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Friday, July 26, 2019

Lohome Nights, as sung to Arabian Nights

This perhaps best sums up my month on the dig. It is sung to the tune "Arabian Nights" from Aladdin.




On a hill far away
There’s a tell named Keisan
Where the archaeologists play
Where you wonder about every culture and drought
It’s not free, but hey, it’s “fun”

When the sun’s from the east 
And it feels like a beast
And the shade cloth is down for the drone
Grab a pick and a hoe and some buckets to go
And hope to find sherds and “right” bones

Lohame nights
Tell Keisan days
More often than not are hotter than hot
And not in good ways

Tell Keisan days where we all skulk
A fool off his guard
Could fall and fall hard
Right off of the baulk 

Oh I wake up at four and I crawl out the door
And ride in the bus down the road
To that hill on the plain
Where there’s knowledge to gain
About where ancients made their abode

The music that blares as you dig in the squares
In the haze of your filth and your grime
As you look for a pit 
Or some other old shit
From a segment of Iron Age time

Lohame nights 
Tell Keisan days
More often than not are hotter than hot
And not in good ways

Lohame nights
Tell Keisan blues
The directors demand
These layers of land
Reveal certain truths

And after you cuss and you leave for that bus
With your feet and your body in pain
You go back in herds
And you wash all the sherds
And tomorrow you’ll do it again

Lohame nights
Tell Keisan gains
They’re over for now
And yet, still somehow (thanks to Leann and Jon, and the lectures that went long)
The me-mor-eeee-y remains

Updated in 2023: I recently discovered one of our fellow indentured servants wrote a singular long blogpost about digging for four weeks. Three and a half years later, it was refreshing to read someone half my age, who had done a lot of physical labor leading up to this project, was in immense physical pain. I also noted that she never noticed me, even on that first day as I was trying my hardest to clear the dig site and spoke with her about her adventures working on a farm. We led parallel lives that summer, rarely intersecting except on that first day, and perhaps on the last one. HERE is a link to her blog.

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