Things are moving along here at al Baleed. One thing you may not realize is that we are currently digging in a relatively small area. There are only 4 of us to supervise workers at any time and most of them were untrained when they started. The idea was to dig in a backwards L shape to see what we have and go from there. Well, the L has turned into a T. Once we started clearing the areas it became obvious that what we needed to know more about was to the south and not to the north.
This is not 100% accurate (don't tell Krista) but you get the idea. The green was our original idea, we've decide not to do the top and instead go towards the blue. There is a ton of architecture here and sometimes that directs you more than anything else. Sometimes you just want to figure out what you are looking at and the only way to do that is to expand certain areas. In layman's terms its a bunch of rocks, to an archaeologist it's walls, rooms, doorways, etc. and we want to see where they all go.
Here is a photo of what the site looked like at the beginning of the season.
On one hand it is amazing how much dirt can be moved in a few weeks. On the other hand it is amazing how long it takes to move the dirt. ;-) We don't just shovel away until we find something good. Instead each Locus (see previous blogs) is recorded by photo, by hand drawn map, by field notes, and a couple more places. Also elevations are taken (actual mathematical data using rulers & plumb bobs and such) at various points depending on what is being found. We need to be able to reconstruct what we destroy and elevations allow us to sort of put it back together later.
We also record features. Features are something that will inevitably be destroyed by digging it up. Think of it this way. When you build a fire outside you make a pit. Maybe you surround the area with rocks then build the fire inside. 100 years later, archaeologists come along and see a ring of stones and an ashy deposit inside. We are pretty quick, so we realize you made a fire here long ago. Now any bones of critters you ate we can collect in a bag. We can also collect the stones you used to make the ring. But what do we do about the ash pit? The whole reason we know it's an ash pit is because of the color of the soil and how it relates to everything else. We obviously can't put the soil in a bag so we call this a feature. A special notation that allows us to record it (again by photo, drawings, etc.) but then move on. It will never be an ash pit again, once we dig through it, so we have to be very accurate when we initially find it and record it. Another obvious feature is a wall. In this case we don't want to destroy it, it gives us valuable data by leaving it alone. We also need to know where it goes and what it connects to & how deep it is. Not to mention the fact that some of them are huge and therefore it would be hard work to take it all down. Each wall gets a feature number so that when you are at home or in the lab you can visualize where the walls are & even where the ash pit was.
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| Walls that are features and stones that have fallen from the walls. |
Here is the progress we've made so far. This is a view from the mound above Lamya in the first photo. It's hard to see how deep this is but Krista can stand at between those two walls and from the side we don't even know she's there. ;-) Ok, she is only about 5'3" but still, impressive.
I always tell my students that you can be an archaeologist even if you don't actually like digging in the dirt. There are so many other things that need to be done that practically every career you can think of can be tied to archaeology in some way. Cartography, chemistry, accounting, grant writing, even video game designers are of use to archaeologists. I bet you can't come up with a career that I can't link back to use in archaeology. That is one of the things that makes this field so cool, you aren't limited by what you do, instead, whatever you are good at can be tied back (or at least helpful) to archaeology.
Speaking of being helpful, for those of you who don't know we are trying to raise funds for some items here on the dig. Things like computer software, lab supplies, additional iPads, etc. If you haven't seen our Indiegogo campaign yet take a look. If you have already contributed, we really appreciate it but... have you seen the new donation level, Frankincense Trader? It's about the coolest thing ever. Check it out here:
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