At the turn of September and October I participated in excavations in Romania with Rzeszów University. This time were working on warrior's tumulus in Celic Dere (near Tulcea and Black Sea). People were nice, especially Romanian professor - the research's supervisor. The  site was an hour away from our accommodation, it was really nice walk in the woods. Each weekends we were vising the sites nearby -it was great, Romania has a lot of amazing monuments and tourist potencial. Sadly, Dobruja is the poorest region in Romania.
It was a culture encounter - the food is different ( a lot of vinegar in every soup and paprika), their approach to animals is not like mine, but the Romanian people were nice, polite, easy going and they were easy to talk to - the young ones speak English, our parents' generation speaks French aried to understand and even when they didn't speak any foreign languages they tried to understand and help.
What was unexpected for me and for Romanians as well - it was so cold! It was raining a lot, temperature near 10-15 'C and once it was snowing while we were excavating.

Going to work 

greek colony - remains

sweet photo for facebook - smile :)

tumulus

special tool for taking photos

This year, I went for excavations abroad. I tried many times and was searching a lot, but finally I was able to participate in research in Bibracte near Autun, 100 km from Dijon. Bibracte is a oppidum - fortified settlement of Celtes. I was really amazing and totally different than research in Poland! The teams from many countries (15 people in each one) had a site for their own. I worked in the team with Czechs, Slovaks and French. There is museum, the labolatories, library, accommodation and canteen for participants. At the weekends we were sightseeing Alesia, Vix, Autun, Solutre, Vazelay etc. - all sites nearby that I had always wanted to see! The people were really nice, kind and cheerful, I had wonderful time with them. This adventure lasted for 4 weeks.

At work - first day

  Research Institute 

Almost the end

We were some kind of  exposition as well

My next excavations were in Ludowice, it was mesolithic site - workshop of flint tools. Moreover, there were relicts of some kind of bridge from Mesolith - nowadays it is just a field with peaty soil, 30 000 years ago there was shore of a lake. During 3 weeks my sister, our friends and colleagues from Toruń University were working and living together. Apart from normal work with shovels and spatulas,we were also using enormous strainers. There were w lot of sketching and documentation, it wasn't easy, because there were a lot of flint tools and remains after production. At the weekends, we visited Toruń and the sites nearby.

 The remains of a bridge (or something like that)

The sunrise - going to work

My second archaeological excavations were after my first year studying archaeology. The excavations took place in famous Biskupin. Honestly, there weren't anything special, some fragments of pottery and flint tools, but what was more important - for me that were my first conscious excavations, when I knew what I was doing and why. It was a practice.
So my friends from studies and I were learning how the excavations looks like from scratch, all tiring physical work included, but also we have learnt how to do the documentation (in form of diary), the conservation (washing pottery and flint tools, the complicated preservation of wood - there is a special labolatory for this purposes), the sketches of sites horizontal and vertical, how to handle a leveller etc.
After 8 hours on the field and at the weekends we had free time. It was fun, we visited Gniezno, organized several footbal matches with locals, there were lakes nearby and we have campfire with sausages every Saturday. We also were helping in pottery store - thanks to that we could make some pots and cups from clay - manually or with potter's wheel and our work were burnt and ready to use.
I worked there 5 weeks.

  The site after the rain

My pots done on potter's wheel

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce to you my passion and, I hope, my job in the future - archaeology! My first adventure with it was in 2009, during the holidays. It started innocently - my sister and I were hired to help with excavations. I always was interested in history and have visited Archaeology Museum many times, but my notion how the excavation looks like was pretty vague.
The pay was low, but the crew was awesome. The people were really nice, kind and lenient, they were explaining to us everything clearly and patiently. Only on first day we were working on the field and during that day I understood that the image of the archaeologists as a weak,  frail people with glasses is a misunderstanding. The physical work with shovel, spatula, hoe and barrow plus some buckets - it is really hard, tiring and dirty activity. And I don't know what I have expected at that time, maybe some silver and gold artefacts from Egypt, but there have been only some traces in soil, clay and fragments of  pottery. Now I know that there were probably remains of a village.On other days, the archaeologists were preparing documentation - everything has to be cleaned, described and properly secured. My sister and I, we were washing the fragments of pottery (in thousands) and flint tools (but there were only a few). It was really fun and somewhat incredible - it was hard to believe that this little fragment of pottery is like 3000 years old. Sometimes there were fingerprints on the inner side of them and the fragments of vessels were decored  in different ways (prints, rites, paintings) with care and attention by a potter. It was amazing!

 While washing old dishes

 Awesome Crew  (excavations in the background)

Welcome!

This is my blog, I've never  had one before so please, be placable. I coudn't decide what this blog would be about, but finally I decided on my passions and what I'm interested in.
Brace yourself, weird blog is coming!