfully finish it and then I, in turn, had to sprint away from the site to meet Zack at the airport. Unfortunately, while I was running across the site, my camera dropped out of my bag, something I did not realize until the next day. Now I'm out a camera, which is not a huge loss because it was over five years old, but for the rest of my time here, there will be no more photo posts :-(

A few of my favorite things, part V

Pizza Boom

Everyone needs a pizza place. Thanks to Bart, I found Pizza Boom a few weeks ago, sitting a few blocks down the Viale di Trastevere from my apartment. Pizza Boom looks like any other Roman pizza place, with a good-sized selection of pizzas laid out for you to choose from and then have just the right amount cut off and taken back to the oven and re-heated. But the quality sets them apart. It's not the absolute best pizza, but for its price (I can usually do a full-sized meal there for 5 euros) it cannot be beaten. Add in some very friendly staff (between my broken Italian and their broken English, we've had some nice conversations), Pizza Boom is definitely one of my favorite things in Rome (although they close for a month-long vacation tomorrow, so no more Pizza Boom after today).

The selection!

A delicious lunch of pizza bianca, pizza margherita, and Fanta.

Why I hate floors

Floors. Not a huge fan of them right now. Oh they're all right in the abstract and certainly very useful in preventing me from plummeting six stories to the ground below, but man, they are a pain in the butt when working in the trench. Especially my trench. We have floors popping up everywhere, which is nice because they can, in theory, provide us with correlations between different sets of walls (oh goodness...the walls!) and building phases but they are a pain to deal with. Once a floor is found, we have to slow down our work and carefully brush out/trowel out all the dirt that might be on top of that floor (and sometimes that floor will disappear) and get the surface nice and clean so that it can be photographed/drawn/elevated. And then we get to break up the floor with picks and chisels. Totally fun--particularly now that the dig is getting hot. The brick walls surrounding our trench act like an oven in the afternoons by retaining heat and blocking any access to a breeze which makes it...sticky. But yeah, we have lots of floors to deal with; just take a look at this baulk preservation of the floor layers we've found so far in the southern half of the room:

So on the right side, we have the remains of the latest level--a cocciopesto floor. Below that (on the left) is a floor made up of amphora shards inlaid in a concrete, which rests directly on top of a different concrete floor (the small sliver to the left of that). The little terrace in front is yet another layer of floor and the lowest one we've found.

Of course the one benefit of floors is that they provide "seals" on the layers below them, by which we can use whatever is within that sealed locus to date the earliest time (and probably within a 10-20 year window) when the floor could have been constructed. We've been finding mainly pottery shards (including a really neat and rare 1st century type up fineware) but those only give approximate data. What we really like are coins and...I found one yesterday under the lowest level of floor. Pretty cool stuff. Now we just have to wait for our numismatist to clean it off and give a look and then we'll have a much better idea of an earliest date for this floor level.

An Ostia Adventure

Today during lunch, I decided to wander over to a certain bathhouse, the Terme di Mitra, in the city with Bart. Why this bath complex of so many in the city? Well, it's rather interesting, for one reason, because it was converted into a church in the 4th/5th century.

Look! It's a bath that became a church.

Upon becoming a church--or I suppose, I should write upon the transformation from bath complex to church (although, honestly, Bart and I couldn't find any evidence that the baths stopped being used after this space became a church--the bathing facilities are in other rooms--but the archaeological site for Ostia says that the waterworks seem to have fallen out of use in the 4th century), the Christians of Ostia made some improvements to make it exceptionally church-like, installing an apsidal space behind the altar and adding traditional Christian iconography (the chi-rho and the alpha/omega)

Detail of apse

Christian iconography


But the really neat part about this bath complex--and its namesake--is a neat Mithraeum (eastern god worshiped across the Roman empire in the imperial era) located almost directly below the church.

Situated at the end of a long underground communal dining area is a grand statue of Mithras slaying a bull (the original is in the Ostia museum, this is a replica), bathed in the same type of light that it would have been during the height of Mithraism in the Roman Empire. Now it's probable that the Mithraeum was out of use by the time the space above it was converted into a church, but I can find no evidence that the statue was ever moved or that this area was blocked off. It makes one wonder about the relationship between Christianity and the mystery cult of Mithras in Ostia during the late antique era...

Anyhow, after wandering around the bath complex for 15 minutes speculating on usage changes based on brickwork (LMW has beaten that topic into both of our heads), we wandered down to the Baths of the Seven Sages, notable for its colorful latrine paintings of the traditional seven sages of antiquity imparting rather useful advice.

As an example, let's take a look at Solon of Athens. Above his head (once you zoom in), you'll see the Latin phrase VT BENE CACARET VENTREM PALPAVIT SOLON. For those of you lacking Latin (or even if you have had some, this language certainly does not show up in Wheelock!), it can be translated as "In order to shit well, Solon rubbed his belly." Seriously. One more?

In advice to the constipated, the painting reads DVRVM CACANTES MONVIT VT NITANT THALES, which can be translated as "Thales advised that those shitting with difficulty should strain." My favorite (which did not come out that well in a photo), is the one for Chilon (VISSIRE TACITE CHILON DOCVIT SVBDOLVS) "The cunning Chilon taught to fart silently"


Ah bathroom humor...just one way we can be united with the Romans.


(also, whenever I teach ut-clauses again, these are TOTALLY going to be examples)

Short post

At the end of a day spent digging through floors, I tend to return to my apartment rather dirty.

And smelly (I think).

Sweat mixes with dust that mixes with dirt that all coagulates with sunscreen (only one sunburn since I've been here!). And that all is one nasty mess.

Showers are nice to get rid of that but...the water heaters in Italy are small. Really small. As a result, it's probably a better idea to get in the shower closer to the front of the four guys who live here rather than at the end, unless an ice cold shower is preferred.

But eh, why should I complain? I'm in Rome! And it's the Fourth of July. Today calls for a break from pizza and pasta and veal and wine for dinner. Burgers and beer for all!

I'll take Rome over anywhere else

Not a whole lot to report about the goings-on at Ostia; we've started taking off the floor (time to break out the pickaxes and chisels), though we could not work today because it was raining at Ostia (nap time instead!). One of the benefits of having the day off was that I could come home and run (after a nice nap, of course...6 AM wakeup alarms are so overrated). I just love running in Rome. In all honesty, Rome is a pretty lousy place to run--the traffic is unpredictable, the air is full of exhaust, there are tourists everywhere, the surfaces are all concrete or cobblestones (clearly the way to get rid of all the cartilage in my knees before the age of 40...were I to live here full time).

Despite all this, I'd rather run here than anyplace else.

A little part of my preference goes back to the plethora of sights (it is pretty dang cool to be running along the Aurelian walls or along the Via Appia). But there's more than that.

I'm intoxicated by the rhythm of the city. There's no way around it...Rome is a living organism, millenia old, teeming with energy and vigor. Some people I know opt for the energy of a New York, or a Paris, or a London. Fine. Let them have their own city. Rome has claimed me for herself and I willingly submit.