Welcome to the new season at Al-Baleed. Things are the same yet very different. The most noticeable change is our dig house, Bayt Al-Baleed, is no more. They tore down all the houses along the street that face the ocean, including our house. At first we thought they would leave our house and tear everything else down but, no, it is now just a pile of rubble.
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| The rubble that was Bayt Al-Baleed. |
We have a smaller crew this year, only three students. We have Susanne Crouch who was here last year (she just can’t get enough of us) and two new University of Arkansas, Little Rock recent grads: Brett Sullivan & Zach Burt. As for senior staff, this year it is just Krista, Brian, & I.
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| Sue, Zach, Brett on top of the Citadel. |
The site is pretty much the way we left it, a little more sand and dirt but overall it looks good. We started out slow, documenting where we left off last year and getting Brett & Zach up to speed on procedures. We have uncovered quite a bit of building 1 now. Brett is expanding an area that Krista, Rebecca H., and I started last year. Sue is continuing to expand where she left off last year & Zach gets to open a new area, designated a CC. We hope to find the outside walls of the building this season on at least three, if not four, sides.
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| Krista in Unit EE. |
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| Blue=2013 Green=2014 Yellow=2015 Tan=possible 2015 |
Today was the first day we got in and got our hands dirty. We have about 10 workers right now and the greatest invention of all… pop up tents! We actually have some shade and we can move them around as the sun moves. We have five total, one over our screening area, one over our tables (where we input notes & have our breaks) and the other three can be moved to cover the actual areas where we are working—it is brilliant! It’s really hot & really, really humid so shade makes all the difference in the world.
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| The new shade tents! |
Since Zach is opening a new area he & his workers are busy clearing rocks and the top layer of debris… not very exciting yet, but it does go quickly. Sue is trying to find the end of some stairs and the other side of a wall (that joins another area) so she is mostly finding small rocks and a few items of shell & bone. Brett is the lucky one, he is adjacent to an area that had a lot of things in it last season & he is already producing a lot of artifacts. Just today he found a lot of shell, bone, a variety of pottery pieces, and a fragment of a glass bracelet.
Last year, when we were done for the day, most of us would walk back to the house, drop everything off, then head to the ocean to cool down. This year because we have to drive to the site we’ve started a ritual where we drive to the ocean (its just a few yards from the road) and jump in for a few minutes before coming home. It’s a little hard on the car but we don’t call it the Beast for nothing! ;-)
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| Zach, Brett, & Krista enjoying the ocean, after a hard days work. |
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| Kristy waving from the driver's seat of the Beast. |
