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Early on we uncovered a wall perfectly hidden in the west bulk, running parallel to another wall just east of it. Further excavation revealed six slabs lying perpendicular to the wall. One seems to run under the wall, but the others are just?? There??? Maybe it was some kind of floor which was built over by the wall, but it\u2019s unclear. Which, as I\u2019m quickly learning, is the answer to a lot of my questions about this site. Because the mystery slabs weren\u2019t enough to make us scratch our heads, there just happens to be a delightful circular slab standing vertically among the other slabs. I\u2019d like to think when this site was being built there was a conversation that went something like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHey Alexios.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat\u2019s up Demetrios, my bro?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou know, I\u2019m loving the slab thing we\u2019ve got going on, but I feel like there\u2019s something we could do to spice it up a bit.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDude, I\u2019m so glad you mentioned it, I\u2019ve been thinking the same thing!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHear me out now. What if \u2013 for no reason at all \u2013 we just put a vertical slab right here? I feel like it would just really make this place pop, y\u2019know?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou are just\u2026brilliant, Alexios! By Zeus, what would this fortification be if it weren\u2019t for your masterful artistic vision?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n A part of me really does think something like this happened, because that sweet and charming little slab has been occupying my mind non-stop. For reference, this is the conglomerate of slabs we have revealed in the west bulk:<\/p>\n\n\n\n I hope you understand my pain now. But wait, there\u2019s more pain. Below the slabs is a mostly inconspicuous location; we\u2019ve expectedly found beads and pottery sherds (they don\u2019t call this \u201cthe bead trench\u201d for nothing), yet as we go deeper we have uncovered\u2026something? I\u2019m not even sure what to call it. It\u2019s definitely a rock, but there seems to have been a hole ground into it. Could it have acted as a mortar and pestle situation? No prize for guessing the answer: maybe. We found some seeds close by, so it is a likelihood, but again, nothing is certain here. (Tom: alas, not a closed context, so seeds are unlikely to be associated<\/em>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s pretty much all there is for my side of the trench. I know there was a path uncovered in the northern bulk, but I didn\u2019t get to see it being excavated due to my sickness (we persevere). However, there does seem to be exciting things in the days ahead. Right on the bottom of my current SU we found a bunch of pottery sherds from the same pots (so far all are cooking ware). Maybe there\u2019s a floor there? Or maybe I\u2019m getting too excited. Regardless, I\u2019m sure more interesting and intriguing things await us next week. Though hopefully no more vertical slabs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sarah Haselton As the days begin to tick worryingly close to the finish-line, EU 33 is a blur of frenetic activity and endless bothering of Elise, our valiant trench supervisor. It has not helped that I and the other Sarah in the trench (we aren\u2019t called Team Sarah-ndipity for no reason) have been bedridden for … Continue reading “Evil Slabs and Grinding Stones”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1117,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/vigla-archaeological-project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/vigla-archaeological-project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/vigla-archaeological-project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/vigla-archaeological-project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1117"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/vigla-archaeological-project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/vigla-archaeological-project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":556,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/vigla-archaeological-project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552\/revisions\/556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/vigla-archaeological-project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/vigla-archaeological-project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/vigla-archaeological-project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/vigla-archaeological-project\/files\/2025\/07\/image-1-768x1024.png\")
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