Sunday 22 February 2015

Archaeological congestion

Ever hating when realizing that the only date something can happen is also the date something else is happening. The coming week I will make a fleeting visit to Rome for a meeting that for timetabling reasons can only be on the exactly same day as the really interesting The Fabric of Life: Approaches to Textile Resources, Economy and Production in Ancient Italy workshop in the British School at Rome and Villa Giulia next Thursday. After getting the only date that suited all sorted, I half-casually checked if something elde was happening in Rome. I knew this workshop was taking place in Rome at some point but I did not expect to be there. But now I was going to. So near but so having to do my own work. The lovely part is that I will be able to hear the opening talks by the organisers, but the drawback is that I am creating unfortunate dilemmas for a couple of colleagues. Especially, since I am making one of them giving a presentation - which I really, really want to hear myself. We will also have to hurry with our private meeting later in the afternoon so we can attend a research seminar in the Institute in Swedish afterwards.

I am pretty sure the people sitting around me in the different air planes will be slightly cross, since I am either likely to be tapping onto my laptop working on one of the countless things I should be doing or I will be coughing my lungs off having contracting something that has been around either in Sweden or in England that has seriously affected my 'performance' during the latter part of the half-term. The ironic detail in the current situation is that one of the task I should try to find a slot to do is a lecture on the Punic wars. The fact that the AKS in Sweden combines both classical archaeology and ancient history brings my past as a historian coming back to haunt me.

Anyway, potentially reporting about Rome next week unless other things take my time...

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