Mazotos evening

Friday 2.9.2016

Our dive was very similar today as it was yesterday, except that I was now excavating and Jouni was holding the airlift. Nick did not even try the other airlift. Visibility was still really bad - maybe the seabed bottom clay is like that. Or then the sandbags close to our excavation leak fine sand, because of the current caused by the airlift. Either way, I pretty much felt my way during the excavation. Every now and then I noticed Nick's hand or paddle in from of me, when he was also feeding clay to the suction head monster in Jouni's hand. I clearly felt the both ends of that lead weight, and the Northern end of it was very close to the toe of the amphora next the lead weight excavated earlier. It is kind of exciting to know, that there are probably less than 5 people who have ever touched that lead weight for 2500 (?) years.

Constantina had warned us that that lead could be poisonous. Me and Jouni have still all fingers intact, but maybe the consequences appear later? Mark convinced me that it is not such a big deal. I excavated also today with my bare right hand.

Before the excavation we were allowed to be tourists for a few minutes, and tour the other trenches. We were not very much in luck, because the visibility all around the wreck was pretty poor and cloudy. It seemed like some thin layer of dust was covered the whole site, and there was no current to take it away. It could be the sandbags that we dropped SW of the site for future covering of the excavated wood-containing trenches. They may be seeping fine-grained sand through the fabric.

It is amazing how many amphorae there still are. It is very hard for me to see any amphorae loading patterns from that amphorae heap. Stella seemingly can, but can she convince others in her papers to be published?

Mazotos Fieldcamp 2016 on upper deck of M/S Queen Zenobia

We were all advised to bring our fieldcamp T-shirts for group photo in the boat, but to wear them only for the photo so that they would not get dirty on the way or before the evening. Most of us were able to do that, but not all.

The main event for today was the Mazotos evening. First we met in the class room and gave our trench presentations. Then we got final reports for the course, and NAS-credit reports.

Teemu receives final report card from Rachel.

After that things became interesting. We moved to the village center where some 200 people were gathered (whole village?). This seemed to be a day, when the village gave awards for all best students at about all grades in the school system, as well as rewarding local University graduates, and Mazotos field school graduates!

The whole village came to respect their best students and us. 

We were each asked to come one by one at the podium, where we received the Fieldschool diploma from Stella and Mark, and a Commemorative from Mazotos Community Council. Stella and Mark had a speech, and then we showed a 5 minute video on Mazotos Fieldschool. The video was our "thank you" to the Mazotos village and it's people for hosting us in this expedition. Chris was so excited about making that video, that he even skipped one dive yesterday to work on it. Video was very good, but I would not have sacrificed a Mazotos dive for making it...

After the video presentation was local culture's turn. First, a choir sang very many local folk songs, and then there was turn for local folk dances.

Choir singing traditional Cyprus folk songs. (I know - my flash is weak, and I have no Photoshop)

Traditional Cyprus dancing with traditional clothing

Some of us got hungry when the dance presentations were starting and snugged out to eat at our usual tavern. No beer even on graduation day, because we dive tomorrow. We were a little surprised when Mark promised to put in his tab. He must be very tired...  or just very satisfied!

Evening got so late that I got 20 minute later departure time than usually. That was nice. I will be now well rested.