I havent put that very well, but you can guess what I mean.
After a bit Dr Leidner said he was going back to the house for a mid-morning cup of tea.
So he and I walked back together and he told me things.
Whenhe explained, it was all quite different.
I sort of saw it all how it used to be the streets and the houses, and he showed me ovens where they baked bread and said the Arabs used much the same kind of ovens nowadays.
We got back to the house and found Mrs Leidner had got up.
She was looking better today, not so thin and worn.
Tea came in almost at once and Dr Leidner told her what had turned up during the morning on the dig.
Then he went back to work and Mrs Leidner asked me if I would like to see some of the finds they had made up to date.
Of course I said Yes, so she took me through into the antika-room.
There was a lot of stuff lying about mostly broken pots it seemed to me or else ones that were all mended and stuck together.
The whole lot might have been thrown away, I thought.
Dear, dear, I said, its a pity theyre all so broken, isnt it?
Are they really worth keeping?
Mrs Leidner smiled a little and she said: You mustnt let Eric hear you.
Pots interest him more than anything else, and some of these are the oldest things we have perhaps as much as seven thousand years old.
And she explained how some of them came from a very deep cut on the mound down towards the bottom, and how, thousands of years ago, they had been broken and mended with bitumen, showing people prized their things just as much then as they do nowadays.
And now, she said, well show you something more exciting.
And she took down a box from the shelf and showed me a beautiful gold dagger with dark-blue stones in the handle.
I exclaimed with pleasure.
Mrs Leidner laughed.
Yes, everybody likes gold!
Except my husband.
Why doesnt Dr Leidner like it?
Well, for one thing it comes expensive.
You have to pay the workmen who find it the weight of the object in gold.
Good gracious! I exclaimed.
But why?
Oh, its a custom.
For one thing it prevents them from stealing.
You see, if they did steal, it wouldnt be for the archaeological value but for the intrinsic value. They could melt it down.
So we make it easy for them to be honest.
She took down another tray and showed me a really beautiful gold drinking-cup with a design of rams heads on it.
Again I exclaimed.
Yes, it is beautiful, isnt it?
These came from a princes grave.
We found other royal graves but most of them had been plundered.
This cup is our best find.
It is one of the most lovely ever found anywhere.
Early Akkadian.
Unique.
Suddenly, with a frown, Mrs Leidner brought the cup up close to her eyes and scratched at it delicately with her nail.
How extraordinary!
Theres actually wax on it.
Someone must have been in here with a candle.
She detached the little flake and replaced the cup in its place.
After that she showed me some queer little terra-cotta figurines but most of them were just rude.
Nasty minds those old people had, I say.
When we went back to the porch Mrs Mercado was sitting polishing her nails.
She was holding them out in front of her admiring the effect.