Sunburnt Scribbles...

Work continues in the Cardo de Amore.  In an effort to have it finished in time for a parade replete with elephants and sedan chair, Dr. Schuler threw another team into the Pit of Despair with my team.  At first it was a bit difficult to try and coordinate the differing systems of digging, but cooperation prevailed and by the late morning, the seven of us constituted a well-oiled, dirt-moving machine. 

The main problem is that just too many rocks lay between the tumbled walls of the street.  Many of these boulders are made from basalt – which mean that at least two people are required to roll them out to a point where the tractor can collect them.  Shloamie wandered over to our street today and yet again told us with wild gestures of his arms that we really should rely on the tractor more to dig out the street.  We would, except the walls of the road are so fragile now that when the tractor did come over, it almost slid into the road (not a recommended action for a several ton machine). 

But the tractor driver is really good.  Yesterday, my team tells me that several times he jumped out of the cab to grab pot sherds from the dirt.  Another time, he maneuvered the shovel like a finger to point to a carved piece of stone.  Talent comes in all forms.       

My digging today started not on the end of the street next to the church, but where the street meets the decumanus.  Due to the large number of unmonitored stones resting at the edge, I yet again had to face my creeping nemeses. 

The first was a large black scorpion that rushed out close to my glove-clad fingers as I picked up a rock.  I should have anticipated this, but my mind was too focused on hauling dirt.  This scorpion was a granddaddy and came at me angrily instead of scuttling away as the younger ones are wont to do.  The boys were rather fascinated by it and after some insisting, finally handed me a turrhea so I could slay it.   I wasn’t anticipating that it would stay alive after I sliced it in half.  Oozing yellow juice from its end, it continued towards me.  Many, MANY swings later it lay dead between two rocks.  The irony is I actually felt bad for it.  Honestly, even something that horrible should die after it has been severed in two. 

By the third scorpion of the day, I wasn’t feeling so charitable.   

Then the six-inch centipede with turquoise circles on its back showed up.  It too found a dusty grave in the Pit of Despair.     

Enough with the bugs, although Mom, I hope you are proud of my achievements in aversion therapy.  Today we reburied the remains of the individuals entombed in the chancel.  This has been a many year process of uncovering, sifting and analyzing.  I had been hoping to hold one of the skulls and recite “Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him,” but upon seeing the bones, a feeling of reverence came over me.  These people lived, worshipped and died at this church.   

It was their resting place.