I photograph and catalogue and pack and send them home

[sovay]

The University of Pennsylvania Museum and the British Museum are crowdsourcing the transcription of documents from the 1922–1934 excavation of Ur in Iraq, otherwise known as the dig where Max Mallowan met Agathie Christie. derspatchel sent me the link. I had a wonderful moment of timesink admiration before I realized I knew exactly which dig it was. Nineteen volumes of notes from Leonard Woolley alone, no wonder they want help from the internet. Research assistants have aged and died on lesser timelines. Yes, of course I am thinking about whether this is something I can do.

It must be something about the day. I started my afternoon with a Twitter invitation from Akhenaten.

Comments

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

Queried for signup. Thanks for the pointer!

[sovay]

Queried for signup.

I've done the same! Fingers crossed!

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Glorious!

Nine

[sovay]

Glorious!

This could become an infinite recursion of the transcription and translation of archives . . .

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

That's a great idea. I'm tempted to sign up, but afraid I'd end up letting them down.

Maybe in a few weeks, when I get back from my uncle's wedding.

Thanks for sharing!

Actually, as I think on it, I took intro archaeology from a UPenn graduate. She told us that she and her husband had been chased by a bull when they were in grad school and were doing an archaeological survey. The climax (I hesitate to say "punchline".) of the story was: "We escaped without injury, but we broke Leonard Woolley's transit."

Apparently a Victorianesque relic of a transit which had once belonged to Woolley was still being used by the UPenn archaeology department* during the Sixties. When I was working for the Park Service, I thought of this and was grateful that we were given a Total Mapping Station,** rather than some Vietnam or Korean War era leftover.

*Which is, incidentally, one of the tiny handful of archaeology programmes in the United States which is its own department rather than being part of the anthropology department. IIRC Boston University is another one.
**An electronic transit--not only does it do the trigonometric computations, but it was easier to set up and level out (in my experience, at least) than the old-fashioned kind with the plumb-bob.

[sovay]

"We escaped without injury, but we broke Leonard Woolley's transit."

Dude, I think that is a great punchline.

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

Neat! That is, neater than Transcribe Bentham and smaller projects that have also sought crowdsourcing, at least to me. *signs up* (Even if each of us transcribes only a few pages apiece due to commitment overload, it counts towards the total.)

[sovay]

(Even if each of us transcribes only a few pages apiece due to commitment overload, it counts towards the total.)

Agreed. And it's a very nice thing to be even a few pages part of.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link - I will definitely be looking at becoming a face in that crowd!

[sovay]

I will definitely be looking at becoming a face in that crowd!

Fantastic!

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Oh, that is very cool. I'm tempted...

[sovay]

I'm tempted...

It's a very good crowd. Not to mention Puabi . . .

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

I have signed up too. In the meantime, do you know about this?

[sovay]

I have signed up too.

Huzzah!

In the meantime, do you know about this?

Holy blap. No. Why did I think I was going to have free time this fall?

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

Worse than that, it's part of this. Of course, if I ever want to see you again, I should perhaps stop suggesting entire time kitchens (as opposed to just the time sinks).

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

Since nobody else asked: Akhnenaten? Twitter? Huh?

[sovay]

Since nobody else asked: Akhnenaten? Twitter? Huh?

I got spam purporting to be a Twitter invitation from Akhenaten! I can only assume it would have been a lot of solar hymns and links to elongated statuary.