Excavations is a novel by Kate Myers about four women working at an archaeological site in Greece, which was supposed to have been the home of the ancient Olympic Games before they moved to Olympia. The women all have very different personalities, and at first, they don’t get along, with two of them actively disliking each other, but when they find an artifact that might change history, they must work together against the egotistical, male chauvinist professor who oversees the dig.
Alternating chapters are told from the point of view of each of the women—Elise, Kara, Zara (known only as Z, so as not to confuse her with Kara), and Patty. There is also a fifth narrator, but it would be a spoiler to say who she is. Her narrative, always in italics, comes at the end of certain chapters and provides an additional dimension to the story.
Elise is the chief excavator on the dig. She is brilliant, but she is looked down on, especially by Charles, the professor in charge, because she doesn’t have a PhD. Elise was working on a degree when she fell in love with an Egyptologist and married him, only to have the marriage fail. Since then, she has devoted her life to archaeological excavations. She is now in her forties, and very much a loner, even though she is developing feelings for the mayor of the town near the archaeological site.
Kara, the head of the conservation laboratory, is a graduate student in her late twenties. Her stepmother is a wealthy collector of antiquities, and Charles, who is mysteriously short of money, keeps asking her for an introduction, so Kara’s stepmother can give him the wealthy connections he needs. Kara has ambitions to work for one of the most prestigious auction houses, Christie’s or Sotheby’s. She and Elise hate each other because each blames the other for the loss of the only important find they’ve made so far: the statue of an athlete. The statue was shattered by an earthquake, which was not even a strong one, and Elise and Kara insist that the statue would not have been lost if it hadn’t been for mishandling by the other.
Z (Zara) is about the same age as Kara. She had worked on the site five or six years ago, when she was an undergraduate student, when she fell deeply in love with Gary, the handsome graduate student who works with lasers and is the site’s chief surveyor. After a bitter breakup at the end of that summer, Z has moved to New York, where she moves from boyfriend to boyfriend, and from job to job in the corporate world, but she is never happy in any of her jobs, or with any of her boyfriends. She realizes she has never been happier in her life than when she was working at the archaeological site with Gary, and when he invites her back to the site for the summer, she jumps at the chance—only to find Gary engaged to Kara. So, there are obvious tensions between Z and Kara. Z senses that all is not well between Kara and Gary, and in fact Kara wants to break off the engagement, even though she hasn’t figured out how to tell Gary yet.
Patty is the youngest of the leading characters. She is an undergraduate student who is looking for adventure and wants to get away from her stifling family. Patty is exploring her sexuality. She is gay, and finds herself attracted to Elise, who doesn’t reciprocate and who is attracted to men. At first Patty seems to be Charles’ favorite among the undergraduate students, but eventually she realizes what a horrible person he is, and the other women begin to trust her.
Elise comes across a journal by a friend of hers, a woman in her eighties who is still actively doing archaeology, which claims that all-female athletic games took place at the site they’re working on, before the Olympic Games, which in ancient times were all-male, ever began. So far there is no solid evidence for the claim, but Elise would love to prove it true and to deflate Charles’ ego. Charles, who has no redeeming qualities at all, has built his whole reputation on a best-selling book he wrote years ago, about masculinity in sports in the ancient world. He insists there never were any female athletes in ancient times.
The women find the proof they were looking for: a trophy with the inscription “Heraea,” indicating that it comes from games dedicated to the goddess Hera, wife of Zeus. This is exactly what Elise’s friend said in her journal that the all-female games were called. Z is the first to find it, when she’s digging in a trench, and she goes to Elise and asks her to excavate it. Elise realizes immediately what they’ve found. But they need to take it to Kara’s lab to prove that it really is what they think it is, and of course both women have tensions with Kara. Can they overcome their differences so they can confirm their discovery? Meanwhile, artifacts keep disappearing from the site, and the women suspect that Charles is illegally selling them off to the highest bidder. So, they must work together to defeat him and keep their discovery safe.
Excavations is a highly entertaining read. The main characters are all flawed, and not immediately likeable, but they grow on you once they come across the trophy, and by the end you are rooting for them to prove there were female athletes in ancient times, and to defeat the egomaniac, Charles. I have to say Elise was my favorite character, and I probably identified with her more than with the others. (She is closest to my age, and I identify with her problems with a lack of a doctorate, and the lost opportunity to get one.) But all four main characters have their sympathetic side, which becomes more apparent as the novel goes along, as well as their flaws.
I also love Myers’ descriptions of the painstaking nature of archaeology. It is not portrayed as being at all romantic or glamorous. These women do hard labor, excavating in the trenches, and very delicate work, cleaning the artifacts and preparing them for the conservation lab. She also describes the brutal conditions of Greece in summertime, with temperatures over 100 degrees. Her main characters go through a lot, and the reader comes to feel it along with them. I highly recommend this book. I have heard that it is to be made into a TV series on Peacock, even though I couldn’t find an entry for it on IMDB. It is possible that the rights have been sold, but filming hasn’t started yet. I think it would make an excellent TV series, so I hope the rumors are true.
Excavations is available from the Hatcher Graduate Library.