Emi Clarke
With the end of the season upon us, Team Awesome (myself, Parker, Kayra, Matt, Apollo and fearless leader Elise) focused its efforts on finding Literally Any Floor Surface, as well as further articulating the various walls, fake walls and slabs that define the architecture of EU 25. Before any of that could happen though, we needed to do photogrammetry; a process which compiles hundreds of photographs into a 3d model. This means getting on site even earlier in some cases so that photos can be taken before the sun rises and casts too many shadows over the trench. Luckily our photogrammetry was completed without incident, and we moved on with the last little bits of excavation.
With that done we worked to continue bringing down the central and western spaces in EU 25. Kayra and Apollo worked in the middle to find a floor, Parker and Matt were in the western SU trying to determine how the complicated architecture interacted with the neighboring EU (help what number was the eu west of ours), and I worked in the north western corner articulating an area believed at the time to be a threshold.
My SU was closed after it was quickly revealed to be the top of yet another wall, but it did yield our first coin found in situ! After this I was moved to Kayra and Apollo’s SU where we tried in vain to find a floor or any sort of good stopping place. Eventually after finding no such thing we settled on a level and called it good, further articulating the adjoining walls and finding an adorable juglet, lead sling bullet, bronze arrowhead and not too many more beads in the process! Matt and Parker uncovered three slabs of stone in the bulk that intriguingly match some in the nearby EU (again number help please), as well as some deposits of charcoal and some other substance we have elected to ignore for the time being. Their SU remains a fascinating mystery for next year’s group to tackle.
After the last day of New Dirt, there was not much left to do other than prep EU 25 for final photogrammetry and help other trenches where we could. During this less active phase Elise guided us through filling out SU forms, the act of which I understand is one of the main things that separates the historically thin line between “archeology” and “looting.” She also taught us and many of the other students about a method of representing SU stratigraphy called the Harris Matrix! It was great to get an opportunity to learn about and get to practice some of the more nitty gritty aspects of archeology.
Overall EU 25’s function both on its own and within the greater context at Vigla is difficult to pin down, which might sound frustrating (and certainly can be), but has more so left us all thoroughly intrigued and excited at the chance to return to or at least eagerly await updates on the project. It was really fun to see us all get more confident with excavation procedures and identification of objects and materials, even beginning to consult each other before bringing our “is this just a cool rock?” queries to Elise. I can’t say enough about how incredibly educational, valuable and satisfying excavating EU 25 has been, and how proud I am of our team.
