Archaeological Exploration

As I will soon be heading off to London for grad school, I figured I should hurry up and finish writing about my last adventure — so I have room to write about the next. Yet archaeological exploration in western Tibet cannot be rushed — in practice or writing — so, let’s get to western Tibet:

The southern lap of Mt. Kailash and the outer kora are sprinkled with ancient ruins. The environment is so high and harsh that soil hardly accumulates on the rocky terrain, meaning that most ruins are visible on the surface, not buried. However, the ancients built their homes, retreat areas and temples on high rocky outcrops and in high cliff caves. This makes the finding and surveying of them quite an adventure.

Each day, breakfast early and out the door with a paltry lunch and a few liters of water. A route mapped out to cover both new and familiar terrain. The goal was twofold: to document anything not yet surveyed, and to determine the highest ruins in the area. This meant hiking to the highest perceived one, then hiking above it. If no more ruins, or prospect of ruins, was found, then the previous one could likely be the highest. It’s quick and dirty archaeology, on the ground and running around. Asking around for advice from locals. Serious discipline is required, to make sure that exploration remains systematic — not running in different directions at each exciting possibility on the next ridge.

The environs of the highest ruins have several common characteristics: they are above water, but no more than around 1000′ in elevation. They are on high ridges, but protected from the north by some kind of natural barrier. They have stupendous views of Mt. Kailash, the sacred lakes of Ma pang or La ngak, or other power places around the area. And they are often (just barely) within the realm of environment where grasses and other hardy vegetation grow.

The ruins are the enigmatic Zhang Zhung all-stone buildings, with stone walls that stand sans mortar and stone roofs supported by stone beams. Rooms tend to be small, though some complexes are quite elaborate with a number of interconnected spaces, and walls with niches. The highest was found just under 5500 m above sea level — quite a feat of survival at those altitudes. Many questions surround who lived in these places, and how. There must have been quite a support team to supply the inhabitants.

Next we’ll go to Serdung Chusum, a pilgrimage site above 19,000′.

Found at 5470 m, this high ruin had spectacular views of the western outer kora

View of outer kora valley from high dokhang site

This large ruin has a tall front wall, built up from below to support the structure on a steep slope.

Layers of stone corbels support thinner stone roof slabs

The Disaster of 1871

About this time of year in 1871, just over 1000 whalers were abandoning their ships off the Arctic coast of Alaska.  It wast termed “The Disaster of 1871″ and was the subject of my senior thesis at Brown.

39 ships chased to the whaling grounds of the right whale, on the northern coast of Alaska.  Previous decades of non-stop whaling had made this the only location of promise for summer whaling, and captains were pushing further and further, hoping for good catches.  Sea ice was a constant presence, even in the summer, but it would blow offshore in the summer months, allowing ships to snake between land and ice to hunt for whales.  In 1871, the currents and winds that held the ice offshore did not kick in strongly enough, and 32 whaleships were stuck.  The log book of the whaleship Henry Taber noted, “…light winds from the NW, the ice closing in fast on the land….”

Ships began to be crushed by the ice.  The bark Roman was furthest north and the first to go.  She was “crushed in the ice…she was stove a little S of the Seahorse Island in five minutes after the ice struck the masts went over the side and she went down side first all hands took to their boats.”

The captains met and drafted a letter, stating their intent to abandon ship. An excerpt:

Know all men by these presents, that we, the undersigned, masters of whale-ships now lying at Point Belcher, after holding a meeting concerning our dreadful situation, have all come to the conclusion that our ships cannot be got out this year, and there being no harbor that we can get our vessels into, and not having provisions enough to feed our crews to exceed three months, and being in a barren country, where there is neither food or fuel to be obtained, we feel ourselves under the painful necessity of abandoning our vessels, and trying to work our way south with our boats, and, if possible, get on board of ships that are south of the ice. We think it would not be prudent to leave a single soul to look after our vessels, as the first westerly gale will crowd the ice ashore, and either crush the ships or drive them high upon the beach. Three of the fleet have already been crushed, and two are now lying hove out, which have been crushed by the ice, and are leaking badly….

Evacuees found seven ships that weren’t stuck, and they evacuated the others, just over 1000 people (including a few captains’ wives and children) back to their Pacific home base, Honolulu.  This was a major rescue, and a major economic loss.  My thesis looked at some of the effects of this event, on the whaling economy and its culture.  It’s been of some use to scholars in this area, and I’m now posting it online in the hope that it will be more findable by those who are looking to learn more about the wild world of whaling.

It’s here, in pdf.

one of my favorite words

welcome to my new blog! if you’re looking for tales of adventure from my recent trip to india, check out sjwinindia.blogspot.com. this new blog will be the new home of random thoughts, interesting news, and things i’m studying/thinking about. for now, one of my favorite words:

gam: As described in an 1890 article on whaling, “To gam means to gossip. The word occurs again and again in the log-books of the old whalers. The uninitiated might suppose it signified merely spinning yarns on the fo’castle. But to the old whaleman it has a far deeper meaning. When the whalemen met on the high seas thousands of miles from home they would lay to, sometimes for hours, captain and crew would exchange visits, letters from and for home to be delivered, and the story of the voyages told. That was a ‘gam.’” — Gustav Kobbe, “The Perils and Romance of Whaling,” The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine.