Flashback Introduction to Archaeology

[Levon]

Levon, 3rd-4th of Fall 500 AV

Levon watched excitedly as his father, Lionel, was looking over the field survey he had created of his last dig-site. Lionel had been away for several weeks uncovering this site, an old Alahean agricultural field, in the hopes of finding some new information on Alahea's crops.

"What did you find? What did you find! Did you find anything interesting, dad?" Levon asked excitedly, hopping up and down over his father's shoulder in an attempt to see the drawings.

"Of course I did!" Lionel exclaimed, nearly matching his son's enthusiasm despite being nearly four decades older. "I found further proof that this section of Alahea was a major producer of rice and barley crops, and that non-magicians were treated as second rate to those capable of using magic. But this," Lionel continued, pausing for Emphasis, "was the most important discovery. Look, see for yourself!" Lionel held up one of his drawings for Levon to see.

Levon hopped up and down on the balls of his feet, his eyes wide and taking in every detail of the piece of paper his father had laid before him. After a few moments observation, Levon suddenly stopped moving and he tilted his head to one side. "That looks like a plow."

Lionel looked aghast at his son's lack of enthusiasm. "Well yes, it is just a plow, but it tells us so much more about Alahea's advancements in the agricultural field. For example, based on the height and width of the handles and these metal loops, this is likely a horse-drawn plow, which based on the quantity of these found tells us that at least at this site magic was probably seldom used for tilling. Not only that, but my best estimates say this site was in use right up to the Valterrain, so this is perhaps the most advanced plow in the world. It could completely change the way plows are made!"

"Oh wow" Levon said, looking at the detailed drawing of the plow with newfound respect. "You learned a lot from that little thing, didn't you?"

Lionel nodded. "Well, I learned all that because I did a lot of research, too, so I knew what I needed to be looking for. I had a few suspicions coming into the dig, some of them were proven right and some proven wrong. The key to being a good archaeologist," Lionel added importantly, "is doing your research and looking for consistency. We know that Alahea valued magic users greatly, so it made sense that they wouldn't spend time doing menial tasks such as plowing fields."

[Levon]

Levon, 3rd of Fall 500 AV

Levon squinted hard in concentration at his father's words, as if making sure he was able to take them in fully, before nodding once and resuming bobbing up and down between his heels and toes. He continued studying his father's drawings carefully, taking special note of the exquisite detail and miniscule, nearly illegible notes his father had added to them. His eyebrows raised slightly as his eyes traced over a particularly good drawing of a flower he had never seen before.

"So what happens when your suspicions are wrong?" Levon asked, stumbling a bit over the word 'suspicions'.

"That," Lionel said sagely, "is where the fun of being an Archaeologist really comes into play. You get to think about why your suspicions were wrong. Like, let's say we found some positive evidence of magi being commonplace in agriculture. We would have to rethink our views on Alaea's society as a whole; perhaps they valued agriculture far more than we thought, for instance, and being a farmer was considered a noble position. Or perhaps magicians weren't seen as above menial labor, and earned their respect and position through aiding others." Lionel sniffled slightly, rubbing his nose. "Of course, I don't actually have a lot to do with making those 'final decisions', so to speak. That kind of stuff is mostly left to the scholars at the University." The words left Lionel's lips not without a hint of regret.

Levon nodded again with a squint and small smile. "So, what exactly do you do, then? I mean, I know you dig up artifacts and looks for ruins that survived the Valterrain and stuff, but how exactly do you do that?"

Lionel laid his journal and pen down with a slightly weary expression. "Would you rather I showed you?" he said, a smile appearing on his face as Levon rubbed his hands together excitedly.

"Yes!" was all Levon could manage.

