So by the look of the shot here, some slow but steady progress was made over the first day, so now we're on a roll. The bulk of the crew would be working around the chancellry screen and middle column, shift as much dirt and rocks as possible without allowing any major damage to befall what's been unearthed so far.
This proves to be harder than it looks the nature of the balk is that at any moment, some shift in the composition of soil can cause quite a collapse. Khaled (who had recognised me from my exercise getting back to Hartha from Irbid by bus on Sunday) and myself are left to excavate around the right side of the balk. Managed to get a clearer shot of the chancellry screen.
And in my section managed to unearth my first piece of bone (Arabic - A-Dam). Nothing to get too excited about - at first I thought possibly some poor animal caught in the earthquake. Of course, having found this at a pretty high level of the stratum, its more likely that it died at a later period, probably foraging around the ruins of the site centuries later.
Further excavation under the chancellry screen now shows the extent of its damage. As you can see here, its pretty much severed from its base. Pity, but this happened over a thousand years ago, so there's nothing much we could have done.
Meanwhile at the cross balk, both teams have made exceptional progress. Dr Bob's mandate for the day was faster, faster.
After second b'fast, it was back to work. My little section of our square, as you can see, is now looking depressingly rocky.
It's not long before catastrophe occurs. In further digging around and behind the chancellry screen, a heap of dirt and rocks collapse on top of it. Luckily no one was hurt or injured. Naturally Dr Bob and the rest of us were bummed, at that stage having no idea how much further damage (this time by "our" hands) would have been sustained, but there was not much we could do except keep at it. Slowly it was unearthed, and the fact that it was now facing down made the tension rise even further. "Shway, Shway" (slowly, slowly) Dr Bob kept saying.
Thankfully the damage didn't appear to be too bad. Some sections of the top right hand corner appeared to have been taken off, but we found most of the pieces, and it would appear that a fairly decent restoration job should be possible. Below you can see Khaled holding up some missing pieces that we managed to salvage.
Further excavation revealed what Dr Bob has dubbed the Chancellry post.
At this stage its impossible to ascertain any damage that would have been sustained by the recent collapse, but our guess is that it had already been severed from whatever foundation it had. Dr Bob received a visit from a little friend, which he promptly killed. Its the wild west out here, kids.
Come 12 o'clock, and its the end of another hard day in the sun, but we've managed to further excavate around the middle column, free the chancellry screen, unearth the chancellry post, and expose more of the floor. Job well done I say.
We pack up and head back to base for lunch, followed by a well earned and much needed nap. Come 4 o'clock, and its time for the first pottery reading, where all pottery from the previous day's work has been unearthed, washed, and ready for inspection.
Dr Susan is the resident ceramic expert, with second opinions done by Dr Bob. Dr Susan will often get really excited about certain pieces, only for a non-chalent 'Whatever' from Dr Bob.
Basically Dr Susan will attempt to identify which pieces come from which periods, whether they be Roman (rare but not unlikely), Byzantine (more likely) or Ummayad (even more likely). Sad to say, most of the pieces unearthed will end up as rubbish, but you get a few gems which will be kept for registration. Olivia, working in Section A the day before, found a piece with a pretty impressive Greek Inscription on the handle. It's yet to be translated, but it got everyone (especially her) pretty excited. The party never stops around this place.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
No comments:
Post a Comment