The Magura Uroiului Project
Magura Uroiului, Romania
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Life at the Excavation
Life at the excavation
Our day will be broken into two main parts. In the morning and early afternoon (from 8am to 12pm and 1pm to 3pm) will excavate and/or do practical training at one of the excavation sites. In the late afternoon (from 5pm to 8pm), there will be field classes in a military tent at the camp site. For Romanian fieldwork students, these classes are mandatory. (This course is part of their degree programme.) For foreign students they are optional.
Participants at the excavation (field school and research members alike) will have breakfast at 7am. At 8am, we will go to the excavation sites.
Research members
The people who come for field work experience (not for the field school) work in small groups on a specific research problem that their group chooses. There will be a list of research topics provided by the director of the excavation in case the groups can't think of one. For example, the group might excavate part of the Iron Age road to learn more about it's construction. There was a kiln discovered last year during field walking that could tell us more about ceramics production at the settlements. There are habitation zones with pit houses and huts that could tell us more about peoples day-to-day lives. Investigation was started on part of the fortification systems. The size of the research objective will determine how many people will be in a particular group. For each group, there will also be at least one of the experienced Romanian researchers to supervise the group. The supervisor of the group will not necessarily LEAD the group. The supervisor will make sure that things are being done correctly and show the group members how to do different tasks that people in the group might not already know (e.g. recording the plan maps, drawing the artefacts, filling out the excavation forms, etc.). The members of each group will choose a group coordinator to make sure that the groups efforts and objectives are coordinated well. At the end of each day, the director will meet with the group coordinators and review what each team did that day and what they plan for the next day. For participants who have no fieldwork experience, they will spend the first week or two doing training, after which they can join one of the excavation groups.
Field school students
At the excavation sites students will gain practical experience of the skills necessary to do field work. At the beginning of the fieldwork courses, students will set up and conduct field walks in groups with competent fieldworkers with previous experience at the site. Students will learn how to set up a site grid and how to choose an optimal site for excavation. The majority of time at the excavation, students will alternate between the excavation locations to see a variety of different excavations as they are going on. The main locations are the Iron Age settlements on the Uroi hill plateau, the kiln discovered during the 2007 fieldwalking surveys, and the ancient road on Terrace 3 but the exact details of that will be chosen by the excavation groups later. While excavating, students will either be paired with a competent worker-mentor, or they will work in small groups under the supervision of one of the projects sub-directors. From time to time, students will practice drawing profiles and plans of the excavated areas. Other tasks that students will take part in include sieving back dirt for micro-artefacts, doing topographic surveys of the area with a theotolite, filling out context forms, labelling artefacts, and keeping an excavation journal. If time and resources permit, students may also take part in archaeometric surveying in the general area of the site (most likely resistivity and magnetic susceptibility this year).
After dinner, there will be a field classroom which will be held at the camp site in a military tent with benches, tables and electric lighting. Some of the practical training may take place outside of the tent if more lighting is necessary. In the classroom, participants will learn practical fieldwork skills such as drawing and processing artefacts as well as descriptions of the skills that they will be working on the next day at the excavation site and a review/evaluation of the skills that they worked on earlier that day. They will also attend several short lectures on site planning and management skills, the history of the local site being excavated, the site's context in the general region, and an overview of the previous research done at the site. These classes will be taught mainly by project members and researchers from the Museum in Deva.
In the afternoon
During the middle of the day from 12pm to 1pm everyone will have a break for lunch. From 2pm to 4pm students will work with the artefacts, learning how to clean, catalogue and draw them. Research members will have time to process the artefact found during the morning and catch up on their notes. From 4pm to 6pm (when it is not as hot) we will return to the excavation or fieldwalk sites.
We will return to the camp site at 6pm and then eat dinner. After dinner the students will attend short evening courses. Research members will meet with their team coordinators and the excavation director to discuss the days progress and plan for the next day. Aftwards, everyone has free time. Often the team either hangs out at the camp site around the camp fire or goes into town to hang out at one of the bar or cafes (especially if there's an important football match).
Accommodation
Home stay
Description of
the homestay locations.
