phillyb doing archaeology and poo in peru: a running photo blog for teh huddle

[Jangler]

That bone is erect.

[PhillyB]

today was a good day, mainly because it was my first day off since i got here. i've been working through sundays to stay ahead of schedule (we've accomplished far more already in the month i've been here than my professor had intended for the entire duration of my stay) but this time i kicked back and relaxed, concentrating instead on writing a research proposal that i'll be able to execute here to land me a spot in an academic conference in austin, TX next spring (assuming i pull it off properly.) so instead of sorting eight hundred thousand potsherds i spent the day at a park high above the city, affording spectacular views and plenty of aesthetically-pleasing gardens and landscaping... wife and baby enjoyed it and i nearly completed my proposal, and also grabbed this cool picture of the sun sinking down into the horizon behind this bridge spanning two cliffs above the city

 

 

 

 

 

 

then tonight i got home, ate some pizza at this sweet ass pizza place (two margarita pizzas, basket of cheese-doused bread, and a pair of drinks for eleven bucks, including the tip) and decided to go out and grab a beer at a small bar across the street from my apartment that i've meant to check out for a long time, with the goal of finishing my proposal. instead i got there and found that the bartender was a transplant from lima, spoke near-fluent english, and was already tipsy, having drank copiously in the absence of any customers (sunday nights are pretty dead in backwater moquegua.) so i got about two sentences written over the course of an hour, finally i gave up and sat at the bar and talked to carlos. he was straight chugging shots of jose cuervo silver, so after the next hour of talking international politics and cultural comparisons between the u.s. and peru he was pretty close to wasted. he proceeded to make me a pisco sour (the national drink of peru) on the house, dumping quadruple 2oz. shots into the fuging thing, which meant it was six ounces of hard liquor and a splash of everything else, which meant by the time i finished the drink it was hitting me all at once.

 

at that point i knew to bounce out of there and go home to squeeze my wife's boobies, so i paid him and asked him for change for a 20 to leave a tip (since, as i explained, even though in peru tipping isn't really a thing, we bartenders take care of our own.) he fished around and turned red and told me he didn't have any change, and that it was a "peruvian shame." he told me to come back tuesday and he'd give me two beers. i laughed and shook his hand and told him it was no problemo, and he saluted me and i told him ciao and went home and squeezed my wife's boobies. now i'm drunk and on the huddle because it all hit me at once.

 

good day.

[stirs]

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/07/16/does-long-lost-pyramid-discovery-rival-those-giza/

your next assignment, should you choose to accept it

[PhillyB]

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/07/16/does-long-lost-pyramid-discovery-rival-those-giza/

your next assignment, should you choose to accept it

 

yeah i heard about that. if everything goes according to plan i'll be doing a seminar on egyptology next march and i may be able to work in some excavations out there provided things are more settled down politically

[PhillyB]

[PhillyB]

my last week in peru was marked by a torrid pace of potsherd assembly. we'd nearly doubled our goal of analyzing a single palace unit during my time in the lab and expanded to catalogue the entirety of a feasting hall. i was essentially in charge of the reconstruction, combing through thousands upon thousands of ceramic fragments and attempting to assemble them. the only thing i can think of to compare this task to is a two-sided puzzle without edges or corners or a box cover to look (and the entire thing consists of sky pieces.) the only thing that got me through it was this awesome ass lemon iced tea i discovered around the corner of the museum and nonstop repetitions of the offspring on my ipod.

 

on our last sunday we roamed the town taking pictures of some of the highlights (there aren't many. there's not much to moquegua.) on tuesday i worked a half day and said goodbye to everyone, packed up my poo, and caught a bus with my wife and our baby to the much bigger town of arequipa, where we stayed in a nice guesthouse with hot water, where i indulged myself with the first hot shower i'd had in almost two months, during which i made an entire bar of soap disappear, sang most of bon jovi's greatest hits, and officially dislodged any and all mummy particles from my beard. we also ate mcdonalds because we're both closet fatasses. god it was good.

 

anyway then we caught a flight to lima the next day, stayed most of the day in the airport (which i spent voting for the panthers unis in the contest from a starbucks) and finally took off on an overnight flight to montevideo, uruguay. we're here now, but that's for another post. here's some cool pics of our last weeks in peru

 

 

 

that baby of mine, who has done quite nicely thus far:

 

 

 

 

jesus, it turns out, lives in a hill in the deserts of southern peru:

 

 

 

 

this right here is a picture of the ass of a frog spraying water on a fountain designed by charles eiffel in the middle of moquegua's plaza de armas. you'll never know how you lived without seeing that

 

 

 

 

local cathedral in moquegua, soon to be dwarfed by the ones we encountered in arequipa:

 

 

 

 

taxi queue near the market in moquegua:

 

 

 

this dude stood in the middle of intersections, waited for cars to stop at the red light, jumped out and juggled for thirty seconds, and collected change. he had to make bank, collecting money every time. in this particular shot he's being gawked at by three kids in the taxi on the right, and given a critical eye by the motorcycle cop on the left, who may have made him nervous, as he dropped a baton right after i took this picture for the first time since i'd been watching him. i jumped in the middle of the intersection to shoot this, and composed it poorly, but i like it anyway. i gave him a dollar

 

 

 

 

from the plaza de armas in arequipa:

 

 

 

 

the massive cathedral facing arequipa's plaza de armas:

 

 

[TheRumGone]

.

[PhillyB]

oooh that's tough, there's not much to go on. the climate looks temperate, too wet for the west coast and too dry for the north coast... too mountainous for uruguay... so i'd put my money on somewhere in central/south brazil or northern argentina.

[PhillyB]

ok mods can un-pin... my work here is done, i'm in uruguay now kicking back, trying to finish my book, and photographing old colonial towns. when i get done i'll throw a bunch of pictures in a separate thread

 

thanks to whoever pinned it to begin with, hopefully this was entertaining/educational. now you know how to lick-test human bones.

[Cat]

Saw this article today and thought of you. Is this the kind of stuff you were doing (not this specifically)

 

http://www.nature.com/news/incan-child-mummies-show-evidence-of-sacrificial-rituals-1.13461

 

[PhillyB]

Saw this article today and thought of you. Is this the kind of stuff you were doing (not this specifically)

 

http://www.nature.com/news/incan-child-mummies-show-evidence-of-sacrificial-rituals-1.13461

 

i read about this! i'm doing bioarchaeological research on ritualized violence in the andes so this is cool stuff