"Alright, go grab my rucksack"

Levon complied and followed his father outside, handing the heavy pack to his father and wondering where Lionel was planning on taking him.

~~~

Levon's curiosity was quickly sated when his father stopped at a relatively flat area just outside the city.

"Alright, well, a majority of my time is actually spent doing research rather than in the field." Lionel began. "But once I actually find a place I think could potentially hold something significant, the first thing I need to do is survey the site. There's almost always some form of evidence to be found on the surface, especially from sites in the late BV years that haven't had time to be worn down.

"Normally, the kind of surface evidence we find is just a misshapen tool or other small artifact that somehow remained close to the surface, almost always made of stone or metal. For whatever reason, arrowheads tend to be one of the easiest to find. Entire villages have been found on the basis of a single arrowhead. In the Survey, you need to include as much information about the surrounding area and surface evidence as you can. Only areas that have a sufficient amount of evidence will get approval to be excavated.

"Once you find a suitable place for an excavation, a team is hired for the excavation process. This is the real work- carefully digging up the site 2-4 inches at a time, recording any evidence we find along the way. It isn't anything like plowing a field or digging a well; the largest digging instrument we ever use is a shovel, and even that carries a significant risk since it could dislodge, or worse damage, any artifacts we find."

"That sounds pretty like it could get pretty boring." Levon said, though his eyes belied his interest.

"It can be at times." Lionel admitted. "But the satisfaction of finding something more than makes up for it, especially if you find something exciting."

[Levon]

Levon, 3rd of Fall 500 AV

"Now, it's highly unlikely we'll actually find anything here since the location doesn't really make sense for a camp, much less a village or something larger," Lionel continued, "But it's still a good place for you to practice since it's out of the way and the ground is relatively easy to dig through here. Just pretend that each rock you find is some kind of artifact- a scythe blade, an arrowhead, a sword, whatever you can imagine. Besides," Lionel added with a sly grin, "I have found several arrowheads in this area, so who knows, maybe something will turn up?"

Levon nodded, eyebrows raised enthusiastically. "Maybe I'll be able to find ruins from before the Valterrain! Or maybe even buried pirate treasure!"

Lionel chuckled slightly. "Maybe. But I wouldn't get your hopes up too much, this is just practice remember. For now, let's mark the area we're going to dig up. Normally we'd make an initial survey of the area first, but we'll skip that this time. I think over here by this rocky outcropping is our best bet." Lionel pulled out 4 stakes attached to one another by rope and a medium sized hammer. "Here, take these and stretch them out as far as you can so that there isn't much slack. We'll use them to mark our work area."

"Okay." Levon said, grabbing the stakes and hammer with enthusiasm. Fully unwrapped, the stakes marked out a 25x25 foot area.

Lionel reached into the pack and handed Levon a hand shovel. "Here, we'll start with this to get rid of the surface layer. Anything interesting we could find would be pretty far under the surface player to begin with. But before we begin," Lionel said, "We must give a prayer to Semele for the earth over which she presides."

"Semele?" Levon asked. "I don't think I've heard of him before. Is he one of the gods?"

Lionel gave his son a small smile. "She," Lionel said with some emphasis "is the goddess of earth, minerals and gemstones. All miners pay homage to her for the earth itself and the treasure she holds within, and some archaeologists do as well, for preserving the history of the past within her."

Levon nodded in understanding, before closing his eyes and listening to his father's prayer.

"We thank you, Semele, for the earth, our home; for the soft soil and the hard bedrock, for the glittering gems and dull mud, for the towering mountains and the low valleys. And today especially we thank you for our history that you record deep within your bones, and allow us to rediscover."

Levon squinted as he took in the words before nodding in acceptance of the prayer, adding "We thank you, Semele." Levon then grabbed the shovel and began digging into the ground.

"Careful not to dig too deep," Lionel rebuked Levon gently. "We only want to uncover about two to four inches at a time, no more than six, any more than that and we risk missing artifacts, or in this case rocks."

"Okay, sorry." Levon said, trying to slow his overeager movements. Thrusting the shovel into the dirt again, Levon's hand was jarred when the shovel was stopped suddenly by a hard object. "Dad, dad, I think I found something!" Levon said excitedly, wondering what it could be.

"Oh? Let's take a look then, shall we." Lionel said, sounding amused. He walked over to where Levon had been working, taking out a smaller shovel and brush. Gently removing the dirt over the object, Lionel carefully uncovered the top half of the rock Levon had discovered.

"It's just a rock." Levon said, sounding disappointed.

