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Archaeologist 🔎⚒☠👸🏽👷🏽‍♀️

@_bigdigenergy

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Just a female in science trying to manifest that big dig energy.

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SECRETS OUT!! So excited this can finally be shared it has been so difficult for me to keep to myself🤯 Check out the link in my story for more info on what I've had the honor of working on these past weeks😍😍❤❤ making history and unravelling it all at the same time. What a job! by @_bigdigenergy

Thats the whole point 💅 #bigdigenergy by @_bigdigenergy

The mausoleum that nearly killed my body and soul😂
What the BBC article wont tell you is the depths we went to manually excavate this structure and the many backs that were broken in the process.
Despite, i thoroughly enjoyed uncovering this lost treasure as you can see here!
2. Finished product of months of excavation + weeks of cleaning & recording
3. Early photo: at this phase we weren’t sure what we found and had yet to discover the central mosaic! We knew we had a floor and some remaining wall.
4. Some coins pulled from the fill above. At one point, we found at least 100 coins within a few days! This led to some interesting initial interpretations. Some thought the central floor would drop, exposing a possible roman bath. I was hoping for a brothel 😂 boy were we wrong! #ritual
5. Me digging for other things…
6. This photo shows the depths we had to go to get to the structure (blue tarp). The mausoleum was mostly dug over the winter period as you can see- lots of frost and dampness🙃🥶
7. Central mosaic which has an oil burn at the top left. an earlier mosaic was found underneath which can be viewed in the BBC article.
8-10. Additional angles of the structure. Look at those surviving walls!
RIP all the toothbrushes and sponges used in the cleaning process🪥🧽 #legends by @_bigdigenergy

JLo goes digging 💀🪏 by @_bigdigenergy

half way through the field session 💪🏽
What a humbling and honourable experience to be back as an instructor at @aditu.arkeologia where just five years ago I was a student. Its actually been years since i’ve done any fieldwork, so jumping into such a unique assemblage was quite the challenge to say the least😅 I cant thank the absolute ICONS I work with enough for their patience and understanding as i’ve slowly gotten my groove back.
Keep revising and working my friends! If you don’t use it, you truly lose it lol 🫠
SO lucky to be back!🥹 by @_bigdigenergy

The last one says it all tbh by @_bigdigenergy

List of [summer] Figures by @_bigdigenergy

Should’ve seen it coming. 😂

I was 24 when I *officially* started archaeology. After degrees in History and Global Politics, interning in politics, working in museums, and volunteering on archaeological excavations, I finally took the leap into archaeology…Despite everyone around me insisting I should go to law school. 😂

Never too late to change direction, take the long way around, or dig your own path. ✨ by @_bigdigenergy

I licked it so its mine☺️🌧️☀️

24 hrs in Bilbao so obviously i got some Mexican tacos, Italian gelato, and listened to American Blues. by @_bigdigenergy

Wrong answers only: What fact did I share? 👀
#historyfacts #archaeology #bigdigenergy #netflix by @_bigdigenergy

Body like Venus. Brains like Cleo. Guts like Boudica. Thats #bigdigenergy by @_bigdigenergy

You’d be surprised to learn that my favourite “finds” as a museum #curator aren’t actually the artefacts themselves but the materials that past curators used to store them.
Most of these discoveries happen while reassessing historic collections: taking inventory, rehousing material with modern #conservation methods, & digitising collections for public access. Along the way, you quickly realise that past archaeologists & curators were incredibly resourceful & sometimes a little chaotic. Opening a box that has been on the shelf for decades & not knowing what to expect is the most exciting part!
From newspapers documenting major historical events to tea jars & even cigarette cartons, it’s amazing to see how people improvised with whatever they had. Sometimes the packaging, labels, and handwritten notes become part of the collection’s story in their own right.
1. A 1956 newspaper featuring Marilyn Monroe & Judy Garland was used to cushion fossil invertebrates.
2. Nestea jars used to store cremated remains. The curators in the 1970s must have drunk A LOT of tea.
3. A Margaret Thatcher newspaper was used to cushion a human skull. Ironically, the newspaper was in mint condition, the skull was not. Over the years, I’ve learned that many earlier curators (and, occasionally, even today) simply didn’t have access to the specialist training, conservation knowledge, or materials needed for the long-term care of human remains. I’ve quite literally found #skeletons in closets! Reassessing this collection, which was excavated over the course of three decades, was both fascinating &, at times, shocking.
4. Some of my favourite finds are the handwritten notes & conversations between #archaeologists in the field & museum staff. (“Lava”😂) Deciphering nearly illegible handwriting is an essential curator skill! I’ve actually had to decipher notes in interviews!
5. Fragmented skull packed in cotton wool. Yes, that meant sitting with tweezers and carefully removing every tiny bone fragment that had become tangled in the fibres.
Sometimes the most interesting stories in #museum collections aren’t the artefacts themselves, they’re hidden in the packaging they arrived in. by @_bigdigenergy