Joaquin Pellegrin Alvarez
It’s been a month since we got to Cyprus, and Friday was the last day on site, so now I feel in a good position to reflect on the entire season from my angle, mostly from the ground sweeping dirt.
We actually didn’t get to much digging on the first day, as most of the time was spent cleaning out the trenches from last year, so we really started the next day. I was put in a six person group overseen by a Brandon (as there are two Brandons this one is usually called Brandon 2), who again split us in half to two new trenches, EUs (Excavation Units) 37 and 38. 38 attracted enthusiastic volunteers, as many years ago the first few archaeologists on this site dug some survey pits and found some scraps of material suggesting there might be some kind of metal production going on over there. In contrast, all we were told about 37, the trench I ended up in due to my slow reaction time when asked which one I wanted to dig in, was that Brandon 2 thought there might be a wall there or something (the outer wall of the structure in the fort which is most well understood) and that there was a running joke among the staff that there was a Byzantine church somewhere around there (a pet theory of Brandon 1’s mentor, doubted early on by the Hellenistic nature of the rest of the site).
I learned two basic truths early on in the dig process. After a day of scraping off topsoil and sieving it under the supervision of Brandon 2, I realized firstly how unexciting he found the potsherds, no matter the decoration or size of them, as potsherds are excessively common and the context of topsoil is essentially no context, being plowed up over the centuries. Secondly, when I got back from the first day of dig to talk to my roommate Mason and telling him how Brandon 2 wanted us to dig down to bedrock in the course of the month, he was flabbergasted and told me Brandon 2 is a figure of archeological legend, not wearing sunscreen or long sleeves, nor drinking water, only eating one apple while pacing around during breaks (for fear he will not stand back up if he sits down), and digging whole trenches by himself when allowed to. Essentially his hubris was justifiably unmatched, but perhaps me and my two similarly inexperienced trenchmates were not capable of matching his lofty aspirations.
Luckily, Brandon 2 heard our trepidation and divided both EU 37 and 38 in half to ease the digging process. Once we had the topsoil off the first of a pattern appeared. Two large rectangular stones peeked out of the earth, in a row, which we all concluded must be a wall. After all, the nearby EU 38 (our natural enemies) was already pulling up multiple walls, and hadn’t Brandon 2 said something about an outer wall for the structure? But once dragged over our brave supervisor squinted at the rocks, swept them off a bit, stood on them, and concluded it was impossible to tell if they were a wall or not (though he was excited by the prospect of there being a potential outer wall). Fortunately for us, however, a strange ceramic slab was found in the corner of the trench which, after the consultation of an expert, was concluded to be an ancient roof tile, a very cool rare thing apparently. This established our ability to find weird things (the next day fragments of a basin were found that was joked to be the fictional Byzantine church’s baptismal font), but no architecture, whilst no metal ever turned up in EU 38, but loads of walls did.
After two SUs (Stratigraphic Units) we found what was identified as a drain, a first and what Brandon 2 thought a good sign that there was an outer wall (why drain from one walled area to another walled area? that would be silly). Unfortunately for him we also found some more weird stones we thought kind of looked like a wall, but he wrote those off since they weren’t in the correct orientation to be part of the outer wall, and besides the weird rectangular stones we found earlier were pretty far from the drain so couldn’t possibly be part of the outer wall. Once more we were without walls, but the powers that be dictated there should be a wall (the prophesied outer wall) beneath the unexcavated bulk of earth separating our trench from another, so there we were to dig, now joined by the industrious nine year old Hoyt, son of Brandon 1, who was constantly hunting for coins for which he received ice cream in exchange from his father.
As the bulk was coming down the head of a figurine was found (this of course had to be the head of the crucifix from the hypothetical Byzantine church), and the top part of a wall, right below the drain, seemed clear enough, and each member of the staff visited our trench in turn in order to voice their theory as to what the situation was. Brandon 1 thought that on each side of our trench was a very patchy wall, as more stones had turned up in suspiciously straight rows, while Brandon 2 disbelieved in the hopes we wouldn’t have to bother with articulating and carefully excavating around said walls. Tom most eloquently told us his analysis, calling it the “garbage trench” one morning as he walked by the pit, as the side of an outer wall was the perfect place to throw away trash. This would also account for our plethora of strange finds, like the figurine head, an alabastron, and metal blades.
Still convinced we were dealing with an unarchitectural area in “outer space” (speaking archaeologically), Brandon 2 told us to dig out the rest of the trench, and it is true that we found nothing, except some more stones in suspicious rows which Brandon 2 was still in denial about. Eventually I carved out the inside of the drain and found it filled with sloping plaster but nothing exciting, and it was discovered the alleged outer wall was perched on top of loose soil, an irresponsible tactic for the masons which cast some doubt on it being an outer wall. Furthermore, plaster was found near those suspicious rocks, looking maybe like the remnants of a surface. As the dig wound down and the students from EU 38 were transferred to our trench to finish it faster, Brandon 2 oscillated between theorizing there were actually walls on all sides and this was a pool the drain would have fed, or that the rows of stones had fallen in a coincidentally wall looking shape and there was never any wall.
When we finished and swept up, there wasn’t much of a conclusion reached, other than that it would be someone else’s problem next year to dig deeper and maybe, just maybe, see if there were walls there.