"That's okay, let's pretend this was an artifact okay?" Lionel said, still smiling. "First of all, see here where there's this fresh nick in the rock? That's because you were digging to aggressively and struck the rock with your shovel; if it had been a real artifact such as a wooden chest or stone tablet, you could have damaged it."

"I'm sorry" Levon said, fumbling with the shovel in his hand, "I didn't mean to, I was just so excited to uncover turied breasure- I mean, buried treasure, and I-"

"It's okay, it was only a rock. I just meant that you need to be more careful; doing an excavation requires immense patience to make sure you don’t accidently move or damage any of the objects."

Levon only nodded, staring down at his feet.

"Alright, well, the next thing we do after uncovering an object is to do a quick drawing of the object and mark exactly where we found it in our search area before taking it from its spot. Here, hold on a second and let me get some paper and a pen for you…" Lionel shuffled away for a moment before returning with a pen, some paper and a solid plank of wood. "Okay, now we just need to find a decent place for you to make the drawing…" Lionel glanced around for a moment.

"How about right here?" Levon asked, pointing towards a relatively smooth looking rock that he thought could be used as an impromptu desk.

"Perfect!" Lionel exclaimed. "Good eye. Okay, now you need to make a quick drawing of where you found the rock relative to our search area and what it looks like, and also make sure you write down how deep it was into the ground. I'll go back to excavating other area's while you do that."

"Okay, I think I can do that," Levon said. He took the pen, paper and wooden plank and moved over to the rock, immediately drawing a large square to signal the borders of the excavation site, then running back to the site to see where exactly the rock he had found was. He then ran back to the drawing, marking the appropriate location on the square with an X. Levon then carefully began outlining the shape of the rock, running back to the object itself occasionally to get more details.

Some time passed before Lionel eventually came back to check on Levon's progress. "So, how are you doing? Can I see your progress?"

"Sure, I actually just finished. How does it look?" Levon asked, looking up at his father excitedly.

Lionel looked down at the drawing with a blank expression. It took him a few moments to understand what he was looking at, in part due to Levon's lack of drawing ability and it part due to the random shape of the rock which made it hard to see a clear outline, but eventually Lionel could make out the general shape of the rock.

"This is actually quite good." Lionel finally said, looking back and forth between the drawing and the rock. "Most objects are going to be a lot easier to draw than a rock, and you did a good job getting the general outline right, although your shading could definitely use some work."

Levon hopped up and down excitedly. "Really? You think I did a good job? I think I did a good job, too."

Lionel smiled and patted his son on the head. "Okay, well, I think that's it for today."

"Really?" Levon said, stopping his jumping at once and becoming almost unnaturally still. "But I don't want to go just yet…"

"It's starting to get dark though." Lionel reminded his son gently. "Here, before we go we do need to make a recording of what we found though."

Levon sniffled. "Okay."

"Would you like to lead our prayer this time?" Lionel asked, as he handed Levon a blank journal from the pack.

"Okay." Levon said, opening the journal and setting it on the rock before closing his eyes and clasping his hands in prayer. "We thank you, Qalaya, for the memory and writing you provide us with to remember and record the past. Today we… um… today we use your gifts in… we use your gifts." Levon finished, blushing slightly.

"We thank you, Qalaya." Lionel echoed in a serious tone, and Levon let out a sigh.

"Okay," Lionel continued, "normally we record any artifacts we discovered or observations we made. For you, I recommend you just try to describe the rock in as much detail as you can."

"Alright," Levon said, rubbing the back of his neck while contemplating how he would go about describing the rock.

The rock I found has a isn't smooth, and is about three times the size of my fists. It's mostly round, with a part on the top that sticks out. There are a copl couple holes in it big enough for me to stick one of my fingers in.

Satisfied with his work, Levon closed the Journal and looked up at his father. "Can we come back tomorrow?"

Lionel looked at his son thoughtfully. "I'm actually going to be quite busy tomorrow, but if you want to come back then I don’t have any objections. Just make sure you return all of my tools when you get back."

"Okay, I will." Levon promised, and the two headed back towards Zeltiva.

[Levon]

Levon, 4th of Fall 500 AV

The next day, Levon found himself trudging back to the site with his father's rucksack. The weight of the heavy pack left him gasping for breath, giving him a newfound respect for his father's resilience; he hadn't noticed any signs of fatigue in his father after he had trekked down carrying the pack yesterday.

