I am really excited! I’m starting to plan my trip to Cambodia and it seems that this will be a remarkable summer! I will be traveling to Kuala Lumpur on the 4th of August, from there we will go to Siem Riep where we will stay four days taking photographs of the naval battles at the Bayon temple, Dr. Penny has included me among his group of the Greater Angkor Project, so I will have a permit to do the photos and everything…Like a real archaeologist! Cool! That includes the special VISA, which is nice! Then we will move on to Banteay Chhmar, which is in the north of Cambodia, almost 4 hours away from Siem Riep, close to the Thai border. We will stay with the local villagers, a project directed by an NGO to promote rural tourism in Cambodia. It’s a remote location, i hope I can recapture the spirit of the Golden Era of Travel! I’ll work on the reliefs of Banteay Chhmar and will talk with the people of the NGO, I think I will keep in touch and when I finish my thesis I’ll try to make it more marketable for them to sell it to tourists and invest the profit in their project. After that is back to Siem Riep, where we will stay in the Grand Hotel D’Angkor, the original hotel where early travelers stayed in the late 20’s!!! It’s so exciting! It’s very expensive, but we can spare a few bucks just to stay a night at this 5 star hotel with memorabilia of these early travelers…Exciting!

Then it will be off to Phnom Pehn and then Kuala Lumpur, stay the night in the Malaysian capital and then off to Indonesia. We will be diving in the Komodo Island for five days just to relax and chill out. On the 20th will be heading back to Kuala Lumpur for a couple of days before heading back to Spain.

It does sound exciting, if it weren’t because I have to finish my thesis, get the images ready and print it out before handing it in on the 5th of September. And then, on the 6th of September, I will be off to Turkmenistan to dig in the ancient city of Merv, stop point of the Silk road. We will be digging the Islamic period and we will be surveying some bronze age settlements. I can’t wait to go! My friend Helena, from Sweden was the originator of this plan, she spoke with Tim and told me everything about it, and when I discovered that I didn’t get the scholarship to Vietnam I decided to go with her. The dig will run until the 11th of October.

So there it is! My master plan! It gets better every time I think about it. I still have to get all the flights, so far I have only booked my night at the Grand Hotel D’Angkor. And now I’m off to my books, I need to get 85% of my thesis done before the end of July, including references. And my sister is coming to the UK in July!! I can’t wait to do sight-seeing with her!!! She’ll looooove Camden!

I just got my grades back…And surprisingly, they are not bad! They even entitle me to pursue a PhD at UCL!! I was so scared yesterday when I found out that UCL requires at least a grade of 65 in the courses to go on to a PhD…I started with the paranoia of “if I’d known better…” but it turns out that I did good. Not fab, just good, but it doesn’t matter cause my dissertation is gonna rock, and it will be just fab! I only need to improve my referencing. Oooops! I’m sooo terrible! I thought it was going to be something more like writing skills, but surprisingly (i need a synonym!) both Joe said I wrote beautifully and Lukas said my essay had a very good structure. Meneses also said that I wrote like “the angels”, but that was in Spanish so it doesn’t really count. But he’s a journalist, so he knows a thing or two about the subject! I thought I was going to mess up soooo much in English here at Shakespeare’s homeland that it has been quite a shock to actually receive compliments on my writing. Hurray for me! But shame on me for not citing people properly…It seems that I should have at least 5 references per page!! O_o I had no idea! I’ve never referenced in my life, just included the bibliography. I have two more essays to go, so I’m going to nail them down and reference every single phrase I make!

