STUDENT DAYNOTES AMHEIDA 2008

Name: Adam Prins Supervisor(s): Angela Cervi, Bruno Bazzani, and Eugene Ball Date: 1/27/08

□ Excavation X Small Finds □ Topography □ Photography X Ceramics

└►Area: Room(s): X Data entry

What I have done:

At 9:00 am, Angela showed me around the small finds room so I might help conserve and catalogue artifacts if necessary. She described the process of recording each object's information while minimizing the amount of personal interpretation. She oriented us with each part of the room: the area used for cleaning and conserving, the area for storing records, and the area for filling out data sheets.

At around 10:00 am, Bruno showed me how to enter data into the database. After explaining the process, I entered over thirty daily DSU forms from the Ain el-Gedida excavations into their database. I finished at 4:00 pm.

At 4:00 pm, I began to digitize a site plan that was backlogged from the 2007 season for Section 4 in Room 10 at Amheida using AutoCAD; I finished at 7:00 pm. Before we begin digitizing plans from the current 2008 season, we must finish last season's work. Paoula's goal is to have all of this season's work completed by the time we leave Egypt so today's task was meant to help expedite this goal.

What I have learned:

I was briefly told how to clean coins with acid and water with Angela.

I learned the inner-workings of the Amheida and Ain el-Gedida databases in order to enter data accurately.

Since for the first two weeks of the excavations I am in charge of digitizing site plans in AutoCAD, today's experience was valuable practice in making the process more efficient and accurate.

Today's tasks were tedium necessary for the effectiveness and quality of my future work.

Problems I have found:

I did not encounter any problems today; everything went quite smoothly.