We are in the middle of the third week of the excavation. The first two weeks of the dig have mostly been preparation for finding the artifacts and pottery that will shed light on Cetamura and the Etruscans. This involved surveying the units perfectly, removing backfill, and rediscovering where the last team left off in the units and in their notebooks. From there the first locus of a particular type of dirt or feature, such as a stone wall, is measured topographically and drawn to scale. Because we have had to remap and redraw the units that haven’t been excavated since the seventies, progress has been slow. Although we have found a few interesting pottery shards and gaming pieces, nothing particularly interesting or important has been discovered. At night, I have been dreaming about grandiose finds: full-size bronze figures and inscribed pottery, but so far, buckets of brown dirt and broken terracotta have marked the development of the excavation.
Regardless, the site is beautiful, resting atop a hill overlooking Chianti and shaded by oak trees. It has been cool and sunny, and my trench mates and the entire group get along wonderfully. The most excitement that I have had so far was last week, when I was exploring the well on the summit. I was trekking through the underbrush, following the exposed stones that mark structures that have not yet been fully identified. At one point, I stepped beside a stone and felt something writhe around my ankle, a feeling that I remember well from when I worked on the farm. I would cleave a beaver dam and the ensuing current would lead a water moccasin to twist around my legs. Feeling the snake against my calf, I leapt on the wall behind me, and looked down to see it struggling to get back onto its belly, which it quickly did. As it slithered away, I recognized that it was a viper from its diamond-shaped head and triangular markings. Hell of a feeling that was.
I had to cut the first week of the dig short in order to return to Florence. My cohorts and I had to give our last presentations of the semester on our Master’s theses and take our last courses in paleography. The former was a hoop-jumping exercise: the professors shot holes in everyone’s theses and research in order to spur us into working over the summer. The latter was truly interesting, as we learned where to find and how to read primary sources in the Archivo di Stato. The courses ended on Thursday, but I did not immediately return to Radda. I stayed in Florence to attend the Friday evening the opening of the Caravaggio show at the Palazzo Pitti and the Uffizi. While I like Caravaggio just fine, I was more interested in spending time in the Vasari Corridor that was opened for the night, a rare opportunity. I came back to Radda on Saturday with a few friends, and we spent Sunday barbequing and strolling around Radda, La Villa, and Cetamura.
Sunday evening, I arrived early when I went to pick up the group of students returning from various places at Montevarchi. A friend and I wandered to the main piazza and found a Renaissance festival. Members from the community had dressed up as soldiers, ladies, and nobleman and oversaw the events, which included flag throwing, crossbow shooting, and falconry. The falconry exhibition was the best, because it was a disaster. It started well; a man and his girlfriend released a small falcon that flew to various posts and back. The next bird was a larger raptor, a hawk, which once it was released, shot into the sky, flushing a legion of pigeons from the piazza and rooftops. The falconer tried recalling his bird to no avail. It had flown into the city, reappearing only every now and then over the piazza. Pigeons and swallows darted across the open sky at full speed as the hawk circling above, occasionally giving chase. A few streets away, a small dog began yipping excitedly from a high balcony, and I wondered what would happen if the bird took that for its prey and what reception it would then receive on its return to the piazza.
After twenty minutes of calling the hawk with clipped yelps, the falconer gave up, deciding instead that it was time for the next bird. His girlfriend brought him a beautiful barn owl, and when he released it, it again flew away. It reappeared only once when it soared into the open window of a building that was under construction. Out poured more pigeons that the hawk then pursued. The exasperated falconer signaled to his girlfriend to bring the next bird, an enormous eagle, nearly half the size of a man. Luckily the eagle wanted no part in the other birds’ avian shenanigans. He attacked the dead rabbit that the falconer’s girlfriend dragged behind herself. The eagle pinned the rabbit to the pavement and perched and folded its wings around the dead animal as if it were a minister delivering a benediction, then tearing and bolting down strips of its flesh. Many of the children were horrified, and once the eagle finished eating, the lord of the festival quickly announced the next spectacle, crossbow shooting. The falconer and his girlfriend gathered up eagle and then began assembling a tracking antenna in the corner of the piazza.
This last weekend was the first that I have spent in Radda. The moon was full on Friday night, and a few of us stayed up late drinking wine and smoking cigars on the balcony overlooking the vineyards. Some of the girls think that the house is haunted; one in particular, a coed from the mountains of western North Carolina, is particularly adamant about the existence of the ghost, its diabolical intentions, and its agency to harm her. She goes on and on about the villa’s nightly horrors, and to the chagrin of her roommates, sleeps with the lights on. In my room, there hangs the stuffed head of a cinghale, a Tuscan boar. About midnight, we removed it from the wall, and kneeling, I wrapped myself in a white blanket, holding the boar’s head in front of mine. It protruded from the sheets that trailed and wrapped around it like a monk’s habit. I shuffled into her room, grunting and hissing, and she woke up right when the boar’s head was across from her face. She screamed and cussed us out as we ran from her room laughing.
We left the boar’s head facing up from the toilet in the girls’ hall, and a low partition wall kept it out of view from the rest of the bathroom. The next morning we learned that a semisomnic coed went to use the bathroom at three in the morning. When she stumbled upon the head lewdly grinning up at her from the toilet. She let out such a frightened scream that she woke up the entire floor. I now realize why Dr. Ewell highly recommended that everyone pack earplugs.
The next day, most of the group left for Florence first thing in the morning, and along with those who were staying in Radda, I took the van and toured the vineyards. This week is the Classico e’ festival, which celebrates Chianti wine and culture. While I was driving and abstained from drinking, we stopped at various vineyards and castles and the towns Gaiole and Greve in Chianti to sample wine from the local producers. We came back that evening and cooked steaks and drank the bottles we had purchased during the day’s peregrination. The tour gave me an idea for starting my own business, and I am checking on the details.
I spent today walking through Radda with my friend and former flatmate Nicola. We both speak Italian and stopped in on various shops and shot the breeze with their owners. Radda is a small town and not yet fed up with tourists; it’s much warmer than Florence. We ate a late, lazy lunch and then drove to Siena to pick up the returning students. On the drive, we discussed my plans after graduate school. They are unripe ideas and hopes, and while I have time, I am unsure about the future.
All in all, life is good. Hope everyone is well.
