Attending an academic conference on a subject about which you know nothing is the intellectual equivalent of power lifting. It takes an inordinate number of brain cells. So, Archaeology of the Egyptian Western Desert:New Ideas and Concepts proved demanding and often unintentionally funny. For a start, I learned that academics should not be allowed to use PowerPoint; they are really rubbish at it. Then, they use words that make you wonder whether they have just pulled letters out of thin air. Bovifact, a stone thing made by being trampled by cattle. Shoading, small scale surface extraction of minerals. And exotic artefacts, that is stuff you find which must have come from somewhere else.
Mental note; use of the above in a sentence today.
I spent the afternoon avoiding archaeologists but found them again in the evening at the welcome reception. I continued the anthropological field work with this strange species. I observed that if you provide them with food and alcohol they will eat the food and drink all the alcohol thus rendering themselves incapable of sentient conversation.
I left the tribe, clearly about to embark on some arcane ritual. But recording that must wait until another day.
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