Good morning,

Here's a good question for you to ask a date or a co-worker you don't know very well; if you could do anything at all for a job, what would it be? Of course for the answer to be interesting, you need to put some walls around the question, I would suggest:

1. Assume you'll be paid the same money you are now. E.g. if you are an investment banker who dreams of being a master stonemason, you'll be paid investment banker money. If you are a master stonemason who dreams of being an investment banker, you'll be paid master stonemason money.
2. Assume that what you need to know, you will magically know as soon as you decide. This is not about how long it would take for you to be a good locksmith – it's about finding out what you consider appealing about the career of locksmithing.

My answer is "forensic accountant" because it seems very relaxing to chase numbers around all day and very rewarding to catch bad guys. But for a long time before now, my answer was "archaeologist" because it seemed both relaxing to brush artefacts with little brushes and rewarding to find old things.

All of this, anyway, is an extremely long introduction to today's theme, which is archaeology. Sorry for those of you who thought it was going to be about forensic accountancy. Maybe next week.

Did you know that Agatha Christie used archaeology to get over heartbreak? What a versatile woman. Just getting out there with her little brushes and not even thinking about that dude.

When mystery writer Agatha Christie wrote, “We found the woman in the well! They brought her in on a piece of sacking, a great mass of mud,” she was not describing the murder victim in her latest bestseller. […] The woman in question was not a person at all, but an artifact retrieved as part of an archaeological dig. Christie was describing the ivory mask, now nicknamed the Mona Lisa of Nimrud, which was discovered in 1952 during the excavations that were being carried out in the ancient Assyrian capital of Calah in modern-day Iraq—known now by the name of Nimrud.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/magazine/2017/05-06/agatha-christie-mesopotamia-archaeology-expeditions/

Of course you don't need to go very far to enjoy the thrill of close interaction with the past. Or at least you don't if you are based in London. Enjoy this interview with Lara Maiklem, mudlark, on the things the Thames washes up:

Much of the foreshore in central London is covered with building rubble: over 2,000 years of destruction and rebuilding, from Boudicca to the blitz. Ancient fragments of Roman heating systems lie among the Tudor bricks and medieval floor tiles – sometimes a tile turns up showing the paw print of a long-forgotten dog or cat.

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/sep/14/london-history-mud-thames-foreshore-mudlarking

And some archaeological finds teach us amazing things about the women of the past. Do you want to read about a Viking warrior woman? I really hope so because that is what I have right here:

Viking lore had long hinted that not all warriors were men. One early tenth-century Irish text tells of Inghen Ruaidh (“Red Girl”), a female warrior who led a Viking fleet to Ireland. And Zori notes that numerous Viking sagas, such as the 13th-century Saga of the Volsungs, tell of “shield-maidens” fighting alongside male warriors.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2017/09/viking-warrior-woman-archaeology-spd/

Have a great weekend, lovely people. What are you up to, anything nice?

A xx.