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Published: August 8th 2007
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Solar lunch at AUA
Each day one lunch special is cooked on a solar oven in front of AUA. Dream #115
Although I no longer need to take melatonin for jetlag, I still have weird dreams. I dreamed that I had a disease. The recommended treatment was that I be shot on Tuesday. I had a final conversation with my ex-wife, but she was speechless for one reason or another. Even in my dreams I can't invent words for her to say. On Tuesday I wasn't nervous about being shot. When the doctor pulled the trigger I awoke wondering if waking is death to the dreamer.
The Diggers
David Stronach made an appearance at the University earlier this week. He's the famous Scottish archaeologist who founded the British Institute of Persian Studies in Tehran back in the early 1960s. He served as its director for 20 years before becoming a professor of Archaeology at Berkeley. Now that Iran and Iraq are off limits, these guys are turning to Armenia.
Several of us ended up going out to dinner with David a few nights later. He reminded me of a character from an Agatha Christie novel. In fact, David knew Agatha well because her husband, also an archaeologist, was David's former partner. I wondered if Sean Connery's
David Stonach
David is a big time archaeologist from Berkeley who has come to excavate Erebuni. character in The Last Crusade might have been based on David.
At dinner David entertained us with one story after another. He told us about taking the top US diplomat in Iran to visit one of his digs. He dropped her off at the embassy an hour before it was seized by rioters. She spent the next year as a hostage.
I badgered David into letting us visit his site, pressing him for a detailed map between stories.
The Dig
In 800 BC Erebuni was the capitol of the Urartu Empire. We are just beginning to learn about the Urartus, they had cuneiform writing, bronze weapons, and an empire that spanned from the Euphrates to the Caucuses. Almost all of the people living in the Caucasus today are their descendants.
In 1959 a farmer digging in his field on the outskirts of Yerevan discovered a cuneiform tablet saying that Argishti, king of Urartu, had built this fortress to the glory of his kingdom and to the horror of his enemies. To date the top part of the fortress has been excavated. David's dig is on a hill top about a quarter mile
south of the
Trained Eyes
An archaeologist sees vast plazas with fountains and gardens where the rest of us see piles of stones. fortress.
Under the blazing sun David pointed to unremarkable pits and mounds on the side of the hill. He saw grand entrances, vast plazas, and magnificent gardens. Overhead three MIG fighters engaged in a mock dogfight that drowned out his lecture.
+++++
Another Storm
Late that night I sat in my apartment working intently on a computer program that's supposed to simulate the evolution of social norms. I could still hear the MIGs roaring over the city. I'm not sure what time it was when I realized that the roaring was thunder, not MIGs. I looked out my window into Götterdämmerung skies. I realize that it was the tail of the typhoon that destroyed Oman and now hovers over Iran.
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CNN
Late at night I often work to the accompaniment of CNN International mixed with a healthy dose of static. I guess I just like the sound of voices speaking English. Actually paying attention for any length of time is fatal. They repeat stories day after day for weeks. The ads are weird. Each time one comes on I pop up a special window on my computer and write down what it's about. Here
MIGs
MIGs engaged in a mock dogfight make hearing difficult. are some of the advertised travel destinations:
· Angola
· The Gambia
· Bulgaria
· Bosnia-Herzogovinia
· Croatia
I hope Croatia won't be flooded with tourists when I arrive there in August.
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We get whacked, almost
Last summer I and several AUA colleagues started a Friday Night dinner club. Friday was our first dinner of this summer. At my insistence we went to a Georgian restaurant. We sat at a long table, ate khachapures, drank beer, and swapped stories. One of the new guys took pictures of the festivities. We hardly noticed the malevolent looking gangster at the table next to us who didn't want to be photographed talking to the uniformed police chief sitting across from him.
He caught my attention and made an angry demand in Armenian. I asked him if he spoke English. No. More angry demands. It was evident that he wanted the camera. We played dumb. The police chief appeared to calm him down. Ten minutes later he had the waiter bring us another round of beers.
I had to duck out early to meet Armen at a club, but I later heard that when
my friends tried
Tools
Tools of the trade to leave the gangster again demanded the camera. Someone with a cell phone managed to raise a translator at AUA. The translator didn't bother to translate the mobster's tirade. Instead he told my friends to get the hell out of the restaurant as fast as they could!
+++++
My alarm clock
Although I'm on the fourth floor of a building that's on a hill, I am awakened most mornings by the rumble of the first subway arriving at the station that's buried deep below me. (Soviet subways are buried famously deep to serve double duty as shelters from American H-bombs.)
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Picnic
Yesterday the annual College of Engineering picnic was held at the 1000 year-old Tegher monastery on the slopes of Mt. Aragats. This is the same place I went on last weekend's mission to search for a picnic location. (See Up and Running.)
Armen brought a backgammon set and challenged anyone to try to beat him. One challenger after another faced him. Armenians take backgammon very seriously. There's lots of yelling, lots of slamming, lots of onlookers, and each time the dice are rolled the opponent snaps them up before the roller has
time
A Find
At a second site the chief archaeologist shows us pieces of ancient jewelry. for a second look.
When I noticed that the board had fallen into disuse, I suggested to Barry that we try to teach each other the Armenian style of backgammon, which is only about blocking and doesn't involve bumping. In a matter of minutes Barry and I each acquired a team of advisors. Half way through the game our roles were reduced to team pip mover. Barry's team beat mine. We still don't know how to play.
+++++
Hiking
After eating, Barry, Artak, and I decided to climb to the peak of a nearby hill. The dirt road took us past rusty vehicles, grazing cows, and clucking chickens. Every other house was abandoned. I was in another time and place. Perhaps rural Sicily in 1950; or maybe Oklahoma in 1930; or maybe it was 1920 and this was rural Armenia. I snapped out of my reverie. This was rural Armenia. No daydream was required. The amazing thing: it wasn't 1920.
Beyond the houses the road, now just a trail, took us into a meadow of purple, yellow, and red wild flowers. Narrow streams cut through the tall grass. We were surrounded on three sides by snow
Hard Work
I decided that I made the right career choice becoming a Mathematician instead of an Archaeologist. capped peaks and could see far across the plain below.
On the way down we walked past a family living in what appeared to be an abandoned bus. They were sitting down to dinner, which was served on a table made from a square board held up by a few bricks and logs. Their chairs were low rocks and logs. They insisted that we join them.
When we sat the women disappeared to fetch clean plates, glasses of warm yogurt, and fresh helpings of lavash. A bottle of vodka was produced and the toasting began. I stood and toasted something. That meant everyone has to stand. Apparently it also meant that we had to drink our shots of vodka in a single lusty gulp. More vodka appeared. More toasts were made. The patriarch toasted the logo advertising Sun computers that was on Barry's shirt. "May the little flame on your shirt symbolize a life filled with passion."
The women and children sat on a log off to one side and watched us men attend to our serious manly business.
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