“There was no evidence though. Archaeology alone was where the facts lived; this is why she respected it. No smoke, all fire. Speculations about that far back was just theoretical, and the only real truth – the only realness you could get your arms around to properly believe in – came from the ground.”
From Excavations, a novel by Kate Myers.

I borrowed Excavations from our library because an unimposing book about a group of archaeologists working in a remote mountainous area sounded like the right mix of chitchat, intrigue, natural obstacles and summer romances to read in the heat of early August. I was both right and wrong. Like the oft-mentioned baklava, Excavations is layered, with more substance than I expected and can be enjoyed all year round.

The novel starts in NYC, with the protagonist Z relaying how she was just dumped by her latest boyfriend, how her parents wanted her to settle down and how her life sucked both job-wise and men-wise. Now, in her late twenties, Z’s one great memory is a summer when she was an archaeology undergraduate working at an excavation with her first serious boyfriend. Miraculously, the same guy – but at the end of his graduate studies and apparently still single – emails Z about an opening for summer staff at an excavation site. Is it a wonder that Z immediately takes off to the Greek mountains?

It is hot in Greece during the summer, but a steamy romance has to wait. Charles, an American university professor who heads the excavation, is nearing retirement. Resolute to promote his lifework, he is pushing the staff to make discoveries that support his agenda. His methods to reach this goal include pitting archaeologists against each other, bullying the most vulnerable undergrads into snitching on others and clandestine activities that range between disgusting and unlawful. Charles’s right hand is Kara, a meticulous (both about her skincare and her lab work) and self-righteous grad-student who picks her allegiances – and her love-interests – in accordance to their suitability for her ambitions.

This academic alliance is confronted by Elise, a forty-something Brit who heads the field-work. Unlike Charles and Kara, Elise does not have degrees in archaeology. She is a no-nonsense, asocial woman. Undergrads fear her. Charles and Kara mistrust and despise her, yet the success of the excavation depends on Elise’s expertise to unearth noteworthy artifacts unscathed.

Once Z joins the dig, she finds that things are not as straightforward as she remembered from her student days. Her former boyfriend is engaged to Kara, but Kara professes that she does not intend to marry him. Elise blames Charles for “dickwashing history” by eradicating women’s achievements or attributing them to men. Determined to prove that The Heraean Games, in which girls competed in sports, had taken place at that remote site, she stealthily does her most important excavations at night. Eventually, rivalries and suspicions become as unbearable as the heat and Z must choose her side: will she join Elise’s dogged search for archaeological evidence, or will she take a leaf out of Kara’s book and fend for herself and for the guy she apparently still loves?

The further I read the novel, the more I liked Z. She is not a model career woman like Kara, nor a tough and headstrong heroine like Elise. Z tries and fails, then she tries again because she is quite optimistic but she is not Pollyanna. In her own words, “This always happened to her; multiple things were always wrong at once, and she always picked the wrong one to fix first.”

I also liked the humor woven throughout the book and the jibes about academic hierarchy. Undergrads from a prestigious university are called Ugs and are treated as nameless, cheep labor. The professor who leads the excavation is often depicted as over the top, petty chauvinist. Other men play minor roles, yet the novel is far from being a feminist manifesto. Z’s ex-boyfriend is very likable. Kara is quite heartless, even if “her heart was set on being a preservationist at one of the top houses, Christie’s or Sotheby’s, and yet neither had taken the bait on her impeccable resume.”

I recommend Excavations for being a fun and unconventional story. It took me to an interesting location and showed the sweat, the excitement and the temptations accompanying archaeological excavations.

Image from Wikipedia