By Sebastián Encina
Researchers from around the world often visit the Kelsey Museum, or seek out its holdings, in order to learn more about the ancient world. The archives of the Kelsey have detailed information about sites where Michigan has excavated, the artifacts discovered there, and the general timeline of occupation of the site. With new research, even legacy information plays a vital role.
For modern researchers, the archives provide a secondary benefit: learning what life was like for the excavators. Who were the they working with? Who did they hire? What were the logistics of the excavation? Where did they get their food? What visitors came through the site? Scholars ask these questions not only for curiosity’s sake, but also to recreate the circumstances under which project directors worked. Often, the researchers are working or leading a project in the same area, and are interested in seeing the similarities and differences.
The journals found in the Kelsey Archives provide an even closer look at the people behind the excavation directorship. Not only what work was occurring, but also who they visited with, who they corresponded with, what they did on their way to and from the site. For example, we have the journal that dig director Clark Hopkins kept at Seleucia on the Tigris in October–December 1936, with notes about his experiences while overseas. Reading it, we can see that he spent time at the Museum of Aleppo, where he encountered a statue of Brahma. He took notes on artifacts on display at the Palmyra Museum. There is even a detailed account of expenses he incurred while traveling, including food purchased for a train journey, nights stayed in Palmyra, and tea. He even begins the journal by noting what he plans to look for at the site when it rains (“walls of palace, theatre, walls + canal sides, etc.”).
Every once in a while, we are treated to even more amusing entries. For this month’s “From the Archives,” we present a single page from Hopkins’ October–December 1936 journal. Though much of the journal discusses work happening at the site, as well as Hopkins’ work and travels, we weren’t expecting to find this:

Friday Dec 18
Captain + Mrs. Modin [sp?], Mrs. Mitchell, Mr. Lampard + party visited us for lunch.
No special finds.Recipe for cooking rice.
Brown slightly in butter.
Cook over slow fire to 2 cups of water to one cup of rice until water disappears + little holes appear in the rice.
Take off fire + cover w. napkin, the napkin touching the rice to dry it.
Better still use chicken broth instead of water to give flavor to the rice.
Being able to cook a basic meal of rice is important, and we are happy Hopkins found a recipe he could use. It is still a welcome surprise to find when researching the finds of Seleucia, the architecture and the temples.
As one reads through any archive, they will undoubtedly find surprises. This will likely not be the last time we find a recipe from long ago in the Kelsey Archives, nor will it be the last random non-archaeological thing we encounter. This makes our work all the more exciting. We never know what we will read next.
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