The fifth and final week at Gabii was headlined by a trip to
the American Academy of Rome. The Academy houses several dozen special finds cassetta
from Gabii and other excavations for the sake of saving space on site and the
artifacts themselves. Along with the reward of sleeping in past 6am and not
wearing steel-toed boots, the Gabii Finds School made the short pilgrimage to
see even more delicate artifacts from site.
On this day, each Finds School student was expected to
catalog any objects relevant to their final project in addition to researching
their finds. Unluckily, I was not able to extensively research my artifacts while
at the Academy or on site from the sheer amount of bone hairpins and needles I
found. Most of my time was spent recording the dimensions of the bone objects
and acquiring other raw data I would not be able to obtain in the States.
Finds School students studying small finds from Gabii: ceramic votives and fibulae, respectively. |
This ongoing research amongst other students helped me realize
a few things including that archaeological analyses rarely follow scientific
method. Although an archaeologist might start researching an object or series
of objects with a specific query, whether or not s/he can answer it is highly
dependent on the information about the object(s) recorded in prior time. As we
delved deeper into researching our objects, we revealed more research
questions.
Students researching more commonly found artifacts, myself
included, found ourselves repeatedly asking "why has no one written about
this before?". The amount of experts or academics solely writing on bone
hairpins or fibulae seemed miniscule in comparison to those publishing articles
on the handful of Minoan death masks in existence, for example. Ultimately, we
discovered that the most commonplace objects often received less attention; the
phenomenon is similar to losing house keys in plain sight.
Erica Canavan presenting her research on bone hairpins and needles from Gabii's Area F. |
In researching bone hairpins and needles in Roman contexts, I
realized that I could contribute to a knowledge base for a small finds category.
This realization is even more poignant when coupled with the fact that I will
begin graduate school in the fall. The Finds School has helped further propel
me towards a sense of purpose and thirst for knowledge within Roman
archaeology.
I have had a fulfilling, rewarding experience in my second
excavation season with the Gabii Project, so the end of this fifth week is
naturally bittersweet. While I am content to fly back to Michigan and refresh
my Ancient Attic Greek in a hammock in Ann Arbor, I will miss having the
routine of the site and the colleagues and friends I have made along the way.