I spoke to my coordinator yesterday to submit the theme of the dissertation to the Institute. We finally decided upon the boats of Angkor. It’s kind of an obscure theme, there is close to nothing done on Underwater Archaeology in the country due to its past instability and now that things are running smooth the academic world is starting to move in again. It is more than likely that in a few years more scientific surveys will be done around the polity of Angkor, and boats are the main mean of communication of the khmer, from commerce to war. With my maritime background and my knew developed skills in archaeological photography and illustration, I hope to make a thorough and publishable catalogue of every ship represented in Angkorean temples. So far, representations have been found in the Bayon and in Banteay Chmar, this last one was heavily looted by the Khmer Rougue army, they chopped off the bas-reliefs and tried to sneak them out through Thailand. Hopefully the Thai authorities intercepted the loot (it’s forbidden to deal with antiquities in Thailand) and safely returned them to Cambodia when the situation got better. The only pictures of this temple were taken in the 30’s or 40’s and they are of extremely low quality. The only problem is that the temple is about 130km away from Siem Riep, which means that I’ll need to go there on a weekend and try to photograph and brass rub the most interesting ones. And that takes sooo much time! Stuart Laidlaw, my photography professor told me that the essence will be the lighting, so I’ll need to get an oblique light to enhance the reliefs in order to get the smallest details. I have to buy a reflective screen (I forgot its name…grrr) but they’re not expensive, about 15 pounds or so. Once I have the images, I’ll try to compare the iconography with what we know of the Southeast Asian shipbuilding tradition. Joe told me that I have to include a small chapter in my dissertation to acknowledge the problem that using iconography poses. I hope my smart sister can help me with some bibliography on this debate, given that she’s an expert in iconography. So I am really excited with the project, and according to Joe, this subject is highly publishable. I hope I’ll make a decent contribution to Cambodia.
I think is really amazing that I’m actually working on Angkor Wat. When I was 16 and my mom bought me a set of books on archaeology I was baffled by the smiling images of the Bayon on the cover of the book. I only remember thinking that that was the most amazing place ever, and I would see it sooner or later…Now not only I’ve been there…I’m going back! Wow!  Good stuff! Happy rainbows! Clouds like kitties!

When asked how did she managed to save hundreds of slaves through the underground railroad, Harriet Tubman replied: “I could have saved thousands, if only I’d been able to convince them they were slaves”

Now an article of Robin Morgan defending Clinton’s candidacy:

And goodbye to the ageism . . .

How dare anyone unilaterally decide when to turn the page on history, papering over real inequities and suffering constituencies in the promise of a feel-good campaign? How dare anyone claim to unify while dividing, or think that to rouse US youth from torpor it’s useful to triage the single largest demographic in this country’s history: the boomer generation–the majority of which is female?

Older woman are the one group that doesn’t grow more conservative with age—and we are the generation of radicals who said “Well-behaved women seldom make history.” Goodbye to going gently into any goodnight any man prescribes for us. We are the women who changed the reality of the United States. And though we never went away, brace yourselves: we’re back! 

We are the women who brought this country equal credit, better pay, affirmative action, the concept of a family-focused workplace; the women who established rape-crisis centers and battery shelters, marital-rape and date-rape laws; the women who defended lesbian custody rights, who fought for prison reform, founded the peace and environmental movements; who insisted that medical research include female anatomy, who inspired men to become more nurturing parents, who created women’s studies and Title IX so we all could cheer the WNBA stars and Mia Hamm. We are the women who reclaimed sexuality from violent pornography, who put child care on the national agenda, who transformed demographics, artistic expression, language itself. We are the women who forged a worldwide movement. We are the proud successors of women who, though it took more than 50 years, won us the vote.

We are the women who now comprise the majority of US voters.

Hillary said she found her own voice in New Hampshire. There’s not a woman alive who, if she’s honest, doesn’t recognize what she means. Then HRC got drowned out by campaign experts, Bill, and media’s obsession with All Things Bill.

So listen to her voice:

“For too long, the history of women has been a history of silence. Even today, there are those who are trying to silence our words.

“It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls. It is a violation of human rights when woman and girls are sold into the slavery of prostitution. It is a violation of human rights when women are doused with gasoline, set on fire and burned to death because their marriage dowries are deemed too small. It is a violation of human rights when individual women are raped in their own communities and when thousands of women are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war. It is a violation of human rights when a leading cause of death worldwide along women ages 14 to 44 is the violence they are subjected to in their own homes. It is a violation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their own families, and that includes being forced to have abortions or being sterilized against their will.

“Women’s rights are human rights. Among those rights are the right to speak freely–and the right to be heard.”

That was Hillary Rodham Clinton defying the US State Department and the Chinese Government at the 1995 UN World Conference on Women in Beijing (the full, stunning speech: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/hillaryclintonbeijingspeech.htm).

And this voice, age 22, in “Commencement Remarks of Hillary D. Rodham, President of Wellesley College Government Association, Class of 1969″ (full speech: http://www.wellesley.edu/PublicAffairs/Commencement/1969/053169hillary.html)

“We are, all of us, exploring a world none of us understands. . . . searching for a more immediate, ecstatic, and penetrating mode of living. . . . [for the] integrity, the courage to be whole, living in relation to one another in the full poetry of existence. The struggle for an integrated life existing in an atmosphere of communal trust and respect is one with desperately important political and social consequences. . . . Fear is always with us, but we just don’t have time for it.”

She ended with the commitment “to practice, with all the skill of our being: the art of making possible.”

And for decades, she’s been learning how.

