A message from Stephen Maybury!
Posted On: Aug 8th, 2015 at 01:04
After a very difficult last three months undertaking an intensive archaeology course with Oxford University, finally my last assignment was handed in a couple of days ago. The relief was enormous and I had no idea how stressed I actually was until it was all over!
A part of that course was a dig near Oxford City – an ancient Roman town in the modern-day village of Dorchester-on-Thames.
I spent most of the week in a Roman ditch that was obviously used at some point as a rubbish bin, since my finds were in the hundreds, but mostly pottery, animal bone, and several nails.
There will be more about this in an appropriate area on my website. I am not sure whether to include this as a travelogue or whether to make a new page entirely. Either way, news will come of that soon!
In the meantime I am now able to continue where I left off three months ago – back to my travelogues!
Here is the latest instalment – Ephesus in Turkey – and I hope to add many more in the coming weeks… that is until I go again with Oxford University in September, this time with another ten-week intensive course – The Fall of Rome.
I hope the new format of releasing archaeological posts as news on my website has been met with enjoyment by all. I realise that continuous emails are a nuisance, but now things should settle down as I have ‘caught up to date’, for lack of a better phrase, with all the news articles that had been put back due to my four-month trip to India last year. It’s taken a year to catch up with all of that, and now the emails / news posts should arrive less frequently. I haven’t had any negative feedback so either everyone is enjoying them or they are going straight into most people’s bin on arrival!
I am now able to concentrate on other work, including my second book that is still in the first draft stages. Unfortunately, unlike the first book, I cannot work on it full time, and probably on average around half a page is being written per week. It’s a rather laborious process, but there are so many projects I am working on I try to give them all a little attention. That is, of course, on top of my day job which takes most of my time.
It hasn’t gone unnoticed that this year has been a real headache for many people. Energies seem to be shifting in many directions at once, to the point that most people don’t know if they are coming are going. I like to think that this period, predicted by the Maya calendar, will be pointing us all in the right direction soon, despite the pain that many are going through. I am sure that those who have bothered to read this far will know what I am talking about. I am seeing a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel recently, and as I watch my life and many of my friend’s lives slowly come together in a rearranged manner, I hope we all move forwards to a brighter future.
