Yesterday I received a large package by mail from Dear Reader Twoflower in New York. He’d asked me for my address, and I was expecting a book or an off-print, but the minute I saw the box I realised I had been wrong. Guess what he sent me.
Apparently, I have pained Twoflower by publishing ugly pics of nice finds and fieldwork here. I believe that specifically, this pic and this pic hurt his sense of archaeological aesthetics: a lovely new find, shot first with a spade for scale and then with an ugly folding rule. Well, Twoflower, you kind and generous man, thanks to you I will no longer have to rely on such second-rate gear! As demonstrated by Captain Pyjamas in the pic, I now have a handsome collapsible fiberglass meter rod, a 20 cm compass arrow, a 25 cm artefact scale and a 10 cm scale, all from Stoney Knoll Archaeological Supplies in Maine. They do on-line mail order.
I usually borrow fieldwork tools from friendly colleagues at local excavation units. Most of the archaeogear I actually own has been given to me. My English trowel is a present from my friend Howard. My Gothenburg buddies got me a discount on my metal detector. And now I have photography scale-rods from Maine. I’m just waiting for someone in New Zealand to send me a mechanical excavator!
[More blog entries about archaeology, photography; arkeologi, fotografi.]