Where In The World Is Evan?

It’s been one month and 10 days since I departed Australia so, as many of you are aware, this post has been a long time coming. In my defense, however, this period has been an exceptionally busy and eventful one, and you have all been neglected evenly.

The first couple of weeks here in Cyprus were absolutely fantastic. The archaeological dig I was on proved to be exciting well beyond my expectations. Within 3 days of starting the excavation of the Bronze Age tombs in a small rural border town, I helped discover a unknown underground tomb complex, consisting of over half a dozen different burial chambers. This sort of communal burial practice is completely unprecedented in this period in Cyprus and, as such, our find has the potential to dramatically rewrite this small aspect of Cypriot history.

The tombs themselves are very difficult places to work in as the crawl spaces can be exceptionally tight. They consist mostly of small, round chambers cut into naturally formed solution hollows in a large limestone plateau. Over the last 4,500 years, however, the limestone ceilings have slowly been dissolving, such that there can be as much as 1.5 meters of powerded limestone covering the original burial floor. This can result in tomb chambers where there is as little as 40 cm of crawl space between the current floor and the thousands of tons of limestone suspended above your head. But of course this only adds to the excitement of being there

Unfortunately the good times were not to last for long. Shortly after excavating begun people (including me) started to notice small red and black dots appearing on our legs and arms. At first we though it was the result of a variety of stinging plant that we had all brushed up against at various points getting in and out of the tombs. These marks were then shortly thereafter added to by new itchy bite marks, which were quite noticeably from fleas. After further investigation it was discovered that there were at least 3 different types of bugs down in the tombs that were slowly eating us alive. Despite this, the excitement of the work we were doing made us press on.

Within two weeks, however, people started to fall sick with flu-like symptoms. After spending three horrendous bed-ridden days with an unabating migraine, raging fever, musculature pain and fatigue, and mild delirium and hallucinations I was finally taken to a doctor. The diagnosis: endemic typhus. In all, nine of the 22 people on the dig contracted typhus, with two requiring hospitalisation. The rest of us responded well to treatment, yet after more than three weeks since my initial symptoms developed I have not fully recovered and have recently developed new symptoms.

Shortly after our diagnosis (although from an OH&S perspective, a criminally long period later) the excavation was shut down and, after a moderate interlude with very little to do, most of us were seconded to excavations being run by the Department of Antiquities in the capital, Lefkosia.

The 12 hour days involved in this secondment (inclusive of extensive travel time) have hindered my recovery from typhus, and several days ago when people started to come down with nasty colds I decided it was time to leave the dig and get a little R&R before I fly on to Amsterdam on the 23rd.

Despite the above events I’m in good spirits and have found the last two days, staying at the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute (CAARI), to be a delightful experience–perhaps because I’m no longer sharing a room with 6 other guys and having to get up at 4:45 am every morning?

I hope all of you are well, and enjoying the warm weather back home.