So goodbye to Hillary’s second-guessing herself. The real question is deeper than her re-finding her voice. Can we women find ours? Can we do this for ourselves?  “Our President, Ourselves!“ 

Time is short and the contest tightening. We need to rise in furious energy–as we did when courageous Anita Hill was so vilely treated in the US Senate, as we did when desperate Rosie Jiminez was butchered by an illegal abortion, as we did and do for women globally who are condemned for trying to break through. We need to win, this time. Goodbye to supporting HRC tepidly, with ambivalent caveats and apologetic smiles. Time to  volunteer, make phone calls, send emails, donate money, argue, rally, march, shout, vote.

Me? I support Hillary Rodham because she’s the best qualified of all candidates running in both parties. I support her because her progressive politics are as strong as her proven ability to withstand what will be a massive right-wing assault in the general election. I support her because she’s refreshingly thoughtful, and I’m bloodied from eight years of a jolly “uniter” with ejaculatory politics. I needn’t agree with her on every point. I agree with the 97 percent of her positions that are identical with Obama’s—and the few where hers are both more practical and to the left of his (like health care). I support her because she’s already smashed the first-lady stereotype and made history as a fine senator, and because I believe she will continue to make history not only as the first US woman president, but as a great US president.

As for the “woman thing”?

Me, I’m voting for Hillary not because she’s a woman–but because I am.

RM

February 2, 2008

New York City

I have been sooo busy since I arrived from Spain that I had little time to write here. I have been doing essay after essay, going to conferences and finally, giving a short talk at the Petrie Museum. But first things first…

I had news from the people at the Greater Angkor Project, and I’m soooo thrilled! This looks like it’s going smooth! Dr. Penny just got in touch with me and told me that he’ll be getting the project up and running as soon as the January team comes back. Our work in June will depend on what they’ve done this winter. I’m so excited! I can’t really wait to go there…With a work visa! Amazing! Next monday I’m going to go to a conference on Human Rights, someone from the UN involved in the Khmer rouge trials is speaking about legal stuff. It sounds very interesting, I’m really focused on Cambodia and want to learn as much as possible about it!

So I finally gave in my two essays for this month, one for the Silk Road and the other for Underwater Archaeology. I really enjoyed reading “Foreign Devils on the Silk Road”, a fascinating tale of adventure, spies and exotic places. It was sooo Indiana Jones! I didn’t really like the outcome of my work, but I have to say I enjoyed doing it, so who cares. I will most likely write about the Maritime Silk Road for my next essay, we’ll see what happens.

For Underwater Archaeology I made a case study of Red Bay Basque Whaling settlement, focused on stereoscopic photogrammetry, which is a method for getting measures from photographs. If you use stereoscopic images, you can get a 3D picture and extract the XYZ coordinates and have a complete measure of the site without having to get a tape out. This is truly fantastic for UW because it reduces the bottom time and takes more accurate readings. I also enjoyed this essay a lot.   And this is the last for this class, only one more to go for Maritime Archaeology. I’m not sure what I want to write about, in my class of Andean Civilizations we’re talking about the Maritime origin of the Incas. I read somewhere that they sacrificed people to the sea, that sounds and interesting subject of maritime ritual interpretation. I might write about it.

I am completely packed this semester, I have (in order of weekday):

Archaeological Photography, Seminar on languages and archaeology, Andean Civilizations, “Language, Genetics and Archaeology”, Maya Civilization, Global Citizenship (applied ethics), Art and Archaeology of the Silk Road, Underwater Arch., Maritime Arch., Cultural Memory and Archaeological Illustration.

And I loove all of them!!!

On saturday I went to an Anthropology workshop, and just found out that anthropology is a bit mumbojumbo for me…It’s interesting, but I think I’ll stick to archaeological anthropology. In between conferences I had to go to the Petrie Museum to give a short talk about Vanity and Sexuality in Ancient Egypt. It was very funny, because I arrived beforehand and I saw that there was a group of 20 Spaniards! So I told them if they wanted me to give the talk in Spanish and so I did. They are from the Spanish Institute of Egyptian Studies, based on the Complutense, in Madrid. The two head directors actually are the bosses of my workmate Tito, a super nice guy that digs in Egypt every year. How small is the world, he? It was super interesting (although the talk took around 40min instead of 15!) because they complemented my speech and gave me inside information of what I was talking about. They corrected me in some cases, which made me improve for my next talk in English. I gave them my email, and I will be giving another talk to a second group that will come in February. And, it looks like that I’ll be extending my hours at the Petrie, since I need to volunteer for at least 6 hours per week for the Global Citizenship class. I think I’ll be helping Debbie with the Adult LEarning program. I love it!!

