Getting down to business

So, now that I'm in Moquegua, it's time to get down to business and collect my bone and hair samples. I spent today at the museum here, Museo Contisuyo, which is a truly impressive place. Here's their website http://bruceowen.com/contisuyo/MuseoE.html. Check it out!

The museum collections are all from groups who lived in this immediate area, from 10,000 BC to the 16th century. Things are well labeled, in both Spanish and English, and the walls are decorated with large conte-crayon original drawings of people from the various eras living their lives (created by Raul, the friendly guy at the front desk). It's a lovely combination of very professional and very homey and approachable.

I was greeted by Patty Palacios, the archaeologist I've corresponded with at the museum, and she was fabulously helpful, as was the director of the museum, Antonio Oquiche Hernani, who saw me reaching for a dictionary one too many times while drafting my petition for access to the collections and wrote it for me instead. What a guy! He said it would be quicker that way. I sucked up my humble pie and was grateful. The letter worked like a charm, and by 10:30, I had access to the collections.

The collections are amazing! The llama mummies are here! (I wrote a paper on camelid domestication a year ago or so, and the llama mummies were the stars). There are many, many human mummies as well, and boxes of bones, ceramics, lithics, all kinds of things. (By the way, mummies here are not all wrapped up in bandages. They are naturally dessicated and seated in a tight crouch and wrapped in textiles - except the llamas - no textiles for them).

Patty put together a list of boxes I'd likely be interested in (again, fabulously helpful), and I'm on my way through, sorting bones and hair and sometimes even working with mummies (yikes!). It's going to be really interesting and productive (and challenging too). There are several other students and archaeologists here. It's a very supportive and stimulating atmosphere.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, cleaning fish in a hotel sink is an icky thing to do. But I did it, and it's done, and now I have some darn good looking fish-bone samples to bring home. And my bathroom smells a little bit fishy, but they were darn fresh, so it's not too bad, and the rest of the fish left with the trash today.

Speaking of fish, I found a fish place for lunch today and dined on tasty 'chicharones' which is Peruvian for batter-fried anything (chicken, fish, octopus, whatever). Of course, I had the octopus (who wouldn't?). Well actually, I had mixed seafood, including octopus, and watched a Spanish dubbed version of 'The Mummy' with Brendan Fraser while eating chicarones with ají chili sauce and drinking a Peruvian Coca-cola (made with real sugar - yum). I loved the irony of watching 'real archaeology' across the street from the museum.

Oh, Bruce Owen, my thesis advisor for all things Andean, arrived today too, so that's a relief. I don't expect that he'll be working closely with me, as he has his own projects here, but he's around and it's nice to have someone to ask questions of now and then.

So, things are going well. And it's possible that this blog will get a bit boring. I hope not. I still owe you a back story about my time on the Isla del Sol (the Island of the Sun). It's a good story, but I'm saving it for a slow spell.

Hope you all are well at home. Thanks to those of you who've commented or sent e-mails about this blog. I'm glad that you're enjoying reading it, and that it maybe makes the world a little smaller.

Con cariño,

Karen