Dig day 10 & 11

Given Thursday night the internet site was down I was unable to update...

Thursday Day 10

With our site completely finished, my job was to finish up rebuilding some walls and clean the main road running perpendicular to the Decumanus Maximus. 

Needless to say, I uncovered less ancient Byzantine relics today.  Although, the street looked mighty fine when we were finished.  This, however, will only last until the first small wind when dust returns to the paving stones.  When my street cleaning was over, I moved to other sites helping with whatever they needed.  For the first time since the dig started, I saw the progress of all the other sites.  The findings are amazing.

As a passed through different groups, I realized, first of all, that we had the most interesting dig spot.  We found just about one of everything there was to find:  columns, marble, bone, glass, pottery, grinding stones, cisterns, stairs, walls, tessera, and door ways.  Another group I noticed used the method of deep probe, likely because they were not finding much.  A deep probe is a technique used in the field that consists of digging a small trench in order to find things like walls, floors, or soil change.  This can be useful to see if the site is worth spending time on. 

Friday- Sunday Jordan trip

Monday Dig Day 11

Today we were moved into the North Eastern Church.  Our job was to excavate a small 1m x 1 ½m square.  In this particular area the mosaic floor was missing.    

We dug down about 2 ½ feet.  My job was to sift the soil material looking for items such as pottery pieces and bones that could be used for dating the building of the Church.  I found some good specimens of pottery.  The most accurate pieces to date are handles,rims , and bases of jars.  The base I found is one of the most important pieces I found while sifting.    

While digging under the floor level of the church, I learned about the structure of floor foundations.  Underneath the mosaic floor is two layers of plaster.  The plaster covers a thin layer of rock.  Under the layer of rocks lie progressively larger stones.  Not much beneath these larger stones is bed rock. It was interesting to see how the Byzantines constructed foundations.  These foundations obviously worked given they are still intact almost two thousand years later.