And that, my friends, is just about it! Busy first two weeks of classes! I’m happy to be alive!

Oh, yes, I did my share of gruppie yesterday and I went to see Lord Colin Renfrew give a conference on Languages and Archaeology. I had heard a lot of bullshit against him but I love his work, specially his humorous literature. But I must say that he is indeed charming, a great speaker and a great exponent of english ironic humour. I loved his speech.

Unleashing my gruppie side: ahhhhhhhhh!! It was Lord Colin Renfrew!!! He’s like the Black Sabbath of Archaeology!!!

Yo pensaba que Jon Sistiaga era un buen periodista, pero estoy viendo ahora mismo su documental sobre las armas en EEUU y me parece un documental sensacionalista con una intencionalidad clara que no da opción a discrepar. Ni si quiera tiene la decencia de parecer que esta siendo objetivo.

El documental intenta ligar la extrema derecha y el racismo con el uso de las armas. Yo estoy en contra de la tenencia de armas por parte de civiles, pero la forma en la que disparan estos tipos se asemeja más al tiro al pato o al plato, muy habitual en España, que a un grupo de guerrilleros salvajes con ganas de dar un golpe de estado. Pero este tipo insiste en juzgar e imponer su opinión, juzgando a cada uno de los entrevistados sin darles opción a defenderse. Al menos Michael Moore les dejó hablar y fue de cara.

Ahora están entrevistando a un grupo de nazis, que sería lo mismo que entrevistar a Ynestrillas mientras se hace un documental sobre el Real Madrid. ¿Son todos los madridistas racistas, asesinos en potencia y de extrema derecha?

Cierra el documental con un discurso propagandístico y no te permite discrepar, poniendo imágenes de los nazis pisando una bandera de Israel para hacerte ver lo malos que son los que quieren tener armas.

No me gustan las armas, pero tampoco me gusta que me digan lo que tengo que pensar, y este documental tiene cierto tufo a ese antiamericanismo que esta tan de moda hoy dia. Ya me ha cabreado. ¿Como ha podido hacer esta basura Jon Sistiaga?

It looks like people never learn. Spain and Canada are not willing to give up bottom trawling in the high seas. Go to the web and watch the movie, send it to friends and write to the governments involved!

So, Tarao was right, that kind of social mumbojumbo is boring and difficult to relate to real archaeology. I read the books anyway, they were really interesting. But, after a minor crisis I have finally decided what I like about maritime archaeology.

I’m not a standard maritime archaeologist wannabe, although I started because I liked diving, in the end I am not that interested in wrecks as I am in societies. And, of course, my favourite society is Angkor, although Harappa has also a place in my heart. So, after lots of thinking and moaning trying to figure out what the hell I’m doing here, I have decided that since Maritime Archaeology is anything that has to do with the use of water resources, I might as well focus on the most amazing civilization ever: Angkor. But that will have to wait until the dissertation, for my next essay I have chosen Lothal.

What’s Lothal??? Good question. Lothal is the most southern city of Harappan or Indo’s Valley civilization. I mentioned this before so I’ll try not to repeat myself. You only need to know that they were fascinating, and they had maritime trade with Egypt and Sumeria (Mesopotamia).

Lothal is special, it’s located in the coast, next to a river basin in the gulf of Combay. The city was planned beforehand, a feature common in this society. They had an extremely  complex water system that would take all the residues out of the city and bring clean water to its population. This is also common to all Harappan cities. But this one has the first man-made harbour on Earth. The way it was built blocked the silt, avoiding deposition on the harbour. All ships entered the harbour to unload their cargoes into warehouses nearby that were used by authorities to inspect and tax the goods.

W e are talking about 2400 BC, and they already had this hydraulic systems! Amazing!  Many have asked where this civilization came from, and now it seems that they might have found an ever older civilization sunk in the same gulf, at about 40m depth. Material recovered has yielded dates of 9000BC, but the problem is that the academic circle doesn’t believe that the survey was done properly, they claim that there was an error of interpretation of the side scan sonar images made by the Indian Institute of Ocean  research  or something…I can’t find the name of the institution now. The problem is that the international academic community don’t really support underwater archaeology, and the indian academic community are not ready to allow foreign interference with their research,since they are tired of “colonial attitudes”. We’ll see what happends, I’ve seen the images and I can’t say that there’s a man-made structure in it, but I haven’t seen them all, so, who know?

For the time being, I’ll just focus on this wonderful coastal city and its harbour.

This is a must-read article, specially for you, LOBO. You’re gonna love it!