After taking some time to catch his breath, Levon edged closer to the site to see how much had been uncovered. To his surprise, they had only uncovered a total of maybe 4 inches of dirt throughout the whole day. Trying to remember what it was his father had told him the day before, Levon's eyes squinted as made a quick mental checklist of what he needed to do.

Survey the area first, give a prayer to Semele before digging, dig up only 2-4 inches at a time, make a drawing of any artifacts found before removing them, record a description of any artifacts found after removing them.

After going over his checklist several times, satisfied with his memory, Levon opened the rucksack and searched around for the hand shovel and largest brush. Inside the rucksack, Levon was surprised to see the sheer variety of brushes, chisels and hammers in the pack. Finally pulling out the equipment he was looking for, Levon brought them back over to the site.

Levon knew he didn't need to do another survey for the area since they had already started digging, so he decided to skip straight to a prayer for Semele. It felt odd, giving a prayer to a goddess he had never heard of apart from a single conversation yesterday and knew little about, so he tried to recall what his father had said in his prayer.

"I thank you, Semele, goddess of the earth, for mountains and valleys, and the things you hide in your bones."

It didn’t sound quite right to Levon, but he couldn't think of anything else to add so he decided to leave it at that. Taking the shovel in hand, Levon jumped back into the site and started digging.

Although he knew he wasn't likely to find anything, Levon made sure to follow the practice as best he could remember, trying to dig into the earth at an even rate. Occasionally he'd uncover a rock, and run back to the large stone he had found yesterday to do a quick sketch of the rock and where he had found it. It could be really boring work, Levon decided, trying to do an excavation all by yourself. But as the day wore on, Levon could also see why it was enjoyable; working alone like this in the field, Levon could hear birds singing songs to one another and feel the cool air of the impending fall on his back. Once he even caught sight of a small, furred creature he thought might have been a rabbit, although it had left before he could tell for certain.

Lost in the wonders of the natural world, Levon was surprised when he felt his shovel run into another rock. Carefully clearing away the dirt around it, alternating between using the shovel and the brush, Levon was surprised to see several other rocks close by in an almost unnatural formation. His interest piqued, Levon quickly began digging around the rocks, careful not to move them from their original position. As he revealed more and more of the top layer of the rocks, he saw that they formed a full circle. Excited and wondering what it could mean, Levon quickly ran back to draw his new find.

Levon first did a quick mark on the paper to show where he had found it relative to the markers; about five inches beneath the surface, he estimated, then started drawing the top layer of the rocks. The top layer was fairly variable, ranging about an inch difference in height, all packed together in a thick, nearly airtight formation. He noted that the dirt inside the circle seemed to be slightly darker than the dirt outside the circle. The diameter of the circle the rocks formed on the inside was probably around two and a half, maybe three feet, and relatively symmetrical. There was a gap in one spot where it looked like one of the rocks might have been moved, and a few of the rocks had cracks in them, though from roots or water exposure Levon couldn't tell.

Glancing over his work, Levon jumped back into the site to finish the excavation. As he suspected, the bottom layer of rocks ended at nearly the same depth, about eight inches under the ground. Having dug it out this much, it was obvious to Levon that he had uncovered a fireplace. All of the piece excavated, Levon ran back to do a drawing of the fully uncovered artifact.

Careful to get the outline at least right, Levon chose a side angle to complete the second drawing. The rocks used were thick with a solid base, sometimes as wide as seven or eight inches. This far down, most of the rocks were cracked in some place or another, some split entirely in half. Stepping back to admire his work, Levon thought the picture

Renewing his search vigor, Levon uncovered several small arrowheads buried nearby. Continuing his search, he also found what appeared to be a two foot long iron rod, though Levon couldn't think of any use for it. He made a quick sketch of the arrowheads, which ended up looking more or less like triangles with a narrow rectangle, he realized with a slight cringe, before deciding to take more time to draw the long iron rod.

The main body was a long, straight cylinder, only the last inch or two coming together in a point. On the opposite end, two protruding metal circles wrapped around the end, just too small for one of his hands to fit through. Using the side of a journal to help him forma more straight edge, Levon carefully sketched a picture of the long iron rod.

Excited by his discoveries, Levon hurriedly stuff his drawings inside his journal, through the shovel and large brush back into the rucksack and started hiking back towards Zeltiva to find his father. He couldn't wait to show him what he had discovered.