Sunday, May 20 Thursday was Ascencion Thursday, and the students spent the day with their respective families. The weather was cold and rainy, which ensured that the students stayed indoors and did their reading and writing assignments ! Friday, on the other hand, was a beautiful day; we met for classes til noon and then broke for lunch. Prof.Jeantet took some of the time to make a few pictures of Faverges, including the view at left which shows the castle's brand-new hourd, the wooden structure at the top of the castle's tower. The English term for such a structure is hoard, which likely is unfamiliar as an architectural feature to 99.9999% of English speakers (if not more).

No one is really sure why the town authorities decided to have this thing built, especially since there is no evidence that there ever was such a structure on the tower at any time in the past. But the elected officials are extremely proud of it, and are hoping that it will help give the modest town of Faverges a certain "look" that will help to attract more tourism.

In the early afternoon, the whole group met up in the neighboring village of Viuz to visit the local archeological museum. We were greeted by official Savoy guide Patrick Rendu, who gave us a two-hour explanation of the history of Faverges from neolithic times onwards. The museum contains an extensive collection of artifacts, from stone-age axes, Bronze Age jewelry and tools, to Iron Age and Gallo-Roman items of all sorts.

The collection focuses on objects of daily life in those distant epochs, and we were able to see such diverse items as Bronze Age amber necklaces (the largest ever found) from the Baltic, Gallo-Roman sheep shears (strikingly similar to modern ones), and the enormous bronze cauldron that was buried in a building collapse in the year 270, after invading barbarians burned down the building. The bones found in the pot even allowed archeologists to figure out what was in the stew. Many of the finest objects of the collection can be seen on the museum's website which attracts visitors from many different countries. Last month, a team of museum curators from Iran came on a research trip to France to visit five museums; among these were the Louvre, the Orsay, and our very own little museum in Viuz !

After seeing the first two rooms of the museum, we went into the neighboring church, whose foundations date back to Gallo-Roman times. A public building was replaced by a first Christian church in the 6th Century. This church was rebuilt several times, leaving traces in the foundations of the size and configuration of each successive structure.

We gathered in the choir to admire the 17th-century stalls, the 12th-century cloister door and 19th-century nave. We then descended under the altar through a narrow hatch to the archeological crypt in which can be seen foundations of the different successive buildings.

We were accompanied by a persistent tourist who wanted to get all of the explanations that our guide was patiently providing in clearly enunciated French. This however kept us from what everyone wanted to do, our "Indiana Jones" experience, where we crawl under the church into the remains of the boneyard.

Once Patrick had managed to coax that tourist back into the museum, we headed on all fours into the darkness beneath the church. We soon arrived into narrow passageways filled with human bones. Surprisingly, our self-professed claustrophobes had a great time, forgetting their discomfort as they played with femurs, tibias, ribs, vertebrae and skull fragments.

We all ended up throughly covered with dust which undoubtedly contained atoms from former residents of Faverges. People were buried under the church from the 6th to the 17th centuries, by which time authorities figured out that the awful odors emanating from the church floor probably had something to do with the burial practices. After that time, bodies were buried outside the church, in the graveyard. As we brushed dust from ourselves upon emerging from the crypt, the old song "I'm going to wash that man right out of my hair" somehow came to mind.

After coming back to the surface, we went back into the museum to view the room which is dedicated to objects taken from the crypt that we had just visited. We saw ancient belt buckles from Merovingian times as well as rosary beads, coins and numerous other artifacts. The most striking part of this room is the collection of diseased human bones, which bears testimony to the numerous ailments that brought suffering to our ancestors. Spines twisted with scoliosis, badly-mended broken bones, a jaw bearing evidence of an ultimately fatal dental abcess, all reminded us of the good fortune that we have to live in a time when medicine can help with many of the problems that crippled or killed our ancestors not so long ago.

Here's a little aside: looking at the photographic archives in the museum offices, I found this photograph from 1986 when the Roman baths in Faverges were being excavated by a group of American students working with the Faverges Archeological Museum. One of the participants that year was a young KSU history student whom UA students and faculty may recognize from the photo at left.

Mont Blanc glistened 50 miles in the distance as we left the museum, announcing good weather for the following day. Saturday morning, we had classes (to replace the day lost on Thursday), and students started planning some hikes to nearly mountaintops as we reviewed basic safety precautions (never hike alone, leave a note saying where you're going, bring water, be especially careful on the walk down, when you're tired and more likely to twist an ankle...) In the coming week, we will be having classes (which should go without saying), visiting Annecy, and starting to tour nearby villages. The students, who have been in Faverges for only a week, are already starting to make tangible progress in their communication skills. Much to their delight ! Next report, probably Wednesday.