All of the homestay families are personal acquantances of the project director.
Participants will have their own room in a traditional home with a Romanian
family. If you wish to stay together with someone else, that is ok. Rooms
are heated by a ceramic wood furnace and are furnished with a bed, wardrobe,
table and desk. Although houses in the village of Rapolt are very
traditional, all have houses electricity and hot running water (having a hot
shower is not problem).
If you eat at your homestay, you will eat typical Romaian breakfast such as ham, boiled or fried eggs, onions, "slanina" (smoked pork fat), tomatos, cucumbers, "tuica" (plumb brandy), sausages, telemea (home made sheep cheese similar to feta) and home baked bread. A typical evening meal includes items such as "tocanita", polenta, cabbage rolls, "tuica", soup, noodle and cheese, "beens and pig feet" and other traditional dishes.
If you are interested in catching a glimpse of traditional Romanian life, we recommend that you consider staying with a Romanian family during you time at the Uroi Hill excavation.
Tent at the field camp
Most of the team will be staying at the on-site camp.
You can bring your own tent or borrow one of ours. If you wish to borrow one
of our tents, please let us know in advance.
In the evening we usually go into the village for a drink or hang out at the camp fire. Sometimes we have a small party.
Living conditions
- Most of the team will be staying in a campsite set up near to the excavation locations. Participants who opt to stay with a local family will be placed in the nearby village of Rapolt.
- At the campsite there will be a military base tent set up that will be used as a classroom in the afternoons, and as a communal room, dining room and kitchen when weather is bad.
- Meals will be cooked by gas stove or over a fire. Participants will receive 3 cooked meals per day.
- There will be ecological toilets at the site.
- Each day, the water reserves will be refilled, so there is no shortage of water for drinking, cooking or bathing.
- There will be set up a topless tent for showering.
- The campsite is located about 1km from Rapolt village, 10km from Simeria.
- There is clear cell phone coverage at all the excavation locations. If participants need to charge their phone battery or other batteries, they can do so either while the electric generator is running or by giving their phone to the project director to recharge in the village overnight.
- There are several daily buses to and from Simeria. The bus will stop about 100m from the camp site.
- Participants will be expected to drink a minumum of 2L of water per day (not including what they drink at meals and at the bar)
-Hazards:
- The area is clean and free of hazards.
- In August, there is not a big problem with mosquitos, especially at the
end of August and in September.
Food
- Meals will be cooked by gas
stove or over a fire. Participants will receive 3 cooked meals per day.
- At the campsite there will be a military base tent set up that will be
used as a classroom in the afternoons, and as a communal room, dining room
and kitchen when weather is bad.
-Typical breakfast are a light buffet of fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, pate,
milk, coffee, home made products such as baked bread, sheep cheese, smoked
sausages and/or cold cuts, and jams.
-Lunch is either eaten on site or at the base camp, depending on how far
away your dig location is. Lunch is usually soup, sandwiches and maybe a
light pasta or cornmeal porridge dish.
-Dinner and evening snacks include barbecued chicken or sausages, soup/stew,
fried potatoes, pasta, green salad and wine. Often later in the evening if
people are hunger, we eat stew or small things cooked over the fire. It is
common to drink a beer after the afternoon excavation or in the evening
after the artefact work (and/or classes) are done.
Weather and what clothes you'll need
- Clothes suitable for August. Participants should keep in mind that it can get cold at night in August.
Equipment (what we'll provide and what you'll need to bring)
- The following equipment will be provided by the project:
-Excavating equipment such as shovels, trowels, buckets, hoes, etc.
-Cooking and eating utensils such as pots, plates, bowls, knives, forks,
etc.
-Each participant will be given an excavation journal which should be turned in
to the director at the end of the course.
-Course notes and handouts for the classes.
-First aid equipment
-Food
- Participants are expected to bring the following equipment:
-Classroom supplies such as note books, pencils, erasers, etc.
-Tent (or borrow one of ours) and sleeping bag
-Personal hygeine products such as soap, toothpaste, towels, etc.
-Flashlight (if you feel it is necessary)
-Detergent for washing clothes and a rope to use as a clothes line