The iBook appears to be down for the count. The symptoms indicate either a dead backlight, or a malfunctioning logic board that controls it. The machine boots, so that's something. It's just totally unusable. I took it apart as much as I could, which wasn't much, but no joy.

So much for technology.

That's the real problem with my system: too many places where a single failure renders the whole set-up totally useless. I've really got to look into alternatives when I get back. The ideal system would have a self-contained motorized camera powered by commonly available batteries. The camera would feed its image directly to an on-board MicroDrive so that a computer would not be necessary. If that's not possible, then ideally it would use a wireless connection to transmit to the computer.

Notwithstanding the computer problems, and being resigned that there's nothing to be done about it until returning to the States, I enjoyed our wrap party.

A couple people leave tomorrow, so tonight we invited over the local cultural minister rep. and a couple local guys who've helped on the project in one way or another. Someone had given us a large truffle, and whoever cooked dinner used it in a simple dish of spaghetti with olive oil and garlic.

In addition to that wonderful dish, the local guys brought some examples of area cuisine with them, and our cooks made a variety of other dishes. Dario always makes a point to get meat from the local butcher, so altogether we had an outstanding meal.

This kind of culinary experience tops the list for the archaeological trips that I like to take. You wouldn't get a meal like this in Rome for any price, and probably not on an American-run project either.



Our final day of digging on the site.




Our site's context; Torano's namesake tower appears on the right.




Visitors to the site come in many colors.




Curious, playful, full of energy!




The large truffle we ate. It's some three inches in diameter. Yummers!