Where's my motorino helmet?

The student diggers of Poggio Colla have no idea how lucky they are.

Why? Because they get a four-day weekend in the middle of a six-week season. This luxury is generally unheard of. But the best part, of course, is that since the students get a four-day weekend, so do the supervisors.

As much as I love the Mugello Valley and its greenery, I felt it was time to get out and to do something touristy and beachy. Thus I took off for a sunny holiday on the Tuscan island of Elba with Angela Trentecoste, the site zooarchaeologist (animal bone specialist).

Yes, that Elba.

Perhaps because I've gotten more elderly, it's been a while since I've had any haphazard Mediterranean adventures - my days of island hopping by myself in the Cyclades are nearly ten years past. But Elba and Angela provided plenty to make up for it. Such as:

Campeggio. We borrowed some camping gear (thanks, Phil!) and set up our little tent in the rather interesting Camping Aquaviva. This involved crushing a pillow over my head at night to keep out the blaring 'Macarena' and likewise crushing a pillow over my head to keep out the ear-plug defying pigeon cooing directly above our tent at 6am. (At least I could throw rocks at the pigeon).

We rented a motorino and toured the north and west of the island. This involved various adventures such as driving on a windy cliffside road in the dark with no real headlamp and getting entirely lost in the steep cobbled medieval alleys of Portoferraio, until some nice angel of mercy led us out to freedom on her own motorino.

There was plenty of swimming to be had and I actually got to do some diving, something I'd not yet done in the Mediterranean. There was a decent bit of wildlife, to my surprise: eels, baracuda, octopus, manta ray, grouper, etc.

Don't think, of course, that it was all fun and games. I got the requisite share of antiquities in at medieval Marciana, perched on a hill, where we were able to visit sparse 13th-century chapels and the island's little archaeological museum.


Sure, this pottery doesn't look like much, but I've spent the summer obsessed with these bowls and their sharply outturned rims. Many of them rest on pedestal feet and have elaborate profiles, including the fancy one we found in our trench. They're called piatelli.

And somehow, by complete accident, every place we stopped to eat had drop-dead-benissimo food and gorgeous views.

Dinner and a view at the little harbour of Enfola.

I probably wouldn't recommend Elba to visitors since it was a tourist mecca more than anything else, but for a four-day escape from the Mugello, it perfectly hit the spot.

Trench Talk

Just a quick update from Poggio Colla and sweltering, blistering Tuscany. It's hot! Things are going along well in the trench. In fact, today was by far our most exciting day yet. Trench 42 now has several different walls and all sorts of spaces in need of excavation. If you want to read more about it, check out the little blog I had to write for the project's website.

So you want to know what happens in my day? We head up every day before the students at 6am so the supervisors get a little time to get some serious work done.

The trench supervisors of PC 43, taking advantage of the dirt pile.

Then the students arrive and we attack the dirt with all we've got, stand around looking perplexed, or play trench games (like 'Guess what so-and-so was like in highschool'). Either that or we're stuffing our faces at Cookie Break.

Members of PC 42 (my trench!) revealing a Hellenistic-era wall. Thank the Lords of Cobal for the Italian forestry service, which declared that the chestnut trees on the hill are protected, and thus ensuring that we're protected, too - from the sun and the hell-sent kamikaze flies that come with it.

The students have had all sorts of workshops, learning about everything from roofing systems to pottery to settlement patterns.

Angela Trentacoste, the Bone Lady, teaches the students about zooarchaeology.

Stratigraphically, things have really picked up in the last few days. In fact, there's been an actual flurry of archaeological activity. Picks flying, trowels slicing, sieves swishing. Tomorrow I promise I'll have exciting things to report, before it's off to Elba or some other beachy place for our four day weekend.

This is what an archaeological flurry looks like. Myself and trench assistant supervisor Mike Guarino.